UNDERGRADUATE PAGE

The Amateur Journalist's Trials and Triumphs

By TREVOR PHILPOTT (Fitzwilliam House, Cambridge) /

N the small hours of Saturday morning a small group of bleary- eyed undergraduates watch enraptured as the flickering stream

of folded sheets pours from the roaring, rotary press into the stacking containers beneath. All night they have been reading proofs, adjusting lay-out, cutting and expanding material. They

have endured the inevitable panics of press-night. They have seen their work embossed on cardboard and cast in lead. Now, at last, they watch the sweet multiplication as the pile grows high, is swept away, grows high again. At nine o'clock another Varsity will be on the bookstalls ; by noon it will be gone.

The first post-war Varsity was born at the beginning of the Easter term 1947—of an American editor. It was the only university publication to accept, as its raison d'être, the supply of accurate, up-to-date university information, and the unbiased reporting of university events. The literary intellectuals who mocked the venture as " mundane " or "unnecessary," and the concerned tutors who considered it " over-ambitious " and "a grave financial risk," were given the lofty answer, "Varsity will only succeed if it has a real contribution to make to university life ; we believe that it has."

All that confidence was needed during the first few weeks. Guiding an illustrated twelve-page newspaper at high speed through the complex organisation of a rotary press, was found to be a very different problem from the production of the normal type of university review, especially as the printers, having already worked a full day, were tired men by the time Varsity went to press and in no mood to while away the early hours of San": day morning instructing uncertain undergraduates in the finer points of press routine. Overshadowing the difficulties arising from technical and legal inexperience. was the ever-present bogy of possible bankruptcy. Undergraduate support was by no means general. Life is all too earnest during the Easter Term, and examination papers are the only variety of interest to many people. The capital commitments were frighteningly large, the advertisers few and uninterested, news- agents would only co-operate on a " sale-or-return " basis, and for the early issues there was far too little sale and far too much return. The pioneers, however, were not so easily beaten. They took piles of papers under their arms and spent their Saturdays hawking them, newsboy-fashion, on Petty Cury, Sidney Street and Market Hill. At the end of term, Varsity's debts, though large, seemed not beyond hope of payment. The business manager, a man of parts, played for time with the skill of a Russian diplomat, and spent his Long Yacation praying for some enthusiastic freshmen.

In October, 1947, there were over a thousand new undergraduates. They were surprised, and probably a little flattered, to find, on the first Saturday of term, their own newspaper on the bookstalls. They bought it to a man, liked it, and went on buying. The business manager thanked his gods and paid his bills. Varsity had come to stay.

In seven terms the newspaper's circulation has grown to a weekly average of 5,500, representing eighty per cent. of the resident popu- lation of the university. It is read by the Vice-Chancellors and sometimes, it is said, by the Chancellor himself. It is quoted in the national Press, so often that it has appointed a London Press Secretary. Would-be advertisers patiently await their turn, and newsagents deferentially request larger allocations. Its finance is now established firmly enough for a little material and intellectual self-indulgence—the material luxury of a Varsity May Ball and the academic luxury of a literary Varsity Supplement, published twice a turn. The paper prospers and (to wax poetic) wears a tinsel

coronet of power. .

It is no mean tribute to the early editors and staff that the growth has been painless and natural, with no major alterations to the original structure. The executive board consists of editor, assistant

editor, seven departmental editors (for Supplement, news, feature., lay-out, photography, sports, and chief sub.), and the managers of business, circulation and advertising.

The editor is elected each term by the board, and each depart- mental chief finds his own successor. The system has proved an admirable one for several reasons. First, a potential editor can gain experience of all branches of 'newspaper work ; second, a ncw enthusiasm is brought to each job at frequent, regular, intervals ; third, it helps to maintain the political independence of the paper ; and fourth, the senior positions are virtually full-time jobs and one term is all that most people can afford to sacrifice.

"Brightness is All, but inaccuracy is NOT Bright," is the slogan hung over the editor's tray, and it indicates fairly well Varsity's chosen path. It has tried to avoid the dazzle of the Express, the greyness of the Telegraph and the partisanship of both. This political neutrality is not only a matter of choice. No undergraduate newspaper could remain solvent for long in present-day Cambridge supported by readers of only one political colour.

There is a pattern to the production, but by no means an inevitable one, and the possibility of a distinctive page is never surrendered for the sake of customary lay-out. Less certain of its ground than the national dailies, Varsity's adventuring is reined with caution. This avoidance of the seamy and sensational has met with general approval in spite of occasional accusations of timidity ; the firebrands have sometimes been justified, but it was undoubtedly the right side on which to err during the earnest period of experiment. Now, after fifty-six issues, Varsity feels experienced and confident— so confident that at the May Ball the Farcity was distributed, being a merciless satire on some of the recent. failings of the paper.

Varsity, then, does appear to have a real and necessary part in the life of the university. Its usefulness to the staff is direct and practical. It gives a sound training to those aspiring to enter the field of professional journalism, and even the casual members of the staff find that reporting and feature-writing broadens their interest by introducing them to societies and personalities that they would never normally meet. Several London newspapers are already recognising Varsity experience as being of more value than the routine, restricted apprenticeship on a provincial paper. ,as More important is its service to the university as a whole. In a complex world of over 7,000 scurrying souls, and over 170 different societies and clubs, it provides some sense of unity and some appre- ciation of how the other fellow keeps his term. The gulf between artist and scientist is narrower in Cambridge than in most universities, and Varsity is undoubtedly doing something to prevent it from widening in these rushed and crowded post-war days. The issues and events that affect the reader's life as a Cambridge student are kept before his eyes, and he now has the chance of making a comment which will be noticed. Varsity indeed provides an open platform for the airing of undergraduate opinion—for the paper is, from first to last, an undergraduate show, and the undergraduate, not the authority, is given pride of place. To reflect his life, his opinions, his ideas, soberly and fairly, to the university and to the world at large is Varsity's main responsibility, and one of which its organisers are kept constantly aware by its lively critics.

But while they often think Varsity too left or too right, too flip- pant or too serious, too long or too short, too timid or too bold, too black or too white, they never now, as before its birth, think it "unnecessary."