Editor’s note: Special thanks to the Hocken Library who house every issue of Critic Te Ārohi extending back to 1925. Without them, Critic’s history, beyond our scuffed website, would not have been preserved.
Sit a monkey in front of a typewriter long enough and it’ll churn out Shakespeare; put a bunch of Otago students in the same office for a hundred years and they’ll inevitably dig through the archives and compile it into a circle-jerk history of themselves – many times over. As the 93rd Critic put it in the last iteration, “We ran out of drugs to do, weird artists to interview and ways to make fun of commerce students.”
The centenary presents the ultimate excuse to cannibalise our own histories of our history. It’s time to park up on the metaphorical rug and listen (read) as Grandparent Critic (a collection of past editors constituting the one identity) once again sits back in our chair with a huff, lights a cigar, and retells the same war stories. As far as we’re aware, there aren't any living editors pre-1952 to tell their stories, so we relied on the archives. The rest we’ve pulled from the 80th anniversary where editors contributed stories from the good old days, and added accounts from editors in the years since.
You may be left wondering how old Grandy has survived to a hundred through the trenches of University Council run-ins, successive defamation suits, censorship, rival publications, resignations and firings, and budgets tighter than your mum. Maybe it was the undying love of grassroots journalism, wagging our fountain pens (now, keyboards) in defense of students and actually making a difference. Maybe it was the joy of reading angry (read: stupid) letters to the editor. Or maybe it was the free print night food and occasional campus clout. Humour us, will you?
The ‘20s: Shakespearean Stereotypes and Sexism
Critic was founded in 1925, first printed on April 2nd (notably not April Fools’). Inaugural Editor Archibald Campbell’s editorial self-importantly touted ‘The Critic’ as a “necessary instrument” for criticism, an endeavour that Archibald (imagine screaming that name in bed) boldly claimed should have the “wholehearted support of every student”. While the publication itself was a fairly dry newsletter detailing clubs’ goings-on – largely penned by Christian sport-loving Med students who debated literature, it seemed – the letters to the editor kicked off within a few issues.
Two letters were especially potent. One complained about how, in the author’s humble opinion, “medieval maiden” needed to be reminded of their place; a formerly “divine creature” content to “keep a good man and rear a good family, now ramps and roars on the public platform as a candidate for public offices better filled by men.” Other letters predicted The Critic would be a miserable failure like its predecessors, Review and Te Korero, the latter of which had fizzled out. In an editorial 93 years later, then-Editor Joel MacManus wrote a “big fat Fuck You” to those haters.
The 30s: Bunny-hopping Through Production
The Critic had a cute new look in the ‘30s, shifting from its quarterfold (the same it is today) to a newspaper, a look better fitted to the fedora-trenchcoat-wearing aesthetic on campus. Magazines just don’t say “Great Depression” like a good broadsheet. Outside of running comics by Peter McIntyre (who would later become New Zealand’s official war artist in World War II), launching novelist Dan Darin’s career, and a letter to the editor proposing a ‘Rhythm-maniacs’ gramophone appreciation evening, the 1930s also saw their fair share of controversy. No issues were printed in 1932 for two months after some tongue and cheek coverage of Capping stunts wound up getting the editor expelled. Five years later, the OUSA Exec’s radical censorship of Critic saw the resignation of the entire Critic staff. Production ground to halt in 1939, well before the year's end, and did not resume again until 1940. Other than that, not much to report – or people to report, rather.
The ‘40s: Conscription and Liberation
The first editorial in 1940 stated the newly resurrected Critic’s aim (after the topsy-turvy ‘30s): “To help in the war effort by refraining from subversive criticism and by welding together student efforts and opinions in any campaign or scheme for assistance in the war.” While World War II naturally dominated a decent chunk of the news cycle in the ‘40s, the magazine remained fairly campus-based and insular. There was surprisingly little coverage of key events – Hitler’s death didn’t even get a mention.
The war became real for students when the University of Otago encouraged conscription, a stance that attracted a walloping of opinion pieces. Students’ political engagement may be more slippery than black ice on Clyde Street – but they were paying attention to this. One issue featured an exploration of the civil rights of conscientious objectors.
As the campus emptied of men, women began to fill previously male-dominated spaces, including newly appointed female acting editor Diana Shaw who relished in the opportunity to slam men who complained about women wearing pants on campus: “Our ire can no longer be restrained. It is the pettiness and the stupidity and the narrow mindedness of men of your ilk which have caused women to be relegated for so long to the subordinate position from which they are slowly emerging.”
