Tom Martin, Getting Involved in Uni Press and Inclusivity | Winter Spectacular 2020
EXTRA, EXTRA! OLD VIDEO GAME DEEP CUT WAS FUNNIER IN EDITORS HEAD!
I attended my first meeting for Redbrick Games, the gaming section of the University of Birmingham’s multiple award-winning student newspaper, in February 2018. I wrote my first piece a month after that, an open letter to Donald Trump asking the (then) president not to blame video games for institutional failings in the wake of a shooting at a school in Florida. I wasn’t trying to ease myself in, apparently. Over the last four years, I have reviewed games, attended conferences such as EGX, EGX Rezzed and AdventureX, been nominated for a Student Publication Association award, and stayed up 24-hours straight on two separate occasions to wrongly predict both Fallout 76 and the details surrounding Galarian Ponyta, all for Redbrick. I am now, in my final year of undergraduate study, the Co-Editor Chief of Redbrick Gaming. Looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Writing for my student paper has been nothing short of transformative. What started as a hobby born at a cross-section of my Creative Writing degree and my enjoyment of video games has become a major part of how I will remember my time at University. And, when I hang up my “fedora with a press card in the hatband”, it will be Redbrick that I have to thank for the path I will take when I leave. So, I am here to tell those of you at university who are wondering whether or not you should join your student newspaper, whether you’re a hobbyist or a Jason-Schrier-in-training, my answer is: go for it.
So, how do you get involved, you ask?
Bad boy huh? I’m with MJ here Tom.
Typically, how it all begins here at Redbrick is that I will receive an email from a student, signalling to me that they want to write for the student paper. I never did this, I just jumped straight into a meeting like the bad boy I am. But as I am now an editor I get to see this side of things, and what strikes me most often about this process is that almost always, these students will ask me about some form of application process, or attach a CV. I can only speak for Redbrick, but this notion that writing for your student paper should be any more than a hobby (especially at the beginning) is terrifying to me. Your student paper should be happy to have you on the merit of your interest and not the standard of your writing, especially when the latter can come through experience.
Next, I will typically invite students along to a meeting (we have these in Discord nowadays) so that they can meet the other writers and get a flavour for the kinds of stories that are being written day to day. You can bring as many or as few ideas as you like! Sometimes, it can be just as beneficial to sit and listen, soaking up ideas as it can be to arrive with a million pitches off the bat. I understand as much as anyone how daunting meeting new people can be, but your prospective editors have a duty to make you feel welcome. This obligation is especially important when nurturing interest from writers from outside the straight, white and male demographic.
As the grassroots of gaming journalism we have an obligation to address the way that women, black, queer, trans, and other minority groups are systematically disenfranchised by the industry. Whether this marginalisation comes from targeted harassment or the unavoidable feeling of being othered in a historically and still predominantly white and heteronormative space, the university paper can play a meaningful role in breaking down barriers for minority groups. As a white, cisgender man myself, I can’t speak for these voices, but I can speak to them, to you if applies. You are welcome in these spaces. Your voice will be heard.
It is just as important that writers with only a vague interest feel welcomed into these spaces, too. Treating hobbyist roles as anything other than a hobby plays into a form of gatekeeping that has been part and parcel of the industry for a number of years: the idea that if you want to do something, you should be doing it for all of your free time. Your student newspaper can be a safe space to catch a glimpse of what being a video game journalist is like, without the pressures of the industry, so what sense would it make to have students jump through hoops to join up? We are here to offer you a hobby. We hope it will retain your interest (and in my experience, it does), but we aren’t here to funnel you into the industry like some kind of factory. However, if you do wind up wanting to join this industry, writing for your student newspaper can be a terrific launchpad!
To think most of us will go to university, get a degree and land a job all in less time than Beyond Good and Evil 2 will get released.
As the year comes to a close, we need not just to appreciate all the effort that has been put into platforming previously unheard voices, but to recognise that these issues aren’t going away, so our work must carry on into the future. As the creation of James Law and Imogen Mellor, two former Redbrick writers, I’ll admit that I do feel there is a close bond between Redbrick and startmenu. But regardless of this ‘bond’ I want to take a moment to say that all of what is written above applies to publications such as startmenu, too. The gaming industry has still yet to come to terms with a number of socioeconomic disparities too. Not everyone goes to university, and so not everyone has a chance to join a university press. To those people, to you, if applies, consider letting startmenu be that space for you.
Since starting at Redbrick Gaming three years ago, I have worked with students who went on to become freelancers forThe Xbox Hub, T3 and PCGamer, and staff writers at Eurogamer, PCGamesN, VideoGamer, GAMINGBible, Metabomb and Rock Paper Shotgun. These are some of the most brilliant writers I have ever had the pleasure of working with, and their success was certainly no accident, but they all started exactly where you are.
