Honi Soit is the student newspaper of the University of Sydney. First published in 1929, the newspaper is produced by an elected editorial team and a select group of reporters sourced from the university's populace. Its name is an abbreviation of the Anglo-Norman phrase Honi soit qui mal y pense, meaning "shamed be (the person) who thinks evil of it". With its radical left-wing posture, the paper is the subject of frequent controversy.
Layout
Format and organisation
Published as part of the activities of the University of Sydney Students' Representative Council (SRC), Honi Soit is a tabloid-sized publication incorporating a mixture of campus-specific and broader political articles.
Issues are published weekly during university semesters, typically containing a topical feature article; letters to the editors; campus news; political analysis; investigative journalism; culture and reviews; and comedy and satire.
Special editions are published yearly, including Election Honi, devoted towards covering the annual Students' Representative Council elections; Women's Honi dedicated to women's issues and edited autonomously by the SRC's Women's Collective; ACAR Honi, dedicated to platforming culturally diverse voices and edited by the Autonomous Collective Against Racism (ACAR); and Queer Honi, dedicated to covering LGBT issues and edited by the Queer Action Collective (QuAC).
The final edition each year is typically presented as a spoof or parody of an existing newspaper. These editions were traditionally sold on the streets of Sydney to raise money for charity as part of the university's Commemoration Day festivities, though this practice has been discontinued since the 1970s.
Honi Soit is the first and only weekly student newspaper in Australia.
Comedy
Honi has a strong history of irreverence, often printing humorous and satiric stories alongside traditional journalistic pieces. This has in turn inspired breakaway satiric publications Oz magazine and The Chaser.
The paper's comedy articles have appeared in the mainstream press. In 2012, an article in the comedy section (then called The Soin, parodying The Sun) was featured by Peter Fitzsimmons in The Sydney Morning Herald. In 2013, the Herald reprinted a popular tongue-in-cheek list of Sydney's worst bus routes, which had originally appeared in Honi.
It has become tradition for the final pages of the paper to be presented as a satirical newspaper, most frequently going by the name of The Garter Press, a play on the Order of the Garter from which Honi Soit derives its name.
Editors
The office of editor is highly sought after, and was originally filled by single honorary appointment for outstanding merit in the field of writing. Since the 1980s editors have been annually elected by fellow students as a "ticket" of up to 10 candidates during SRC elections, with two or more groups campaigning for the role. Guest editors will normally be nominated for the annual autonomous editions by the relevant interest groups on campus.
For a time until 1966, editors of the paper were given a yearly scholarship of £100 (roughly equivalent to $2,700 in 2014) by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, and the SRC began to pay editors a small allowance instead from this point on. Today, editors of Honi Soit receive a fortnightly stipend of $388.06.
Notable past editors include Lex Banning, Bob Ellis, Verity Firth, Laurie Oakes, Kip Williams, Craig Reucassel, and Keith Windschuttle.
History
Founding
Honi Soit was created in 1929 to counterbalance ongoing criticism of Sydney University's students in the Australian media, which came to a head when students were alleged to have dressed a soldier's statue on the Cenotaph in women's underwear during a graduation festival. The Sydney Morning Herald referred to the incident as a "vulgar desecration", and students were described as "educated louts" for their actions.
A 1929 edition of Honi sought to address the ongoing outrage with the stinging retort:
"We expected gross exaggeration, and even invention, from certain Sydney journals. What we did not expect was that the journals which can generally be relied upon for sane, safe news would also exaggerate and distort in such a manner as to utterly mislead the general public... Even our apology was sneered at. That apology, we might point out, was accepted by the Returned Soldiers' League."
Honi Soit's first edition outlined the paper's editorial position and objectives:
"We are iconoclasts. We do not believe – O Heresy! – that the under-graduate is the most important member of the community. We refuse to pander exclusively to him. Indeed, we will not pander to anyone. We make our appeal also to the great General Public." Featured in the first edition was a letter to the editor asking whether men should pay women students' tram fares, to which the paper responded that it had "asked several Women Undergrads about it and one has promised to give us her views on the subject. We should also like to hear some Senior Men's views on the same point." Also discussed in the edition were the ethics of advertisement, with the paper being published for free and advertising only "reputable firms whom we can strongly recommend to your custom."
The new paper sought to paint the undergraduate varsity in a more favourable light, giving voice to the student's successes and their progressive opinions, a role which it has continued to pursue to the present.
Cultural developments With the onset of the Great Depression, the rise of the labour movement and the growth of the counterculture, Honi'''s left-wing and often radical voice helped the publication grow from its roots as a small university publication, with the paper and its alumni eventually playing a pivotal role in the culture of both Australia and Britain.