If you think modern-era Critic comes with whiplash – where issues can contain both an eight-page deep dive investigating drink spiking and an editorial petitioning for a sexy Garfield illustration to be freely available to students – the 1940s took it to the next level. Amongst reports of former Otago students fighting in the war, extending its sympathies to those who died, there was also a paparazzi-esque gossip column with photos of students about town: on the sauce, pashing for the camera in an age where they didn’t have to worry about a digital footprint.
The ‘50s: “The Ultimate Binge-Drinking Era”
Our oldest living editor, Dr Paul Oestreicher, was at the helm of Critic in 1952. In a reflection published in the 80th anniversary edition, Paul recalled that the poetry was great (some by the prolific James K Baxter), the illustrations witty, and the politics controversial enough for the “conservative ODT” (who printed Critic at the time) to refuse to print an article on the Korean War – so the front cover was left blank: “CENSORED!” Paul reflected to 2005 Critic on how student journalism had “matured” in the 53 years since, signing off his reflection by addressing the Editor at the time directly: “I wonder, Holly, what you will think of Critic 2005 in 2025? I hope and pray that you and your gang will get together to celebrate the first century. Speight’s will still be the best drink.”
What Paul failed to mention was that, aside from deliciously introducing the first “purely puritan” sex themed issue – a move that saw other student publications follow suit – pages of ‘50s Critics were filled with tales of alcoholism that would rival the modern coffin-sinking breatha. A Critic reporter in 2018 labelled the ‘50s as the “ultimate binge-drinking era” after unearthing stories of one guy who tried to blow the froth off his medicine in the hospital; a party with 28 beers budgeted per person (which apparently was being stingy); and a club exclusively for binge-drinking. Said reporter cheekily pointed out that clubs nowadays just “use an existing hobby as an excuse to binge drink”. The Ski Club’s Tour de [REDACTED] would never.
While our esteemed elder Paul reckoned some of ‘50s Critic’s jokes were a bit “musty”, taking the piss out of med students is a “timeless tradition” spanning back seventy years: “It has been said that the students wear short white coats to distinguish them from the doctors, but this is quite wrong, the fact being that unlike the qualified medical staff, they cannot afford to buy long coats. The result is they have to get around looking like a cross between a barman and a butcher.” Somewhat depressingly, the contested claim that initiations are Otago tradition seems to hold some weight: “The initiation has a soul of goodness precisely because it is a rag [teasing] […] It brings the senior student and fresher into close contact and acquaintance.”
The rest of this article is written in the words of editors over the years. As Critic wrote for our 75th anniversary, “Put every editor of the past 75 years in a room and all you’d get is silence. What have we got in common after all? Our styles are all different, our focus is different, the location of the office and the way we run the paper is different. Maybe we’d drink all the red wine, then whiskey, then every other alcoholic substance available and start long slow arguments over how things should be these days. Or maybe we’d fall asleep slumped in our chairs, or just go home.”
Editor’s recounts of their times show just that – each having added their own flavour to the melting pot of Critic. These are the giants whose shoulders I stand on, and so while it’s typical procedure to – well – edit articles, this felt a bit wrong. I’ve instead left their words and shown editing notes as a fun behind-the-scenes of how articles come together. It’s cute to see that while editors have disagreed about just how many buttons to push, we’ve always agreed on one thing: the superiority of the em dash.
THE ‘60S: Police Crackdowns and The Beatles
John Harris – 1961-1962
At this time, Critic was printed at the ODT, using linotype and metal blocks. My tenure as editor was marked by conflict with the student association executive who appointed a censor, and over-rode the student council when they voted to distribute the paper free, rather than for sale. Otago University was much smaller than today and it was easy as an undergraduate to know the professors of all departments, and to drop in to see the Vice-Chancellor to argue points of student politics. We had an enthusiastic editorial group and memorable parties; home-made Saki and Raro orange juice laced with lab alcohol would not now meet health and safety guidelines.
John Harris is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physiology.
Don Gray – 1964, 1966
Forty years takes us back to the time when University Councils agonised in public about “mixed flatting”, Otago had only 3,000 students, and it was possible for almost any student to earn and keep a student bursary. Up till this point, Critic was sold out of honesty boxes for sixpence a copy. We introduced free distribution and found that the increased advertising income meant that we could produce a larger and better paper for less money. As for the issues we covered; the war in Vietnam, the Police crack-down on Capping activities, the Beatles’ visit to Dunedin, and it was the Sixties after all.
