Critic Te Arohi, a free-weekly which was first launched in 1925, focuses on matters of interest to University of Otago students.
But the Otago University Students’ Association has cited higher publishing costs and decreased advertising revenue as reason to drastically cut it in size: 36 pages and 16 pages on alternate weeks. At times, Critic has had more than 60 pages weekly.
Earlier this year, OUSA offered Critic the option of one ‘‘large’’ magazine a fortnight, but this was declined by editorial staff.
OUSA student media manager Elizabeth Leach-Young said the primary driver of the change was the cost of print production.
‘‘Under the previous model, printing 3000 copies weekly at a larger page count created considerable financial pressure. To ensure long-term sustainability, we explored options to maintain a consistent student publication presence while reducing costs.’’
At the heart of this decision was sustainability, she said.
‘‘Despite the change in format, the Critic teams continue to produce creative, engaging and award-worthy content for Otago students, and they have approached the new year with professionalism and energy.’’
The move has angered some, including Spinoff senior reporter and former Critic editor Joel MacManus.
‘‘Cutting Critic's budget was a political decision made by OUSA,’’ he posted on social media.
‘‘Contact your OUSA representatives to tell them you're unhappy with the smaller magazine and want it to go back to the way it used to be.’’
Green MP and former OUSA president Francisco Hernandez was likewise upset.
‘‘Like many fans of its great local journalism, I was disappointed to read of the cuts to Critic.
‘‘Unfortunately, like too many universities around the country, Otago University has been forced to make cuts due to the underfunding of the tertiary sector by this government.’’
Critic Te Arohi co-editor Hanna Varrs was philosophical about the situation.
‘‘I suppose a budget is a budget. We're in a constrained financial environment, and there's nothing you can really do about that.’’
She said she was looking forward to some of the challenges a shortened magazine might offer, which included increasing their presence online.
‘‘I think that it just means we have to be a lot more elective about the content that we're putting out and really on the ball about what students are wanting to read and things.
‘‘I can say that we have been really lucky to get a dedicated person to be doing videos, which is super exciting. And we also created a specific social media role. So, I think it has just been shifting towards that.
‘‘Our video content does well and we really enjoy making it.’’
She hoped to continue Critic’s engagement with the university students, whether in print or online.
Fellow co-editor Gryffin Blockley said the new format also provided new opportunities.
‘‘When we do our smaller edition of the magazine, we're not able to do our feature article every week, which is usually like 4000 words.
‘‘But we're taking this as a positive and now because we're doing these features fortnightly, we're focusing on more deep and investigative kind of pieces for that.’’
He hoped Critic would cater to a broad range of university types and experiences.
‘‘I think we have a really cool kind of diverse range of voices across our staff that represent a lot of kind of different parts of the Dunedin student experience.
‘‘So, I really hope that by the end of the year that any student in Ōtepoti can open up a Critic and kind of see themselves reflected in it in some way.’’
