Campus Corners: Nov 2010
100 Years of The Gateway
by Hayley Dunning
The last 100 years have seen two world wars, man walking on the moon, Elvis Presley, The Beatles and the rise of terrorism. Throughout it all, the University of Alberta’s official newspaper, The Gateway, has been reporting on these stories and the University’s own headline news—as well as a few pranks along the way.
First printed in November 1910, The Gateway was originally under the governance of the Students’ Union. It remained that way for 92 years, during which time it became Canada’s largest non-autonomous student newspaper, before organizing as an autonomous not-for-profit in 2002.
That isn’t to say The Gateway didn’t voice its opinions about the Students’ Union and everyone else. The newspaper even made an enemy of the Engineering Students’ Society during the ’50s and ’60s. To retaliate the engineers kidnapped editor-in-chief Bob Scammell, ’59 BA, in 1958 and The Gateway mascot “Regina the Rat” in 1965.
Read about more pranks in the pages of The Gateway.
Always open to a bit of fun, The Gateway began publishing a spoof—The Getaway—in 1954,an annual tradition that continues to this day. Former Gateway assistant news editor Adam Singer, ’80 BA, ’86 LLB, remembers the Getaway issue of his era being fun but of particularly bad taste. In a spoof of the Jonestown cult suicides in November 1978, the cover featured a photo of all the staff members playing “dead” at their desks. Singer is now a lawyer but still has strong ties to the paper—including a daughter, Rachel Singer, who is currently a staff news writer.
“It’s bizarre in a great and wonderful way to see your daughter’s name in the byline of an article in The Gateway 30-plus years later,” says Adam.
Rachel added: “I feel privileged to be working for a newspaper my father took great pride in and devoted many hours to. I am also happy that we can share an experience from our university lives.”
The Gateway was so important to one fan that staff collected and bound every issue from 1944 to 1950 for him while he was away serving in the army. Gordon Gore-Hickman, ’48 BSc, ’50 MD, was so grateful for the gift that he recently donated the tome to the U of A Alumni Association.
Many Gateway alumni have gone one to very high-profile careers in other walks of life, such as former Prime Minister Joe Clark, ’60 BA, ’73 MA, ’85 LLD (Honorary), and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada Beverley McLachlin, ’65 BA, ’68 LLB, ’68 MA, ’91 LLD (Honorary). But several have turned their Gateway experiences into successful media careers, including Bob the Angry Flower cartoonist Stephen Notley, ’93 BA, and Edmonton Journal columnist and novelist Todd Babiak, ’95 BA.
Read Babiak’s memories of The Gateway.
The Gateway’s complete 100-year history is now available online as a searchable archive. Many early issues focused on campus life, and the paper was expressly published in 1917 with the purpose of being sent to the front lines to connect with Alberta students away in the First World War. However, it took a more critical view of World War II and was disciplined by the Students’ Union and even military authorities.
The newspaper has been through a lot of changes in its illustrious career but throughout it all has remained a well-read and well-loved. It also helped set up the Canadian University Press, a collective of student newspapers across the country that shares stories and brings together journalists and experts at a large conference every year.
Speaking about the move to autonomy in 2005, Gateway alumnus and Edmonton City Councillor Don Iveson, ’01 BA, said: “... [N]ow the offices are situated on the third floor of SUB, where staff and volunteers still spend too much time cutting class and complaining about the SU. Some things will never change.”
Hayley Dunning is a current MSc student and Gateway writer.
“Murder” and The Gateway
In 1959, two law students had a bit of fun at the paper’s expense, writing several letters to the editor from the “Frosh President” before revealing them as a prank. Not to be outdone, The Gateway ran a front-page story that the Frosh President had been “murdered,” confusing students, staff and the local press alike.
As recently 2000, the paper was still reporting fake deaths when editor-in-chief Neal Ozana, ’03 BSc, ran a story on his own untimely demise.
Memories of The Gateway from Todd Babiak, ’95 BA
I was quite snobbish about fraternities, when I was a student at U of A. This was, as many things are, a defense mechanism. I had neither the confidence nor the initiation fee nor the gregarious personality that would secure membership. I just wasn't interesting enough. I had bad skin. So I decided, unfairly, not to like fraternities and to spread all of the most unfair rumours I had heard about them.
However, the people at The Gateway seemed like my kind of people: bookish, not-as-good-looking, self-obsessed yet wallowing in romantic self-loathing, culturally and sexually diverse, mediocre athletes, yet powerlessly powerful. I would pass the columnists in HUB mall, starstruck. “That man wrote about his penis in The Gateway last week,” I would think. “And here he is, laughing nervously, right in front of me. Me!”
One winter afternoon I gathered every atom of courage and walked down the long hallway that led to The Gateway offices, where I met a small, beautiful woman who encouraged me to write a review of a cassette tape that had just come in. Something about bats. Cher's daughter was involved. There was an atmosphere about The Gateway that was both terrifying and attractive. Anyone who has ever had anything to do with The Gateway probably has a similar memory of that first day.
Not a fraternity yet … sort of a fraternity. I am proud of my fellow alumni: journalists and novelists, doctors and lawyers, graphic artists, mysterious millionaires, politicians. Many of them are sexier now than when they were at 20. I dislike some of them intensely, yet I feel obliged to protect them when they are besmirched by others. When they ask something of me, which is rare and usually awkward, I am inclined to do it–even if our only link is our Gatewaiety.