Don Gray is the Managing Director at Thorndon Consultants.
Bob Dey – 1967
Critic in 1967 was a professionally produced news magazine, and then I came along. My predecessor used his last issue to campaign for election – with one more issue before the student elections, I declared support for his opponent, who won the presidency. It would have been handy having sub-editorial support for the incoming team, but suddenly it evaporated.
Never mind. We got on with the job of running a newspaper with magazine pages, quite different from all the other student papers at the time, which were turning into arty magazines. Two of the lasting impressions from some of the thicker contributions to the political and magazine pages were that academics (a) thought they were brilliant writers and (b) were more likely to communicate poorly.
Adrian More had got me into the job after showing me pages from the 1930s – wonderful writing, columns written with superb wit, I loved them and never got anywhere close during my short tenure. Critic introduced me to the 36-hour working day, part of it spent earning a crust at the Evening Star and none of it spent in the lecture hall. The petty cash I earned for putting out the paper went on the Captain Cook bar for the team; you had to be on time for that part of the show because it didn’t run to a second round. The team was small, dedicated, and kept the place running after I staggered off, a little earlier than I was supposed to, into the sunset.
Bob Dey is a former journalist who now runs a company and website producing property industry reports in Auckland.
THE ‘70s: Flared Jeans and Long Hair
John Keir – 1973
The year 1973 felt like the end of the ‘60s in New Zealand. The previous years on campus had seemed more radical (I seem to remember that – in 1971, my first year at Otago – half the student population had risen en masse and staged a “sit-in” in the Registry Office to protest the powers of the proctor / campus policeman – does this role still exist?). That kind of spontaneous student action seemed less likely during 1973, somehow. The Vietnam War was phasing down (although the protests continued) but on campus issues like mixed flatting were just starting to be debated.
Memories of that year: “The Fabulous Furry Brothers” comic strip, Bill Gosden’s film reviews, movie nights with Richard Weatherley (e.g. he showed the R20 Ulysses to segregated audiences in the café – women on one side, men on the other), and on-going fun putting Critic together at Typesetting & Design Ltd opposite Cadbury’s where John Swan and his team of Richard and Leonie were always helpful. Especially memorable were the never-ending jokes from John Noakes (whose artwork can still be seen on the peninsula bus shelters).
It was a fun year to work on Critic but it was also a great time to be a student. Internal assessment was looming but not yet upon us (last minute cramming could always get you through when – for most of us – it was sufficient just to pass); flats in Dunedin were cheap (again, from memory, my room at 589 Castle Street cost just $5 with another $3.50 for the kitty); holiday jobs were plentiful and student life seemed a lot less stressful than it does now.
1973 felt like a formative year – both personally and professionally. David Payton and I co-edited Critic that year. He went on to be president of the OUSA and then into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (he is now the New Zealand Ambassador to Holland) while I continued in the media.
John Keir is a film and television producer now based in Auckland.
Jim Mora – 1974
I loved my year on Critic. We introduced cartoonist Murray Webb to the world, and the talented Rob Piggott also did artwork, so visually it was a good-looking mag at times. Popular art still owed a lot to psychedelia then, and so did our visual look – fat lettering, especially. We managed to stir up a civic controversy with our investigation of Dunedin City’s rates, and where all the money went. The mayor came down and debated us in the common room. Bill Gosden was our film reviewer, and he went on to be Mr Film Festival. George Kay (later a teacher at OBHS), John Gibb (still with the ODT) and Tim Stevenson did lovely writing for us. We ran a lot of satire and humour pieces, from memory.
We (on the newspaper staff, anyway) wore flared jeans and had long hair. Looking back, we were sort of post-hippy, but at the time we would have said “hippy” was completely passe. The Captain Cook was THE pub for students, and for trendy staff members. The viticultural industry in New Zealand was nearly non-existent outside the monasteries, and “Cold Duck” was the legendary wine of choice – sweet and white and cheap as chips. The pre-eminent places for takeaways were “Big Daddy’s” in the Octagon (where the Art Gallery is now), and “Joe Tui’s” – the Chinese-owned Tui Cafe on Albany Street. Drunken students were reputedly fond of throwing Joe’s chips back inside his cafe via a large fan that extracted air outside from his kitchen. When the chips managed to hit the fan they would splatter across the inside of the Café, and Joe’s ire would be aroused. Students not too drunk were usually quick enough to get away. My flat was where Abbey Lodge is now, and I think they pinched the name off us – Nightmare Abbey, we called it. Rent was $2.50 per week per room, or am I imagining that? It seems unbelievable now.
