The Rideau River Residence Association (RRRA) announced the return of a newspaper dedicated to serving the 3,600 students living in Carleton’s residence buildings, according to RRRA president Graham Pedregosa.
The effort comes after the last residence-run newspaper, the Resin, ceased operation in 2013. Pedregosa said there are new factors that allow the re-launch of the residence paper to succeed.
One of those factors, he said, is enough office space for a residence newspaper.
“We now have a new, central space in the Residence Commons, and we’re able to provide that space to students who would like to work for a newspaper,” Pedregosa said.
The paper has moved to an online-only format, which gives the paper more financial breathing room, according to Pedregosa.
“A print version of the Resin wasn’t doing so well, and we didn’t have the man power for another one,” Pedregosa said.
Pedregosa added he believes print journalism is becoming less prominent with the rise of new media.
“Everyone is going online for their news sources now,” Pedregosa said, and cited examples like Buzzfeed and the Huffington Post.
Luke Bradley, a Carleton graduate and former editor-in-chief of the Resin in 2012, said the new RRRA paper has to develop a new plan from the Resin’s for it to succeed.
Bradley said the Resin tried to replicate the model of a larger newspaper, but with less staff.
“I think we didn’t really foresee how much of a process would go into establishing the infrastructure of a newspaper like that,” Bradley said. “As a result, it became more like a newsletter rather than a full newspaper.”
The Resin was established in earlier years by a much larger residence association, according to Bradley. He said that RRRA’s shrinking size as an association makes it tougher for a newspaper to function properly.
“Since the ‘80s, all student associations have shrunk and a lot of the residence associations have been taken over by the university itself,” Bradley said. “That’s not the case with RRRA, but it has gotten smaller.”
Pedregosa said that the paper hasn’t gone over many of the details yet, but that the association plans to have the paper in place for close to the beginning of the fall semester.
