The Watch is important.
This is not a sentiment you hear expressed often on King’s campus. The Watch gets a lot of flack, from too boring to just plain bad. We’ve heard it. But the fact is, an independent student publication is vitally important to student life, as the free press is to a democratic society.
Fellow student newspaper The Cadre at the University of Prince Edward Island is currently fighting to separate itself from its students’ union. It wants its money to come from somewhere else. They know that the break from union-funded group to independent paper is an important transition—with that you buy your voice. You have the freedom to ask hard questions. We’re taught in jschool to follow the money to find who owns whom. So who owns The Watch?
Our money comes from you.
The Watch has a dedicated levy paid by each student. That is a serious responsibility, one that kept at least one of us up nights this summer. It filled pages of ideas and reflections on what The Watch should be, about what our vision is. And it all comes down to that one thing: The Watch is important. It should cover what is important to King’s students.
So why not take ourselves seriously?
That’s been our philosophy as we release our second issue, the first of this school year. We looked at the most important stories at King’s this month. Two happened to be dramatic news about food and food services at King’s. We take you behind the scenes of the deal that ended the students’ union’s boycott and set the story straight on why the King’s Alternative Food Collective isn’t serving food anymore. We asked hard questions of the new president to find out her priorities. We uncovered the administration’s reaction to the students’ union’s alternative school budget.
The other role of an independent paper is community-building. With that in mind, we share with you stories of interesting students. From one student’s sobering trip to Poland, to another’s second performance at Pop Montreal. From introducing a new face to King’s, to celebrating some alumni’s break at the Atlantic Film Fest. The King’s community has a lot of interesting stories to share.
So here is our issue, for you, the students who bought it. Thank you. And as always, let us know what you think: watcheditors@gmail.com
Evelyn Hornbeck and Charlotte Harrison
Editors-in-Chief