In some ways, it was a time of hiatus in student life. The big issues that had motivated students in previous years had gone. Vietnam was pretty well over, and the momentum of the social revolution – engendered by the ‘60s and culminating symbolically in Woodstock – had subsided. We were pre-punk and pre-disco, rebels without much of a cause, but enjoying life. We didn’t know how lucky we were, really – we had a free, relaxed university education in NZ’s prettiest city.
Jim Mora is a New Zealand media personality, currently working as an RNZ National Presenter and Sunday Morning Host.
THE ‘80s: The ‘Boks and Soviet Youth
Chris Trotter – 1981
Editor’s note: Chris Trotter submitted a reflection for both the 75th and the 80th anniversary issues of Critic. I’ve combined the two.
The great issue of 1981 was, of course, the Springbok Tour. Like the rest of New Zealand, Otago’s campus was split on the question of whether or not the Springboks should tour New Zealand. As Editor, I was determined to allow both sides of the issue to be heard. That is why I chose [REDACTED] as one of my columnists – he was one of the leaders of the pro-tour faction on campus and used his weekly column “Dragonfly” to attack the anti-tour faction. [REDACTED] and his friends also submitted longer articles explaining why they supported the Tour, which were duly published. My fellow student editors around the country were highly critical of this approach, but I believe it kept Critic honest, and meant that all of Otago’s students had a sense of the paper being “theirs”.
MANY years ago, when I was half the age I am now, I edited the Otago University Students’ Association’s weekly newspaper, Critic. As Editor, I received a great deal of mail; most of it from the student body, some of it from advertisers, and, every two or three months, a bundle of it from the Soviet Union. It was actually addressed to the “Progressive Left, (PROLE) C/- Otago Student Union”, but since there was no such club or society of that name affiliated to OUSA, the Association Secretary – a formidable woman, universally and respectfully known as “Mrs Rennie” – rather mischievously passed it along to me. (In her eyes, I was probably the nearest thing to a communist sympathiser on the Association’s payroll.) Inside the Soviet bundle there were many things: drab, badly designed and appallingly printed magazines highlighting the achievements of Soviet “Youth”; earnest pamphlets condemning the latest excesses of “US Imperialism”; and thick volumes containing the distilled wisdom of unpronounceable Soviet ideologues. Most of these, needless to say, were swiftly consigned to the nearest rubbish bin.
What we all looked forward to in the Critic office were the posters. These were vast affairs of considerable artistic merit and beautifully printed on thick creamy paper. They railed against apartheid and nuclear weapons, sang the praises of “national liberation movements” from Angola to East Timor, and passionately enjoined the youth of the world to raise high the banner of “Peace, Progress, Socialism”. Whenever they arrived there was a mad dash to see who would be the first to get his or her hands on the best examples. In the flats of student activists all over Dunedin (and, I later discovered, all over New Zealand) the handiwork of the Soviet Union’s most talented graphic artists took pride of place. In the Critic office itself, they stretched from wall to wall. Which meant that for years, as Otago’s student journalists toiled away over their sturdy Remington typewriters, they were, quite literally, surrounded by communist propaganda.
I tell this story because it reveals a great deal about the way ideological systems maintain and reproduce themselves. It also illustrates how important it is that ideology be backed by power. Those posters didn’t manufacture themselves; it took the resources of a superpower to ensure that, even at the bottom of the world, Soviet propaganda would be seen and absorbed by the future opinion formers of the nation. I’m uncertain whether Moscow’s ‘Poster International’ survived the Gorbachev era. By the mid-1980s the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had enough on its plate persuading its own people of the benefits of “Peace, Progress, Socialism”. All I know for sure is that following the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991, the flow of packages to Otago’s PROLEs ceased forever.
Last time I dropped by, the Critic office walls were covered with posters advertising orientation bands and the latest releases from the music industry. “Peace, Progress, Socialism” was nowhere to be seen.
Chris Trotter is a political commentator and editor of the “occasional” Political Review magazine.
