ARTWORK : BONNIE BURNS // 9
reflections from the deputy editor-in-chief AUTHOR // JOSIE GANKO Woroni was first published as the student newspaing forebearers chose rather well (even if my mum per of the Canberra University College in 1950, so in still can’t remember the name after three years of me 2020, we celebrate our 70th Anniversary. We think 70 working for the paper). years is a pretty big deal, so we’ve decided to cause a bit of a fuss; starting with various reflections in the While compiling the 70th anniversary reflections, I’ve pages of our first edition for 2020. When you considlooked back over hundreds of previous editions of er that the ANU was founded in 1946, 74 years ago, Woroni, and while lots has obviously changed, there it is clear that Woroni has been here since the very were many headlines that sound a lot like the issues beginning. There were very few years when the unithat are still on the students minds. Every couple of versity existed without us, and Woroni has grown to years there was discussion of disaffiliation with the be vital institution within the ANU. While I’m sure student union (now the NUS, previously the NUAUS), there have been times when the university adminishousing shortages has long been an issue at ANU, tration, or ANUSA or PARSA wished we didn’t exist, and a 1982 article titled ‘John XXIII upsets neighWoroni has steadfastly persevered through 70 years bours’ is hardly a foreign concept. of telling student stories. There is no doubt we have experienced challenges, and with those challenges While I am now entering my second and final sethere have been tough times for the paper. We have mester on the Woroni board, I am more determined had years where nothing or very little was published, than ever in my belief in what Woroni does. While I legal challenges, editorial scandals, undue influence, know students don’t have a say in the SSAF money the whole shebang. But this little student-run paper the university provides that funds us and other similar has never run out of steam, and continues to grow student organisations at the ANU (take that up with and change with the times. In my humble, but certhe government), the opportunities that Woroni protainly biased opinion, Woroni is having somewhat of duces return on that investment ten-fold. Whether it’s a renaissance this past decade. As the first and only your first published piece of writing, or an opportucompletely independent student media organisation nity to start a radio show with your friends, create art in Australia, we can not only offer a magazine filled that ends up on the front of a magazine, learn valuwith outstanding written and artistic contributions evable skills such as copy-editing and management of ery few weeks, but timely online news content, radio a team, or master the use of professional recording shows of every kind, and most recently, professional and filming equipment, these are opportunities that grade short videos and films. just wouldn’t be available through any other medium. The ANU doesn’t offer a journalism degree, and yet As seen from the excerpt below from the May 1952 thanks to Woroni has produced some of the finest edition of Woroni, the meaning of our masthead is journalists in the country (as can be seen in our Alum‘mouthpiece’. This description is telling of the time in ni reflections). And for those of us at the centre of which it was written, with no further specificity given Woroni, not only have we gained immeasurable skills than that it is an ‘Aboriginal word’. To this day, it is and experiences, but we have gained friendships not clear from which Indigenous language Woroni is and connections that will last well beyond university. derived. But either way, we are proud to have a refI can’t help but feel lucky that Woroni continues to erence to native language in our name, and being a exist after all these years, so that I could have the exmouthpiece for the students is what we are always periences I have had in the last three years. striving for. With this in mind, we feel that our edit-
