The Eyeopener

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The Eyeopener is one of two weekly student newspapers at Ryerson University in Toronto. It has a circulation of 8,000 copies per week during the school year. The Eyeopener is published by Rye Eye Publishing Inc., owned by the students of Ryerson, as a non-profit corporation. Most of the writing is done by volunteers (as is the case with most campus newspapers) but the paper's masthead is elected towards the end of each academic year by the previous year's masthead and volunteers who have made a certain number of contributions. As of 2005, the minimum number of contributions to be eligible to vote is six. While contributors and editors are often students of the Ryerson School of Journalism, students in other programs are more than welcome to write for the paper. The paper is composed of several main sections, including news, arts & entertainment, roots & culture, sports, uncoverage, an editorial, and a 'fun' page. The 'Roots & Culture' section was removed for the 2005-2006 academic year, and was replaced with a new 'Business & Tech' section.

1 Early History
2 More recent events
3 Controversies
4 Fortieth anniversary
5 Notable Alumni
6 External link

[edit] Early History

It was started on September 26, 1967, by Tom Thorne, a Radio and Television Arts student upset with the amount of editorial powers held by faculty members at The Ryersonian. He took the name from a muck-raking turn-of-the-century weekly published in Calgary. It has received awards for its journalistic coverage and has garnered much acclaim for its often investigative style of reporting.

In the first issue, Thorne wrote: "Our publishing aim is to make crystal clear what is going on at Ryerson without the dubious benefit of a ... newspaper laboratory staining and processing student opinion in the name of 'professionalism.'"

True to its forerunner's reputation, the early days of The Eyeopener were marked by clashes with the administration and student government alike. In January 1970, the chair of Ryerson's board of governors, William Kelly, threatened to sue for libel after a satiric article appeared under his byline.

In October 1971, Ryerson president Donald Mordell decided that any campus publication that discussed the board of governors should be subject to the president's approval. The Eyeopener responded with a front-page editorial, headed "A Proclamation."

"In no manner whatsoever will The Eyeopener become a part of such a binding and illegal request. ... We have the right to speak and we demand our right and take the right. As for the administration ..."

Beneath which, in inch-high type, the words "FUCK YOU," accompanied by a drawing of a hand making an obscene gesture, were printed.

In February 1975, to illustrate the lax security on campus, a photo essay showed editor Gary Curtis stealing typewriters, and even a photocopier, while guards watched.

[edit] More recent events

In 1990-91, another breach of security was uncovered. These were the early days of paper recycling on campus, and the traditional image of investigative journalists going through the trash to get the story was turned on its ear when The Eyeopener's bins were returned each week, full of exam papers, inter-office memos, confidential documents -- and, oddly enough, a complete list of names and phone numbers for the members of the 48th Highlanders pipe band.

After the story ran on page one, the administration responded by taking away The Eyeopener's recycling bin.

Also in 1990-91, Ryerson's Gay and Lesbian Club lodged a harassment complaint against "The Ryersonian," alleging that an article it published was homophobic. This prompted the school's director of campus safety and security to release a report in December 1991, suggesting that a code of conduct be imposed on all campus media, and that a "media-watch tribunal" be formed to respond to complaints and mete out punishment.

Eyeopener editor Mike O'Connor came across campus security guards emptying the paper's distribution racks and throwing copies in the garbage. In their place, the guards were placing copies of the administration's report. A front-page editorial harked back to the 1971 outrage, appearing under the headline "Fuck You" in red 168-point type.

Response ranged from those who considered the headline insensitive, as it was printed very close to the second anniversary of the Montreal massacre, to a pair of journalism professors who applauded The Eyeopener for being "obstreperous" and encouraged it to keep on doing so. John Miller, chair of Ryerson's journalism school, pronounced that the headline was, "Fucking marvellous." Ryerson president Terry Grier condemned the headline, but admitted he hadn't read the editorial beneath it.

At a meeting of the board of governors, one of the governors admitted to not knowing what "The Eyeopener" was, and asked if it was published by the administration.

Many of the paper's more daring journalistic ventures ran under the byline "Scoop Gerbil," which commemorated the paper's 1970s mascot of the same name.

The other campus newspaper at Ryerson is The Ryersonian, published by the university's Faculty of Journalism. The Ryersonian has a circulation of approximately 5000 copies a week, and The Eyeopener has a circulation of approximately 8000 copies a week.

In 2006, Chamaine, the brilliant mind behind Sharpe Teeth took over the Eyeopener in a Coup D'Etat. She now runs the paper with an unrelentless focus on stick figure comments. Critics say the paper has abandoned its integrity since her arrival, others say the paper was always crap.