Michael Tull – 1988
My year was 1988 – around the time varsity was jumping the gap from “font of new ideas and new political movements” to “breeding ground of indebtedness and career prospect enhancing”. I snuck through just before the libraries got too full on Friday nights and the pubs got too empty. High fees were coming in around that time, and suddenly it was becoming less of an option to go to varsity, play round for a few years, then decide to switch courses. Before then you could do that with impunity. At the time, my friends and I marvelled at one chap who came out of varsity with a law degree and a $12k or so bank debt. He was the source of constant ribbing about his crazily exorbitant lifestyle... how could you possibly run up such a huge debt... it was unfathomable. Mmmm, yes.
Michael Tull is a freelance communications specialist and former Communications Manager for the Capital & Coast District Health Board.
Astrid Smeele – 1989
Critic was the starting point for a career in journalism for me – in fact, it all began in the corner bar of the Cook where co-editor-to-be Nickee Charteris and I decided – as a joke – to apply for the job. Things rapidly got out of control when we found ourselves in a full-on and controversial battle-of-the sexes election campaign for the editorship against Ross Blanch – of the then “Gentleman’s Club” (does it still exist?). The campus women’s group adopted us as their cause celebre – a fight was on, and the rest is history. The women won! Critic has a huge tradition and is a fantastic forum for challenging discussions and debating ideas – both serious and hilarious. All the best for the celebrations, and long may Critic continue!
Astrid Smeele is the Lead Communications Advisor and Engagement and Connections Manager at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
THE 90S: Hot Wax and Tomato Paste
Victor Billot – 1995
In 1995 we had to paste up Critic late in the evening on big sheets of paper with hot wax, while we ate the free pizzas we got as part of a semi-legitimate advertising contra deal with the pizza joint. By the time we finished we were smeared with hot wax and tomato paste. So was the newspaper. Paul Dagarin claimed he was the Chief Editor and moved in behind the big desk. I opened up his top drawer one day to find a biro but all that was there was a copy of The Captains Verses by Pablo Neruda, and an old toothbrush. Geoff Noller sold ads by the bucketload. One day, a person in a suit came into the foyer looking for the bathroom and Geoff sold them an ad. Then he told them where the bathroom was.
Victor Billot is a unionist, musician, and former co-leader and electoral candidate for the Alliance party. We don’t know what he’s doing now.
Brent McIntyre – 1998-1999
75 years? You think that’s impressive? In my day Critic was 100 pages long and came out every three days. Our readership was never less than 50,000 according to independent survey results. In my day we were full colour glossy, with lots of advertising from Microsoft and Massey University. In my day Critic had about a million pages a week on student politics at Otago. As Editor, I had to live with the President, just in case there was a scoop at 2am.
In my day we broke the news of “Fogelberg-gate”. In my day we pasted all the ads onto the pages with flue made from Jaimanawa horses. In my day we never got an issue out late, we never had a typo or a proofing error and none of our news items were ever cobbled together at the last minute from an interview with whoever we found who was willing to talk at 7pm (usually Linda the Cleaner). In my day the quality of thought and discourse in Letters to The Editor put Wilde, Greer, Lao Tzu and Gandhi to shame. In my day we wrote out every page by hand, in a neat italic script. In my day Editorials could be bought for the price of one of Lex’s double soy lattes.
In my day we always took original and stylish photos for the features, and never resorted to plagiarising pictures from old copies of National Geographic that lay moldering in the back of the office. In my day the staff were always in the office by 8am, even the volunteers. We had regular meetings and everyone thought I was fucking on to it. In my day we never played Pacman for hours while we waited for the Tech-Ed to finish laying out the news. In my day the reviews were pithy and great, and no one was just in it for a free book.
In my day we didn’t have any bloody notices and columns. In my day Fiona was just an idle-widdle bubba. In my day there was a big sign on the wall that said “pobody’s Nerfect”. Ha ha! In my day our holidays were spent researching stories and rearranging the office yet again. In my day our coverage of Māori issues was teno pai. In my day every band, every author, every artist, every politician and every bad-arse mofo in town was clamouring, yeah, clamouring to get into our pages, cos we were so hot we were on fire, we were starting fires, yeah, people used Critic to start their fires, and clean up spills… and wipe there… (sob) they didn’t care, they’d have read “The Sideways Bit” if we’d stuck 5,000 copies of it everywhere, every week…who am I kidding… In my day we loved Critic.
