COVER TEMPLATE-3.Indd
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Quench ISSUE 140 - HOLIDAYS 2014 Features 5 LGBT+ 11 Fashion & Beauty 15 Food & Drink 26 Travel 30 Culture 34 Video Games 42 Technology 46 Film & TV 48 Music 56 URBAN OUTFITTERS EXCLUSIVE 20 CARDIFF STUDENT MEDIA AWARDS 2014 SATURDAY 4 COURSE TICKETS £29 10 MAY 2014 MEAL AVAILABLE@ GREAT HALL WITH CHAMPAGNE CARDIFFSTUDENTS. STUDENTS’ UNION RECEPTION, WINE COM/BOXOFFICE 7PM–11.30PM & AFTER PARTY CARDIFF STUDENT MEDIA AN OPEN LETTER To the VC, the Union trustees, and anybody else who’ll listen My name is Michael O’Connell-Davidson. this), about thirty issues of gair rhydd, as well as a being untoward when I say that I expect what we’ve I’m a journalist, a JOMEC student, and I’m television and radio station. While we’re far from the been given. I’m thankful for it, of course, but without lucky enough to be Quench’s chief editor. BBC, we’re the closest thing the university has to it, Cardiff Student Media, the net value of a humanities I won a national award last year for writing about and we’re being bled to death. degree would plummet for some students. the time I spent homeless, and brought Quench to If you’re wondering why the union spends so much Let me be clear: I understand that it’s not a rose national attention last month at the Mind Media money on Cardiff Student Media, then I’ll offer up garden for anybody right now. There are few societies Awards where I was nominated for the mental health a couple of reasons. I feel like we owe you that or sports teams that don’t complain about the budget writing I’d done in the magazine. Before coming to much, considering we’ve done a reasonably poor they have (my heart goes out to the sports teams who University, I worked in newspaper production. I’d job of communicating our importance in the past. can’t a), and being told to work with local companies like to get into app development or academia after For starters, we hold the union, the university and its is no solace. Kieran Gandhi (a former Sabbatical graduating, depending on who’s hiring. students to account; while it might seem obvious, were Officer) told me to go out and get advertising, but at But who I am is deeper than that, and it’s important it not for gair rhydd, the football club’s misguided that point, if I was going to prostitute the magazine, I to what I’m about to say. My mother works at ‘joke’ would’ve probably gone unnoticed. It’s easy to might as well start my own business instead of doing McDonalds (she just won employee of the month, forget that the paper is nearly half a century old, but the union’s job for them. I’m sure many of you feel actually, so please send her your regards), and my during that time, we’ve shaped key areas of union the same way, and I don’t want to make it sound father is a lonely eurosceptic who drives a van. I’m policy that have vastly improved the lives of students. like we’ve got it worse than anybody else, but I’ll be the first in my family to go to university, and one of frank: by turning on each other, we’re only making the only people I know from back home who made it Five years ago, I was things worse for everybody, whether they care about into a Russell Group institution. But while I might be CSM or not. remarkable in my own way, I’m part of one of about homeless. Now I write for The view from the third floor (where our office, two hundred people who’re equally remarkable. which is open access to all staff and students, is We’re Cardiff Student Media, and we’re pleased to The Independent. Why? located) looks pretty bleak, though, and I don’t know meet you if we haven’t already. Cardiff Student Media how much time we have left. It might be years after I’m writing to you - no matter who you are - following I graduate, or it might be longer. Hell, it could be the events of November’s AGM / AMM. If you were More than that, we represent the university on a months; when I was sworn in as Quench editor, I was there, you might have seen me: I was the loud one national level. Nobody questions the university’s PR told the magazine might not exist this year because who got way too into it (although, truth be told, that or marketing budgets; they’re taken as given. Yet for “it was the bit nobody understood”. I have every probably doesn’t narrow things down much; in fact, free we produce remarkable content and win national reason to be scared, because I spend about 40 hours it probably describes half of the crowd). I spent most awards. Quench has either won or been nominated a week on this magazine (on top of my studies and of the evening tweeting with fellow Quench staff for Guardian Student Media awards in six of the last my job), and I don’t want somebody who doesn’t member Tom Connick, and we noticed some things ten years, and we’re getting better by the day. Xpress understand the value of our institution to flush it down that really worried us. was credited as the third best student radio station in the drain. I think that student media has a problem, and if we the country weeks ago, and they’ve been producing The AMM was interesting because it showed just don’t fix it, we won’t be around much longer. that level of content on a shoestring. (I remember the how estranged from the student body we are. So I didn’t come to this conclusion as a result of motion lights in the studio occasionally turning out due to what are we supposed to do? Despite increasing six (which largely revolved around the semantics of some electrical fault towards the end of last year.) the value of a degree tenfold for those who properly Tom Eden’s sabbatical role), but as a result of the I don’t know why you’d see that as unimportant: I’ve get involved, we’re given only token recognition. dialogue that surrounded it. As often happens, met people who have said gair rhydd or one of the Somebody suggested we smeared the football team people were wondering why the Union (and the other wings of student media was one of the reasons by publishing the front page of the gair rhydd that university by proxy, QI suppose; I understand that they they come to this university, and they’ve gone on to detailed their now infamous social, which is the most also contribute to CSM) spends as much money as do great things. (Five years ago I was homeless; I cynical thing I’ve heard in a long time. The idea it does on financing our operations; as opposed now write for The Independent on a regular basis.) that a student newspaper could smear anybody by to debating the motion itself, there were questions And that brings me on to my next point: CSM is, reporting the truth is brazenly offensive, yet there was and tweets that appeared to imply student media is in essence, a subsidised work experience scheme. no widespread drawing of breath: objectionable as somehow unnecessary, or not worth the money. During all of this kerfuffle about unpaid internships it was (at least if you care about women), people Let’s put a few things on the table: our budget is (which are total shit, by the way), CSM has been there just seemed to accept the notion that a free press about £42,000 a year. That’s a lot of money, but as a non-profit and non-exploitative option for those was only free when it said nice things. I assure you, it’s decreased year-on-year for over a decade; it students who can’t afford two weeks of making tea in I’d love to report on unicorn sightings, but I’m not stands to reason that there might not be a Quench London. You might frown at that notion, especially if going to write about those until every student feels in another ten years. Still, it’s £42,000, and split you’re not a humanities student, or if you’re in another like they’re a part of this university, and that they among 28,000 students, that’s £1.50 each. For that, society - but given that people are now expected to are - universally - being treated like a human being. you get a year of Quench (which I’m operating under pay £9000 a year for what amounts to an extremely So let me make an appeal to you, whoever you may the assumption you enjoy, given that you’re reading expensive book club in some cases, I don’t think I’m be. The next time you read Quench or gair rhydd, 3 Q listen to Xpress, or watch something on CUTV, please consider throwing our work under the bus, remember start of this year, because our future was already remember that we’re not just doing this for ourselves. that student media is a living, breathing thing, uncertain. I think I’ve done a good job of making the (Of course there’s a selfish element; but considering and that it does a great deal to hold the university magazine a force to be reckoned with, but if we’re how cut-throat British society has become, I imagine accountable.