The new logo of the Eyeopener is: Sharpening our teeth with biting originality.

[edit] Controversies

The paper has been known to be somewhat more controversial than its RSJ-run counterpart. The Eyeopener is generally thought to be somewhat left-leaning and is often editorially critical of Ryerson Students' Union and the University's administration. Its annual Love and Sex issue, a Valentine's Day tradition, has also drawn both positive and negative attention. The 2001-2002 Love and Sex issue was thought to be particularly controversial; its contents were denounced as pornographic by students and faculty members alike. The 2004-2005 issue featured erotic literature and artwork without any full-frontal nudity.

Another of the paper's traditions is an annual 'parody' issue, designed and intended to lampoon a different reputed daily newspaper every year. The 2004-2005 edition skewered the National Post with a satirical issue called the Nearly Post-Mortem. The edition parodied the Post‘s stereotypically conservative viewpoint, insinuating that its readers and editorial staff were homophobic and anti-progressive. RyeSAC executives sent an open letter to the paper condemning the parody issue and suggested that the student union would be withdrawing its funding and requiring the Eyeopener' to work with a third-party board to develop editorial policies. It was later suggested that the entire initiative was spearheaded by only one of RyeSAC's four executives (with support from a small group of students outside the RyeSAC executive) and was later dropped. Other recent parody issues included takes on the Globe and Mail- the Olde and Male; the Toronto Star - the Subpar, and the Toronto Sun - the Spun.

RyeSAC members also actively protested the paper in 2003 when the editor-in-chief referred to the then-RyeSAC president (who was openly gay), as RyeSAC's "token gay guy" in an editorial. Some RyeSAC and RyePride members also informed the Ryersonian editorial staff that they planned to deface the Eyeopener office. Ryersonian staff members didn't let the long-time rivalry between the two campus papers stop them from notifying campus security. Several students were detained.

The Eyeopener also dropped the F-Bomb in 2006, when editor-in-chief Robyn Doolittle published an editorial titled "Fuck You, John Miller." It was aimed at the former journalism chair -- now a tenured professor -- whose changes to the curriculum cut off the paper's supply of fourth-year print journalism student volunteers (as they were required to write for the Ryersonian). More specifically, Miller told Eyeopener staff that he expected news editor Josh Visser and business and technology editor Kerry Wall -- both final-year print students -- to resign from their elected and paid positions despite the fact that they were not given any notice of this new curricular requirement at the time of their election to the Eyeopener masthead. Visser and Wall were eventually allowed to keep their jobs, but any final-year print student who had not already been elected to the masthead was required to write for The Ryersonian and could therefore not write for The Eyeopener. Doolittle's tongue-in-cheek editorial promised free beer to any student of Miller's who wrote for The Eyeopener using a pen name. This was the target of a Ryersonian editorial a week later, titled "Beer for truth? Not if Robyn's buying." The Ryersonian masthead cited the CBC Code of Journalistic Conduct as evidence that Doolittle had compromised The Eyeopener's integrity, but did not make any specific mention of the situation that sparked her editorial in the first place, nor did it defend the rights of students to choose which paper with which they wanted to volunteer. It concluded with the non-statement: "Our advice? Instead of selling yourself for a pint of warm beer, pay the $5." Doolittle responded with a letter to the Ryersonian, stating that she would never buy anyone warm beer.

While many people tend to associate The Eyeopener with these various controversies, it should also be noted that the paper has won three awards from the Canadian Association of Journalists for its investigative reporting, a feat unmatched by any other student paper in Canada. In one case it beat entries from professional journalists from across the country to win the category for papers with circulations of less than 25,000. The other two wins came in the student category.

The Eyeopener is also distinguished by its website, which is updated regularly and features web exclusives and breaking news. Readers can post comments on individual stories and items; in recent years this has become more of a grounds for debate among readers than for feedback regarding the articles themselves. The paper's masthead appeared to have disabled this feature by 2005, opting instead for more ‘traditional‘ means of communication for readers.

[edit] Fortieth anniversary

The Eyeopener's fortieth anniversary commemorative book

The Eyeopener will complete its fortieth year in September of 2007, but the 2006-2007 masthead opted to hold formal anniversary celebrations in the fall of 2006 instead. Reasons for this included the fact that this publishing year was the paper's fortieth -- and was, therefore, "Volume 40." The paper celebrated by producing and publishing an anniversary book, featuring interviews with and contributions by alumni about their years at the paper. The books also featured a detailed retrospective that outlined the paper's history and profiled some of its more prominent alumni.

The Eyeopener also held a large anniversary party; dozens of alumni attended. First editor-in-chief Tom Thorne failed to show up, though former RSU president Barry Hales, who approved funding for the first paper, attended.