Q&A: The Nugget is just more than a student newspaper
By Jieou Dela Cruz on October 15, 2024
The NAIT Nugget offers multiple opportunities for you to get your voice heard. I had the chance to sit down with Amy St. Amand, editor of The Nugget about how The Nugget represents the student voice, and how they can involve themselves in the NAIT student community.
What’s your main objective, what you want to provide to the NAIT Student community basically?
The Nugget, I mean, we’re NAIT’s student newspaper. We’re not just a newspaper, we’ve got social media, video website, etcetera. But we do a monthly print issue. I think our main goal is just to inform NAIT students about things that are happening in their community, but also give students a voice. That’s a big one for us. We talked a lot about how students in a large organization or large institution, don’t really have a place to kind of share their thoughts and their feelings in a tangible way. And so, we’d like to make The Nugget that place where they can say what they’re thinking, share their feelings, be heard, all that sort of stuff, while also getting practical experience as well.
What image did you guys want to portray your listeners?
We are a good balance of professional and trustworthy, but also like cheeky and fun and youthful. Because our content like is very much geared to NAIT students and never want it to be like very, very formal or very serious. That’s just not going to resonate.
What sort of aspects would you want to better promoted from The Nugget?
Getting contributors is always a huge focus of ours. They can write, they can do videos, they can do photos, they can do art. There’s a lot of different opportunities and they get paid for all of it. So that’s cool. We do also do an event series called Pizza and Pointers, it’s once a month on the last Tuesday of the month where we give you free pizza and then you talk about some sort of aspect, or I talk about some sort of aspect of like journalism or media. So, attendance at those depending on the timing could be. Around only like 15 people.
Are there any specific events you want to capitalize on?
Pitch meetings previously they were like an hour long. You had to stay for the whole thing. And there were Wednesdays from 12 to one in like a random room. It changed to a drop in this year and expanded it to 11:00 to 1. The idea is that people can come in and ask a question. Look at the pitches we have open. If they need help with something they’re working on, they can chat with an editor, but you also don’t have to stay for the whole time. You can literally come in for 10 minutes. You can stay for the whole 2 hours if you want.
What is your most common compliment that you hear about your business either from the staff or from the students that come in?
I think people often tell us that we do a good job of like representing the student voice. The Nugget back in the day used to be more of like a Edmonton paper. They really wouldn’t cover NAIT at all. It’s just like it’s very focus and it’s relatable to students because we focus heavily on the NAIT Community, that’s not all we do. We call it a NAIT angle. Everything we publish needs to have some sort of connection to NAIT students. We also did like a brand redesign in the last year to try and update the inside and just kind of the overall feel with it. So, we’ve had a lot of compliments and kind of just like the way they look that they’re, you know, fun.
You can also get yourself involved in the NAIT community today by becoming a contributor at The Nugget. They are looking for people who are immersed in the world of media and journalism. If you have skills in editing, photography, and videography then this is the perfect chance to get involved now.