Brent McIntyre is the Manager for Library Collections and Information at New Zealand Parliament.
THE 00S: The Naughties, Indeed
Fiona Bowker – 2000-2001
Critic 2000-01 – themes of year were around wanting to establish as a profit making enterprise separate from OUSA and more like The Listener! Hence, we idolised The Listener and wrote odes to them wherever possible. But we were determinedly broadsheet. There were strange advertising issues (including the “burnt pizza letter” guy who couriered letters of complaint and threatened all sorts of revenge. But then he went bankrupt. Because his pizzas were burnt. And there were internecine squabbles among the ASPA members over national advertising). Stephen La Roche picketed commie old us with a banner, but just the once. I miss the review books. And Palmerston North.
Fiona Bowker is an AskOtago Group Leader.
Patrick Crewdson – 2002-2003
Young people these days – you’re soft, that’s your problem. In my day (2002-3), Critic was a lean, mean news-breaking machine. OUSA might have owned us (as sole shareholders of a limited liability company guaranteed editorial autonomy by charter), but when Critic said “jump” they called an SGM to decide – through due process and provided quorum was achieved – how high. We were young Turks, breaking all the rules (except the rules of syntax, punctuation and grammar). The old guard knew the writing was on the wall when I changed the size of the mag from tabloid to its current quarterfold – a move so revolutionary it would have made Che Guevara wet himself with terror. That was only the beginning.
Here’s what your history books won’t tell you: we revived 40 Ways one year (very popular) and killed it off the next (less popular); the anonymous author of fashion column Campus Chic was forced from her post by a public outcry that she was “too mean”; we went to Mosgiel; the Proctor threatened to sue for defamation; Stephen La Roche continued his illegible assault on the letters pages; columnist and stuffed toy Duck released the mega-selling album, Close the blinds, that Duck is Peking; the inaugural “offensive issue” failed to offend anyone other than a printing technician at the Oamaru Mail who said the internet must have inured me to human suffering; we launched a website; our fish’n’chip reviewers awarded the golden scoop to Mei Wah two years running; we made OUSA presidents cry; I had great hair; The Wrong Guy in the Wrong Lecture at the Wrong Time pissed off a lot of lecturers; and I think we wrote some news articles.
Patrick Crewdson is a former journalist for the Herald and Stuff, where he now works as Head of Product Development.
Hamish McKenzie – 2004
We were accused of endorsing date rape in the first issue of the year. The controversy sparked all of two letters to the ODT. Critic transmogrified into a glossy rag. Students bemoaned the loss of an important source of dunny paper. We made the Critic website hotter. We busted Buttman, a rogue be-socked international student who made a habit of fondling buttocks with his feet, and exposed falsified letters from two married couples campaigning against some obscure student politics issue that no one cared about. Katherine Rich’s secretary threatened legal action after we called the MP an MPILF. Newsboy told me Linda Clark had the best breasts in broadcasting, and Steve Braunias called Don Brash a cunt. We touched Mary Lambie in the flesh. For the 31st year running, Critic won nothing at the Qantas Media Awards.
Hamish McKenzie is co-founder of Substack and in recent years a tech reporter, and lead writer for Tesla.
Zane Pocock – 2014
We set out to be steady hands as we recovered from the past year's editor-ousting chaos, but realised we had overdone it when we were praised by VC Hayne. She corrected that statement by year-end after we took a gonzo foray into a local psych ward. Awards aren't everything but it's nice to remind everyone who's the boss, so we tossed the Deputy Editor position and applied that budget to a Features Editor in a cynical, successful ploy to sweep the ASPA features awards. We went to a single Thursday print night but lied to our meticulous designer/illustrator and kept him on the Wednesday schedule (when we used to send half to the printers) so we didn't miss the deadline. Despite the gaslighting work environment, one of his Critic illustrations went on to be syndicated by Wired. It was an election year so we were shamelessly biased and I was called a "numbnut" by National MP Michael Woodhouse after spending too much company time trolling him on Twitter. Ever envious of the cool shit Radio One gets to do, we pulled off a Young Back Benches event at Re:Fuel with Wallace Chapman. In the wake of Dirty Politics we discovered a politically active Otago student had been assiduously vilified by Cameron Slater and we drove that story to national attention. I surrendered editorial oversight of OUSA coverage after I was outed for fucking the President, with my predecessor calling for my resignation. Steady indeed.
