Your Swan, Your Voice: A look ahead to the coming year.
“Editorials are tricky to write”.
This statement, made by one of us last week (you can guess who), is undoubtedly true.
As your new editors of The Swan, we are thrilled to bring you the latest news from in and around college for the next academic year. We also pay tribute to our predecessors, Curtis Crowley and Elise Page, for their dedication and skill in publishing the paper last year.
As your newspaper, we want to represent all the voices around St Hugh’s. We know we are a progressive, peaceful and inquisitive college. We boast some of the prettiest grounds, the most amazing Principal and a welcoming student body made up of some truly fantastic individuals.
But, as a strong, vibrant and diverse academic community we need a source of news that will not only inform, but challenge us; we need stories with the power to open our minds on every issue; we need to ensure that through free speech and discussion on the meaningful issues of our time, we all end up better informed.
As a result, we’ll be building on the work of your previous editors, and will expand your paper’s online presence. We want to be easily accessible at all times so we can react to events as and when they happen, so we can share more content and get more people involved.
We want to go further in covering the tough issues. In the coming year alone we will see Theresa May’s Britain edge closer to leaving the EU, amidst cabinet divisions, a hung parliament and an agenda shaped increasingly by an enthused left. We will see how the world responds to the treatment of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, with our initial report regarding the removal of Au Sang Suu Kyi’s portrait from college being featured in the UK national press. As members of the student body these leaders were both once a part of, it is our duty to keep you informed. The world listens to what we say.
St Hugh’s has a history of not watching the world change, but shaping how it changes, for better or for worse. We, as students of the world’s best university, must recognise the position of privilege and opportunity we all hold, and understand that with it comes a responsibility.
We warmly welcome any St Hugh’s student to write for us, to ask us to report something or to offer thoughts on how we’re doing.
The Swan is the voice of Hugh’s and we look forward to hearing all it has to say.
Alex Yeandle and Theo Davies-Lewis
Editors 2017–18
