The Watch has existed, in some form or another, for 49 years. But even to executive members, its history is murky. So, with a stack of editions of The Record from the 70s and 80s, and a conversation with its first ever editor, we set about finding the magazine’s origins.

It begins in 1977, when a new King’s president stepped onto the scene: John Godfrey. Godfrey brought a passion for journalism that had yet to exist in academia in Atlantic Canada.

Within his first year, Godfrey founded the journalism school and created both the four year Bachelor of Journalism and the one year Bachelor of Journalism programs. They were the first journalism degrees to exist in the maritimes.

But where were its shiny new students supposed to write?

In 1979, Godfrey went to the KSU and asked the executives to start up a publication for King’s students to write in. The student union agreed. Tom Regan was the Day Student Representative at that time. He had just transferred over from Dalhousie, where he had written a few articles in the Dalhousie Gazette.

While he wasn’t a journalism student — nor would ever study it during his time at King’s — he was given the role of editor-in-chief.

Nearly 50 years later, Regan tells me he “totally lucked in” on his role as editor. All of a sudden, he was running a paper.

Back then, it was called the King’s Watch. The name was proposed by assistant editor Susan MacLeod after a lengthy meeting in a space which would officially become the HMCS “King’s” Wardroom later that year.

The biweekly newspaper reported on student affairs, community happenings and university news. The front pages of its first few issues are framed in the current KSU office — donations from Regan. Articles in these first four issues include: “CUPE Pickets King’s”, “French Fries Under Killam” and “Where Will You Be When the World Ends?”

However, after one successful year, things came to a halt for the King’s Watch. The 1980 issue of The Record wrote that the paper had stopped printing during the winter because the “staff had overspent its budget and was in debt.”

The Record speculated the cause of the limited funds, saying: “ … the Student Union is not able to fund such a costly venture and the Newspaper staff ’s advertising ventures did not seem to be highly successful.”

I was unable to verify why exactly the paper went under after just a year.

Regan could not help me here, either: after running the King’s Watch for one year, he was offered, and accepted, the position of editor-in-chief at The Gazette. It paid much more than what he was making at the King’s Watch —a grand total of zero dollars.

It seems times have not changed so much after all.

But the lack of funds couldn’t keep the King’s Watch at bay. I found mentions of it again in the 1981 and 1982 issues of The Record, though it was unaccompanied by any explanation for its year-long absence.

Regan says the KSU operated King’s Watch until the journalism school could fund its own newspaper. Indeed, in 1984, The Record states that the journalism school was publishing a paper called The Monitor, which was indicated to be“formerly the King’s Watch.”

The Monitor eventually morphed into The Signal, our J-school’s digital publication. There, current journalism students publish their work from second year onwards, continuing Godfrey’s original mission.

Still, there was something missing on campus: good-old student led journalism, for King’s alone. A gap that the The Watch that we know (and hopefully love) would soon come to fill.

In the fall of 1989, The Watch came onto the scene with a bang. After a decade since that first glorious year when the King’s Watch was student-run. It started causing waves — even in the first edition.

“The first issue of the student newspaper The Watch uncovered (some say created) a sex scandal at King’s,” wrote the 1990 issue of The Record.

“In short, there was not to be any sex at King’s by order of the Dean of Residence Neil Robertson. While Robertson went door-to-door in the administration building claiming he was misquoted, students were absorbing the news with mixed reactions … ”

And thus, The Watch reinstated its purpose on King’s campus: to keep the conversation flowing.

It seems we have always teetered on the edge of scandal. There have certainly been other bumps in the road — for a few years, in the 80s and 2010s, the publication had lost that sharp, fun edge.

But if there is one thing to learn about us, it’s that we always find our way back to our roots — and we always seem to run out of money.

Here’s to more scandals, more opinions, more breaking stories and many more King’s students who just can’t help but say something (even if they’re not getting paid much to do it).