A word from the editor

THIS YEAR, IN A word, has been unprecedented; extraordinary; unmatched; atypical; one of a kind.

First bushfires, then a global pandemic, and finally, a civil rights movement.

From smoke-filled skies making us choose to stay indoors, to government-mandated orders forcing us to stay indoors — it’s certainly not the year we imagined

when we were making our new year’s resolutions.

Within minutes of 2020 starting, residents along the NSW south coast had to flee their homes as fires ravaged the landscape.

While Australians were still — literally — rising from the ashes after our bushfire season, we were hit by a global pandemic, the likes of which have not been seen for nigh on 100 years.

And at the height of this pandemic, a civil rights movement swept through the world with a ferocity and intensity that hasn’t existed since the 1960s.

Accordingly, for ease of use, we’ve broken up this magazine into three distinct sections: Environment, pandemic, protest.

That’s roughly in the chronology that these unprecedented events struck.

What has also been unprecedented this year was the success of The Comma (wow, look at that seamless segue way).

We’ve published 250 articles (and counting), four of which were republished on news.com.au, Australia’s leading news website.

Our readership is up by 146 per cent compared to previous years and we’ve had over 42,000 clicks on our articles since 2020 started.

Let me just repeat that: 42,000 clicks!

The Pubs team meet face to face for the first time. (L-R: Calvin Lu, Ashley Sullivan, Alex Turner-Cohen, Jibriel Perez, Cara Walker and Olivia Mathis)

We’ve recruited the biggest editorial team ever to accommodate our growing readership, with 13 people in total at one stage. At time of writing, 79 communications students have contributed one or multiple pieces to The Comma this year. One standout contributor, Kurt Bush, has written more than 50 articles for us.

We’ve had people from 101 different countries read our content, including nations such as Algeria, Mongolia, Belarus and even Kazakhstan.

We’ve created, edited and published a magazine in the middle of a global pandemic. Not to mention the inaugural Semester 1 competition which saw our best contributor receive a $100 cash prize.

So many collaborations — with UTS FASS, Vertigo, UTS LitSoc, Depop and news.com.au.

As The Comma’s namesake goes: “Commas nourish your desires and a full-stop kills.” And this year, we’ve certainly nourished the creativity of dozens of comms kids.

I want to thank my editorial team for their hard work this year; Gemma Billington, Thushani Manthilaka, Olivia Mathis, Laura Mazzitelli, Grace McManus, Jacinta Neal, Jibriel Perez, Ashley Sullivan, Cara Walker and Melanie Wong.

In particular, I want to thank Melanie Wong and Olivia Mathis for being my right hand (wo)men this year. I also want to thank my twin sister Tash Turner-Cohen for her unwavering support (she has liked every single post The Comma has ever made on Facebook) and also for her foray into graphic design for this magazine.

Also a huge shout-out to Lucia Mai and Lisseth Portillo for creating the awesome graphics enclosed in these pages.

The Comma has become my baby this year, and this magazine is the cherry on top. I hope you love reading it as much as I’ve loved editing it. So without further ado, I present to you the

2020 edition of UTSoC’s The Comma.

Alex Turner-Cohen

Publications Director of UTSoC 2020