Zane Pocock is an entrepreneur in Oklahoma City, OK, USA.
Joel MacManus – 2018
We pivoted hard in 2018 in an attempt to be edgier, local-er and scarfie-r. I got hauled into the vice chancellor’s office twice for surprisingly minor gripes about framing and balance - she told me I'd never get a job in “real” media the way things were going. Critic made international headlines when the inaugural menstruation issue (a partnership with the Womens+ club) was removed from stands by Campus Watch because they thought the cover was too graphic. The university never told us it was happening - they only fronted up after we went public and asked for more information. A hundred or so students marched to the clocktower in our defense, and stuck up posters of the offending cover all over campus. The story went international - I remember being woken up at 4am by a producer from CNN.
Things kicked off again when we reported that the Proctor had entered student flats while they weren’t home and confiscated their bongs. There was another protest - this time with closer to 1000 people marching - an OUSA meeting with so many attendees that they had to move it into the gym on the top floor of the Clubs & Socs building. I've been a Critic superfan since I picked up a copy in my first week of fresher year. It took me three years to build up the confidence to walk in the door and ask to write for them, but I'm so glad I did. I owe my career and my passion for writing entirely to Critic. I'm so thankful that it exists.
Joel MacManus is the Wellington Editor at The Spinoff.
Charlie O’Mannin – 2019
I first read Critic in 2012 while I was in high school and immediately developed a 7-year-plan to become editor, paying my friends and family to jump out at me periodically with ethical dilemmas and improper uses of the semicolon.
Our first big story of the year took months to prepare: a seven-page investigation into sexual assault at Knox college. For the story we interviewed more than 20 people, many of whom had the same depressing, disgusting story of abuse and institutional failure.
We sent the story to print on a Thursday night and the next day a gunman killed 51 people at a Christchurch mosque. Our photographer, Aiman Amerul Muner, got on the next plane to Christchurch and documented the horror and shock of the immediate aftermath. Later in the year, Aiman returned to Christchurch and wrote a story detailing the slow route to recovery of one of the shooting victims.
In the weeks after publishing the Knox story our phones were ringing constantly with more and more people who had stories of their own abuse at Knox. We ended up publishing two long follow-up stories based on the people who came forward.
We spent the rest of the year systematically pissing off every landlord and property manager in North Dunedin. At one point, after publishing on the front cover an email asking us to “REMOVE YOUR FILTHY STINKING LYING BITCH-WHINING BULLSHIT STORY ABUSING US OFF THE WEBB NOW OR FURTHER ACTION”, the uni’s CCTV cameras caught the landlord in question stealing large quantities of the magazine from stands. They were subsequently trespassed from campus.
We also accidentally started a nudist orgy club, had our office broken into by an orange-wearing youth gang known as the “Vit-Cs”, and were sued multiple times for defamation.
THE 20S
Sinead Gill – 2020
Covid-19 lit a match to everyone’s lives. We made sure to awhi international students who’d missed flights home because of unclear Uni policy and we worked with our student mag counterparts to ensure someone was at the daily Covid standups in Parliament on your behalf. Years of growing tension between Critic and Uni staff broke in the wake of the pandemic not with formal complaints, but a press release about pulling advertising, ceasing media requests and a declaration that we were mean to them. From where we stood, we were just holding them to account.
But I won’t say our controversies were never our fault. I killed the popular Blind Date column as soon as I heard a contributor was pressured for sex - fuck that. A sitting MP revealed she was once busted for cannabis in a live interview - lol. In our first edition, the cover got banned from Facebook (art is subjective) and my editorial decision to ignore politicians during an election year attracted a swarm of media commentary, landing me on TV with finger-wagging presenters. My argument was fuck the press releases - you can get those elsewhere - politicians should front with actual policies for students to get in the student rag.
What you don’t know is about 10pm that first print night I got a call from the OUSA CEO pleading to pull our explosive lead story. I’d based my editorial on it and the crew locked in, helping me pick a Plan B. All I’ll say is it’s hard to stand your ground as a self-trained journo with limited legal knowledge, but the CEO had never done that before - likely hasn’t since - and I still trust her judgement.
It was a challenging year but we got your eyes on the news. We covered underpaid student workers, shit landlords, exposed sexual violence allegations against an exec member, and the plight of Bill and Bill, the beloved gay paradise ducks/pūtangitangi on campus that were taken away to find gal pals but eventually flew back to us because love always wins.
