Press Gangs

First there was the Tartan, then SFview, and finally the Peak

You ignored it. You studied it carefully. It was a collective. It was hierarchical. It was bad. It was good. And sometimes, once in a while, it was wickedly funny. It may have been just part of campus life, but give it credit, for better or worse, the Peak has chronicled campus life and the ongoing fashions in campus journalism for 37 years.

Ever wonder who or how or when or why the Peak started peeking? Really, seriously... it's not as boring as all that. I know. I was there. Here's your first surprise: the Peak really started back in the preseminal days of 1964. Person: student reporter Lorne Mallin. Place: the University of British Columbia. Thing: the Ubyssey campus newspaper.

Myth has it that freshman Lorne, dismayed at the quantity and quality of the Ubyssey reporters ahead of him, figures he'll never rise to editor before he graduates, and because he really, really wants to be an editor, he assigns himself a cunning, daring task. It goes like this: Lorne will transfer to SFU when it opens in 1965. In the meantime he organizes the framework of a student newspaper, complete with name, which he will create as soon as the university opens and he can find reporters. And he will be at the helm, of course.

Lorne's plan reads like a Pulitzer prizewinner: no sooner had we arrived for the first week of classes, there it was: the Tartan... a mimeographed, corner-stapled eight-page instant student newspaper. I still have a few of them... snappy little news stories, a picture of Jean Lesage kissing Margaret Sinclair's cheek, lots of sports coverage. It was OK. But was it something to get hung about? Apparently so. One day I was in an English 200 lecture and the guy next to me asked if I was happy with the student newspaper. I said I hadn't really paid it much attention. He huffed that it was not representative of SFU students, as it was essentially the brainchild of an ex-UBC student, and some concerned students were having a meeting October first and would I attend, blah, blah.

I don't know why I went. It was one of those fork-in-the-road choices. About 15 to 20 of us showed up at the appointed room, and the zealot who recruited me started things off. His name was Don Pulsford, and he thought the student newspaper was undemocratic in origin and should be properly organized and run by students unblemished by UBC and the best way to shut down the Tartan and its autocratic editor was to start a rival newspaper.

Groovy, we all said. Cool, said Don. Now, who wants to do what? It was decided to call out positions, ask for volunteers/candidates, and assign or vote. Office manager. Reporters. Sports editor. News editor. On we went until we got to editor. I was still unassigned. So were a few other guys. To my utter surprise, Don nominated me as editor. There were a few mumbles, and someone named Rod Wilczak was also nominated. Someone called for speeches. Rod said something about not having any experience, and I said I once had a paper route. The vote was taken. I won. Rod became assistant editor.

Later that night I remember calling up the newsroom at the New Westminster Columbian, and asking to speak with an editor. A tired, ironic voice came on and smoked heavily as I explained my predicament. Use lots of pictures was his sage advice.

Rod and I spent the next two days assigning news stories. Then we stayed up all the next night and oversaw the writing, typing, and cut-and-pasting of our little "'truly student'" newspaper, which I had decided, in my editorial hubris, to call the SFview, in a hopeless parody of the birth name of our adversary, the Ubyssey.

Our eight-page, corner-stapled, mimeographed rag came out October 4, causing panic in the Tartan bunker. I think we published two issues before our plan bore fruit: the staffs of the two papers met, and a board of governors was elected. This board interviewed and chose editors (I got to be sports editor; Lorne was demoted to "campus editor"), and our first publication, called Name Your Student Newspaper, hit the cafeteria tables October 13. The first Peak was published October 20. I've got a copy here. Guess what - we didn't even bother to publish the name of the guy who won a case of beer for dreaming up the Peak. It doesn't matter. I still like SFview, anyway. aq

When he's not pouring over the yellowed pages of ancient newspapers, Rick can be found at www.rickmcgrath.com.

Illustration by Robert Edwards

© 2002 aq magazine