Disclaimer: This article was written by said media.
In a generous publicity stunt, OUSA President Liam White matched donations towards Critic Te Ārohi’s Centenary book up to $1k last Tuesday, March 4th (payday). The 100-year-old magazine has until March 16th to raise $70k to fund a full-time book editor – now $2,420 closer thanks to the student president.
Within three hours, the stunt had raked in 85% of the $1k goal. Comments ranged from messages of support for Critic Te Ārohi (“my favourite weekly read”) to milking the President’s promise (“destroying Liam’s paycheck”). Whatever works for you.
Critic Te Ārohi parked ol’ Prez on the office couch (still missing two of three cushions) to spill the tea on why he was forking out the cash. “I thought it would be good to bribe the media,” said Liam (funny guy). “I just think that would be a very useful thing to have in the back pocket. If there was a propaganda machine working back here.”
Then he turned serious. “I just thought it was really important,” said Liam. He compared the project to OUSA’s 2019 book Audeamus! We Dare! that marked 129 years. “Nerd alert, I’ve read that a couple times and I loved it.” He admitted that a Critic book would be “more exciting than our book to be honest – so I'm just interested to see what comes out of it.”
Funding has been difficult to secure for the book that promises to tell the story of “a century of the Otago student experience through the eyes of Critic Te Ārohi”. Critic has appealed to the wallet-holders of OUSA for some moolah, but Liam said that he wasn’t sure there was the budget for it. Taking it into his own hands, Liam said he thought the match donations would be a “cool idea” to “get you guys money”.
Liam admitted to having worried about this setting a precedent for donating to other projects – especially those from other OUSA departments. “I didn’t want to set the precedent too much but I just thought it was a good project that would be really valuable.” The more “selfish” part of it was that he wanted a “free copy” and to get a sense of OUSA’s relationship with Critic “because it hasn’t always been good.”
The amount Liam donated was what he would normally put away from a paycheck, three weeks’ rent and two weeks’ groceries – he’d done the math. He’d also run the numbers, and calculated that if Vice Chancellor Grant were to put in the same amount from his paycheck, he would have to put in $12.50 for every dollar Liam put in, meaning $12.5k in a similar gesture of support for the Centenary book.
“There’s not a lot of time left, so get your donations in now!” said Liam (Critic didn’t even need to blackmail him). To check out the full proposal, head to Critic Te Ārohi’s website critic.com under ‘Support the Critic Te Ārohi 100th Year Book’. You can follow the book’s fundraising progress through Instagram (@criticmag).