Travis Boisvenue’s platform
READING THROUGH PAST Editor-in-Chief platforms, it’s jarring to see the promises past editors made. Increased wages and visibility, improving relationships with the editorial board and Board of Directors, and making the Fulcrum more fun were all issues that, at some point in recent history, were in desperate need of fixing.
We take these things for granted now. The Fulcrum, three years after going autonomous, is in a fine position. Our content, art, and layout has been great over the last two years and we are finally on some stable financial ground. It seems we have an endless supply of talented, eager volunteers, and everyone at the paper has enough ambition and good will to power a city (assuming personal attributes can be converted into a clean, renewable energy source). I don’t think the Fulcrum needs grand, sweeping changes for next year. We simply need to continue refining our changes and building naturally on the direction we are headed. Briefly, here are my ideas for next year.
Keeping the Fulcrum connected
Thanks to Wassim Garzouzi at La Rotonde, our own Mel Wood, and the fine folks at CHUO, it finally feels like the campus has a student media community. Our relationships have been great this year and I plan on building on this. The Fulcrum can provide regular space for CHUO (and Zoom, if need be) to talk about what’s happening in student media. We can showcase their work while they continue to let the Fulcrum sound off on their airwaves. Cultivating working relationships with our campus media, Carleton’s campus media, and the 83 papers in CUP keeps us informed, raises our standards, and gives us a network of help if we need it.
Keeping the Fulcrum educated
We can’t forget that the Fulcrum is a learning paper. We need to work with on-campus groups like OPIRG, the Pride Centre, the Centre for Students with Disabilities, and the Women’s Resource Centre to hold education sessions for our staff to make sure we report with the utmost respect to all students. Guest speakers and workshops should be held throughout the year. Editors, designers, and photographers from the major newspapers around Ottawa have stopped by in the past, but it shouldn’t be an annual event. We can pull these people in to show our editors and volunteers the ropes. We also need to implement the long-planned tome of information. This will be a resource book that includes the constitution, job descriptions, style guide, phone information, libel and plagiarism handouts, what to do in cases of emergency around the office—everything.
Improving the copy chain
The copy chain doesn’t need a major overhaul, just some fine-tuning. A giant calendar in the big office with all the major events on campus, all the supplements, and the publishing schedule will keep us from overlapping any huge events. Early production meetings on Monday and Tuesday, emailing table of contents blurbs with stories, and increased communication between section editors and the art director are a few ideas to speed things up next year. It also wouldn’t hurt to hire a staff photographer. I know we can find it in the budget and it would help free up some of the art director’s time.
Summer Work
What needs to get done: an office clean up (I’m looking in the direction of the kitchen); the aforementioned office guide; two summer issues (two editors to each); revisiting the constitution, and style guide; and planning a fantastic Fulcrum retreat. It looks like we’re going to have a big turnover in editors this year, so a super-informative
Fulcrum retreat is key.
I’m thinking the orgy of information from last year’s retreat, but somewhere outside of the office where we can let loose and bond—maybe the most valuable part of the retreat. I want to plan with next year’s editorial board to make sure we have the time and place we most desire as a team to get into a proper headset for an amazing publishing year.
Finally, a bit of info about me and what the paper should be
I’ve been at the Fulcrum as an editor for two years now, starting as Arts Editor and finishing my term as Executive Editor at the end of this publishing year. I’ve written weekly for the paper nearly the entire time. I have the writing experience, and I have the editing experience from scrutinizing every section of the paper week after week. The Fulcrum has given me everything in my last two years, and I’ve tried to give it everything back. I love the place and the people involved. I’m a strong leader. I respect everyone I work with, be they new volunteers or long-time editors and I treat them as equals when it comes to criticizing their work and my own. I think the Fulcrum should always be critical of the school, but never antagonistic. It should foster creativity and education and never lose sight of it’s audience–the students. As editor-in-chief I will work to make sure that the changes we make as an editorial board next year will be the ones assumed commonplace in the years to follow us.
