There are so many reasons to join a society: to increase job prospects, make new friends, start a hobby or just to get out of halls once in a while. Joining York Vision is the perfect way to achieve all of these things simultaneously.
We’re a society that thrives off a shared passion for creativity and teamwork. With an editorial team of 60 people and hundreds of contributors, we publish three print issues a term to a readership of 10,000 people, and constantly update our website which has a quarter of a million unique users visiting it a year. There is no better opportunity to hone your passion for journalism to such a wide audience anywhere else on campus.
You might have heard we’re the UK’s most awarded student newspaper: it’s true, with 5 Guardian Student Publication of the Year awards under our belt, and countless awards for our contributors, we’re nationally known for the quality of our output.
“York Vision is totally fantastic… brave and amazing and important [journalism]” – Alan Rusbridger, Editor of the Guardian
“A superbly produced, exciting newspaper providing an excellent service to its readers”
– Piers Morgan
There are several things that set York Vision apart from the other student media outlets on campus. The first is our commitment to taking high quality journalism seriously whilst not taking ourselves too seriously. Our sense of humour when it comes to reporting on and off-campus news differentiates us from dry lists of data about things students don’t care about: we only write about things that students are actually interested in. Even if it’s just finding out if the University is prepared for an alien invasion or zombie apocalypse (it’s not!) we’re the ones writing the stories that dominate campus debate.
We also, unlike any other newspaper or magazine, have termly elections. This means that rather than holding two positions in your time at University, you can hold up to 9 different positions in the newspaper. You can choose to work your way up to the top positions quickly, or flit from different sections, learning how they each work in their turn. You can even turn your hand to the business side of things or technical aspects such as the website if you decide that writing and editing isn’t for you; there are so many parts to York Vision that can be explored over your three years with us.
Whether you’re interested in being a contributor, photographer, or an editor, there are loads of opportunities that being a part of York Vision can provide you. With Vision, you could find yourself being flown to international music festivals to review them, seeing world-famous musicians, interviewing sports players, politicians or actors, getting free meals from restaurants, free tickets to theatre performances or events – if you can review it, we can probably get it for you. You’ll have some amazing experiences and the chance to share them with the world through your writing, we’d love you to be a part of it.
The most valuable part of being in York Vision though is the unique learning opportunity it provides. We’ll teach you how to write for each section and how to lay up a page using software like Adobe InDesign and Photoshop, as well as countless other skills – but learning goes both ways, and we’d love to hear your ideas for how to improve and change York Vision. Journalism is a dynamic and exciting field, it’s constantly changing and we’re constantly changing with it. We need fresh ideas and enthusiastic new editors to help us stay ahead of the curve.
Being a part of York Vision has afforded our members the opportunity to get work experience at every paper you can imagine working for
in the future. In the last year alone, our members have had placements at The Times, the Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Sun, The Mirror, Metro, the Sunday Times, Press Association, Channel 4, the BBC, Sky News, Sky Sports and York Press among many other local papers. Writing for us is a way to show a proven interest in journalism that’s invaluable when looking forward to a career in it.
We’re much more than the writing though, from next term we’ll be diversifying the range of positions available in York Vision. We’ll need a savvy web-team underneath an online editor, a webmaster, graphic designers, a business manager and advertising team to take care of Vision’s finances, among the many other positions available.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, York Vision has been described as ‘a drinking society that makes a great newspaper on the side’ – after all of the hard work putting together a beautiful newspaper, we have some incredible socials. We’re a friendly and welcoming society where people often make the strongest friendships of their time at university. We even have a dedicated Alumni group so that Vision Veterans can remain in touch after uni ends – but that’s all a long way away from you. We’re just looking forward to welcoming you to the team. Find us at Freshers’ Fair in the media tent on Vanbrugh Paradise, on Facebook, or Twitter, or email us at [email protected] to find out more!
Join our elections event on facebook here!