A Critique of The Exonian
By: Nhan Phan ‘24
From the perspective of a two-year writer for The Exonian, the newspaper club no longer is a place where students feel compelled to take part because of the journalistic rigor it strives to offer; instead, The Exonian, damningly, has become more of a burden.
Earlier this school year, The Exonian announced a switch to a bi-weekly publishing schedule in order to accommodate students’ mental health. Perhaps, this move was a step to address the stress that Exonian writers face when writing articles for the newspaper, as well as the culture of The Exonian in general, that the club viewed as the right move. However, as a writer, I would argue that this move did more harm than good.
One of the biggest issues that I, as a writer, observed within The Exonian is the disconnect between the Executive Board, editors, and writers themselves. There is barely any community being created here in The Exonian. This is also the root cause behind why The Exonian is alleged to have such a toxic culture. The weekly Writing Workshops only do so much as to help writers hone their journalistic skills; yet, it does not fully make The Exonian a welcoming environment for new writers joining. When I first joined The Exonian, I wanted to join a community of journalism and writing enthusiasts. I wanted to be part of a community where I can rediscover the joy of writing and how thrilling it is to interact with other members of the community. After two years of writing, I have yet to find the community within The Exonian that so many new writers like me hoped to see.
Perhaps, the clearest definition of this lack of community here at The Exonian is best shown through the transformation of the newsroom itself. Writers and editors hanging out in the newsroom the day before publishing has become the norm for Exonian culture. More importantly, the newsroom was a place where editors and writers really got to connect with each other on a more personal level. For instance, on Wednesday afternoons, the writers and editors would blast songs from the soundtrack of Hamilton while the Layouts team would frantically obsess over the “laying-out” of the paper itself, all while munching on Front Row Margherita pizzas. Moments like those disappeared; the newsroom is no longer as inviting a space as before. The room now feels emptier, less boisterous, and less noisy. It doesn’t feel as Exonian as before. This shows how much the disconnect between the upper and lower board expanded within the newspaper.
When The Exonian decided to convert into a bi-weekly schedule, the schedule rendered the newspaper irrelevant, and outdated. My friends best put it, “Why would I be interested in reading news that was like two weeks old?” The events covered in an edition of the newspaper do not report anything new. It is not up to date. It doesn’t reflect what’s happening in the school. The fundamental keys of what makes a newspaper a newspaper, relevancy, and urgency, are essentially gone. Furthermore, when visiting theexonian.net, the site itself is closed. The last post from The Exonian’s Instagram page was from February 24, in which it was a clarification of the typos and editing mistakes made on the Editor’s Note of the paper that edition. Even The Exonian’s Business Board posted more recently than the main account itself. There has been no online interaction between the newspaper and the Exeter community. A possible solution to compensating for the irrelevance of the news reported in bi-weekly editions could have been frequent brief news updates on the newspaper’s social media; The Exonian did not take advantage of this either. Hence, The Exonian failed to deliver its core purpose: delivering urgent, relevant news to the full community.
Furthermore, it is also this lack of urgency that dissuades writers from writing. Part of being an Exonian writer is that one has the opportunity to report on the latest topics that are trending around schools. It is that “oh, I’ve been to this, I want to write about this” that drives writers to write. It is that relentless high-octane flow of Exeter that excites writers. With this bi-weekly schedule, writing about events that are two weeks old feels boring, out-of-place, and frankly, burdensome.
How then, can we go about reinstating The Exonian’s reputation and excellence within the Exeter community? First, we need to think about the way we treat the club itself. Many say that “The Exonian should not be like the New York Times,” but I frankly think this is a harmful view to have. By using the New York Times, for example, as a standard for excellence, we, as a newspaper, are actively professionalizing the craft of journalism. One could argue that this will provide writers with a more realistic experience of journalism in the real world, where the world does not wait for our reporting. By setting ourselves to a high standard, but not to the point where we are obsessive about being perfectionists and realizing that there is always work to be done to reach the NYT’s level of professionalism, The Exonian is sure to build its reliability and relevance among its target audience: members of the Exonian community, and beyond.
To address the toxic culture of the newspaper, one needs to look at the community. The Exonian needs to reflect upon the exec-editor-writer relationship and ask itself, “is The Exonian a positive experience?” The Exonian needs to place an emphasis on developing interpersonal connections between writers and editors in order to foster a fun, comfortable, and supportive environment. This can be in the form of field trips, group meals, or simply making the newsroom a more fun, more inviting space for writers to enter. These community changes can go a long way toward repairing The Exonian’s alleged toxic culture. A writer needs to feel compelled to write, and building an interpersonal network of other writers and editors with them along the way is the key. Moreover, finding the balance between managing writers’ and editors’ mental health, as well as keeping the newspaper relevant and updated is not an easy task. Perhaps, a system of alternating sets of editors and writers can be the compromise the newspaper needs. By having alternating groups of editors and writers, with one group writing a certain week, and the other writing the following week, and so on, The Exonian is able to keep publishing while ensuring that the writers and editors get the break they deserve. This method also allows the groups to build a closer connection with their own editors and writers, which is also a way to address the toxic culture here at the club. Overall, fundamental changes to the way The Exonian operates are crucial to its future success; building community and enacting procedural change to ensure the newspaper’s relevancy are just two of those changes.