I didn’t go to Otago Uni to study journalism, but I found my calling in this mag and miss hitting send on a publication at 3am surrounded by good cunts. Every now and again someone I’m reporting on throws an old Critic article in my face - I’m a known gay, didn’t you know? - but I have no regrets.
Erin Gourley – 2021
The University was sick of our shit and stopped advertising with us. Planet Media were worried, money was tight, but we were happy because there were suddenly many, many more pages to fill with articles. At the start of the year we were out of lockdown and it was great. A few months later we were back in lockdown and it sucked (but secretly helped us save money and print more issues).
The thing that sticks out to me is the many enemies we made along the way. An unhappy landlady took to campus to steal hundreds of copies of the magazine in her rucksack. Multiple professors threatened to sue us for defamation. The admin of Dunedin News kicked out basically our entire staff for stirring up drama in the comments. I misgendered someone in an article and had to apologise with the only compensation available to a student magazine editor: a slab of Red Bulls.
We were doing a lot of news, all the time. The big one was Elliot’s six month investigation into neo-Nazi group Action Zealandia – when they made their first in-person contact via a weird Cold War-esque meeting in Anderson’s Bay, three of us staff members were standing by just in case they were actually about to be murdered. We investigated the exploitation of students in orchard work. We wrote about the uptick in conspiracy theories before it was cool. We brought back the Worst Flat Competition to highlight the appalling, definitely not-Healthy Homes compliant state of Dunedin’s student housing. We investigated the shocking divorce of Bill and Bill, the gay ducks who had captured the hearts of everyone on campus. We aided and abetted Sign Up Club’s first moves into OUSA, the ramifications of which continue to this day. We mourned the sudden and undignified death of Starters Bar thanks to earthquake safety regulations. No one was safe from the wrath of 2021 Critic, except Nando’s who stood by us with weekly advertising through our darkest days and provided us with insane quantities of cheesy garlic pita bread.
Fox Meyer – 2022-2023
It was a blur, to be honest. I blame the picklebacks. Over those two years we grew as a magazine but lost our free Nando's, we doubled down on the crosswords but still made a mistake or two. It was a strange time for Critic, as my priority was to make sure we got a nice budget from OUSA and could enter the Clocktower without triggering an alarm without changing who we were as a magazine. As the uni system struggled nationwide, very little was left for student mags. I like to think that Critic was a good leader during this time, and could guide some of the other mags through a really tough few years. We filled a slightly more mature role, both on the page and off. Sometimes this meant turning more of our criticism on you lot, but honestly, you deserved it. But we also felt that media had really reached an inflection point; people don't engage with it like they used to. We have to ask ourselves what our role is in that new media environment. How do we adapt to changing needs and attention spans? We know we have the same good stuff on tap to offer, so how do we best serve our community? The answer, as always, is the horoscopes section. We know that's why you pick up the magazine anyways.
Fox Meyer is a news reporter for The Newsroom based in the Parliamentary Press Gallery.
Nina Brown – 2024-2025
I was given a handover doc when I took the Editor’s chair in January 2024 that said in bold: “DON’T BE BORING.” I’d say we took that and ran with it last year. With a fresh-faced team after the old guard of long-standing Critic staff moved out the revolving door after 2023, there was an infectious energy to Critic last year. The ‘Critters’ pushed the boundaries of what student media could do – and what we can do in the name of journalism – but with a layer of caution that comes with living in the age of digital footprints.
We were game for it all: sneaking into halls to review their food (and then chased out of them); copping free tickets to every manner of event to review, including numerous festivals, a Shrek swamp rave, and a museum hoedown with a ‘slippery pig’ ride; and diving headlong into every protest that came our way. We brought back the Critic Bachelor; reported on Palestine protests as the conflict unfolded on the other side of the world; investigated the creeping commercialisation of Studentville dubbed ‘Castle Capitalism’; and generally stuck our noses where we sniffed a story.
Obviously I hung around for a second year to be the 100th Editor (clout-chasing gone wild) and I’m proud to stand on the shoulders of the giants who came before me. There’s a certain kick to witnessing history made in real-time – something as dumb as having a couch we painted with the Critic logo in O-Week last year now being part of an exhibition. We’ll take Paul’s advice and crack into some Speight’s to celebrate the past century and salute to another 100 years just as un-boring.