Former staff members of the Oregon Commentator and Flux magazines have their sights set on reviving the currently defunct Oregon Voice magazine, which has lain dormant since its last issue in November.
The group is currently talking with ASUO Accounti ng Coordinator Jennifer Creighton about the necessary steps to secure the Voice’s budget and find some office space. Although the quartet said they must tie up a number of loose ends before “the paper is a go,” they have a detailed vision for how the Voic e can again fill its role as an arts and leisure magazine with a liberal view of campus and community events.
Eric Qualheim, who has worked as a copy editor for the Commentator and the Emerald, said he believes the campus needs a magazine like the Voi ce that can provide detailed feature stories and event listings for the entertainment scene in Eugene.
“I’ve worked for the Commentator and the Emerald, and neither one quite fills the niche on campus the Voice can fill,” Qualheim said.
Brian Boo ne, who left the Commentator at the end of this year, said his and his partners’ vision of the Voice includes four sections: news features with a liberal viewpoint; an entertainment section including coverage of books, movies, music and theater; a humor s ection; and a section for student submissions of writing, art and photos.
“It’s the Oregon Voice. It should represent the community,” Boone said. “It would be a nice niche to fill.”
Raechel Sims, who started at the Commentator in January, said she found it strange the campus didn’t have a liberal news magazine, and as her views moved to the left and the Commentator’s moved further to the right, the idea of making the Voice the missing liberal paper became more enticing.
“It’s really ironic tha t, of all the universities, the U of O doesn’t have a liberal paper,” Sims said.
She added that her view of the Voice’s news section would cover ongoing situations that disappear from the radar of daily news, such as what the Green Party is doing dur ing non-election years, and the section’s stories should offer solutions, not just reports on problems.
Justin Kistner, who worked on Flux this year, is out of town on vacation and could not be reached for comment before press time.
Boone said Kis tner, a designer, had also considered restarting the magazine. The four met and Boone said Kistner’s layout ideas meshed well into their content ideas.
The four share many coincidences beyond the fact that three of them have left the conservative camp us paper to start a liberal magazine. Qualheim and Boone ran for ASUO Executive last year on a “joke-candidacy-or-is-it?” platform of keeping the campus vampire-free and making every student pay $1 for a general student scholarship.
Boone also lambast ed the sinking Voice in the Commentator’s annual campus media criticism issue. Boone turned the lyrics of The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” into a metaphor for the magazine’s silent demise on campus.
“No better way to apply my criticism than to rework it a nd apply my own advice, I guess,” he said.
Although they still need the approval of the ASUO, the four have already received the blessing of former Voice editor Rob Elder, whom Boone described as a semi-trustee of the paper.
“It seemed like the r ight thing to do,” he said.
If everything goes as planned and runs on schedule — and Qualheim stressed that’s a big if — the first issue of the new Oregon Voice could hit the stands as early as mid-fall term. Until then, the four are planning the tricky balancing act of keeping the recognizable Oregon Voice image and creating a new paper that reflects their ideas and creative choices.
“Every good magazine has a definite tone to it, from Newsweek to even Maxim,” Boone said.3