An important line of demarcation for Honi came in the 1960s with editors Richard Walsh and Peter Grose's premature resignation to found Oz magazine, a humorous publication in Australia and (later) Britain which came into conflict with legal authorities in both countries. However, Oz did play a strong role in defining the comedic and radical sensibilities of future generations of Honi.Honi became intricately associated with the Sydney Push during the 1960s, turning its focus from arts to politics for the first time, and a number of radical editors followed Walsh's tenure.
In 1967 Honi was implicated in the development of the Anti-Vietnam movement in Australia, being blamed for road blockades that led to the infamous "run the bastards over" affair during a visit by American President Lyndon B. Johnson. The paper was described as "filthy and scurrilous" in the Legislative Council of NSW for their stance against the war, and former editor Richard Walsh was denied entry to the United States in 1966 for his outspokenness on the issue. Despite this, the tide of public opinion eventually turned in Honi's favour as the Vietnam War progressed, largely vindicating their editorial position (see Opposition to the Vietnam War, Public opinion).
Being a left-wing student publication also put Honi at the forefront of the counterculture in Australia, with editorial content often directed towards defending the rights of women, people of colour, LGBT people, and adherents of communism, at times when such views were still widely controversial.
The radicalism of Honi during the 1960s was not without its consequences. By 1967 the paper found itself without willing advertisers to fund its publication, and faced calls for its disestablishment from members of the University Senate. However the SRC declared the paper had become far too important to let it perish, and provided temporary funding on the condition that the publication be restructured back towards a more traditional newspaper, instating conservative editor Keith Windschuttle to placate critics.
Modern dayHoni Soit retains its position in the Australian media landscape as a hub of counter-cultural journalism and left-wing activism, though its long list of preeminent alumni and position as a leading student publication have somewhat softened its public image, being described by Peter Fitzsimmons in The Sydney Morning Herald as a "venerable newspaper" in 2013.
The 2013 'Vagina Soit' cover was used by gender equality and gender-based violence advisor Alison Shepherd-Smith in Kenya to raise awareness of female genital mutilation, showing a class of women what a variety of vaginas look like.
Alumni Since its inception Honi has been an important training ground for many Australian journalists, politicians, satirist, writers, and entertainers. Former contributors include art critic Robert Hughes, poet Les Murray, film-maker Bruce Beresford, OZ magazine co-founder Richard Walsh, media personality Clive James, feminist Germaine Greer, journalists Bob Ellis, David Solomon and Laurie Oakes, 2021 Kennedy Awards Young Journalist of the Year Natassia Chrysanthos, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, High Court Judge Michael Kirby, author Madeleine St John, historian Keith Windschuttle, theatre director Kip Williams, intellectual Donald Horne, broadcaster Adam Spencer, philosopher George Molnar, various members of comedy troupe The Chaser, and journalist Avani Dias.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott has named Honi Soit as the impetus for his initial entry into politics, having been inspired to begin writing to the paper by a "quirky" edition which "demonstrated how to build a nuclear bomb".
Controversies As a radically left wing newspaper, Honi Soit has a controversial history dating back to its founding issue. The constant controversy surrounding the paper was lampooned in a 1967 edition which contained a cutout "special libel coupon" that would make it easier for readers to "sue Honi Soit for all it's got (two battered typewriters)".
The St Michael's College hoax In 2009 Honi published a feature article, 'The Mystery of St Michael's', later uncovered as a hoax. It claimed a fire in 1992 at St Michael's College, a subsequently-derelict residential college adjacent to the university's Architecture building, had killed 16 students. It was implied that a cover-up by the Catholic Church had stifled widespread awareness of the tragedy.The Mystery of St Michael's Honi Soit, 11 August 2009 p 12 The editors subsequently announced that the story was fictional.FYI (editorial) Honi Soit, 19 August 2009, p 3
'Vagina Soit' In August 2013, the newspaper made international headlines after printing a cover featuring photographs of 18 vulvae. The newspaper was pulled from stands within hours after it was decided the censoring of the images was not sufficient. This was due to the fact that black bars placed over certain parts of the vulvae were not completely opaque.
A statement released by the women editors stated "We are tired of society giving us a myriad of things to feel about our own bodies. We are tired of having to attach anxiety to our vaginas. We are tired of vaginas being either artificially sexualised (porn) or stigmatised (censorship and airbrushing). We are tired of being pressured to be sexual, and then being shamed for being sexual."
Allegations against Tony Abbott The paper became a point of contention in the lead up to the 2013 Australian federal election, as a standing record of the allegedly violent and anti-social conduct of opposition leader Tony Abbott during his time at university.
ANZAC Day criticism In 1958 Honi caused a media outrage over a story calling for the end of the ANZAC Day holiday. The paper argued that the national holiday was no longer treated as a veneration to the casualties of war, but rather as a national celebration and an excuse for inebriation, backing up the claims with photographs of drunken revellers at memorial events. Despite widespread calls from the media for the editor to be sacked, the SRC resisted. The affair was the basis for the play The One Day of the Year by Alan Seymour.