Student Magazines Try To Be Normal Challenge

BY PHOEBE ROBERTSON

On 15 August 2025 at 10:20 p.m., Craccum’s managing editor Lewis Creed issued a press release calling for a Special General Meeting where students would vote on whether Auckland’s student magazine should leave the Auckland University Students’ Association (AUSA) and reincorporate as an independent society. Four days later, on 19 August, editor-in-chief Harry Sutton published a personal statement rejecting the idea, downplaying the financial crisis, and insisting independence was rash. He retracted the post the next day after a furious backlash from his colleagues.

For digital editor Lee Li—the third member of Craccum’s three-headed masthead—the betrayal cut deeper than a bad call. “Harry posted [the statement] without consultation to me and Lewis, and we told him not to,” she recalled in an interview on 21 August. “The reason he dropped out [from supporting independence] was because the AUSA general manager had a meeting with Harry and left us out—to intimidate and cause division.”

On paper, Craccum is designed as an egalitarian newsroom. All three editors are appointed by the Craccum Administrative Board (CAB), each contracted for 15 hours per week at $24.50/hour, down from $27.80/hour in 2024. “Sometimes I work 30 hours,” Li said. “But that’s OK, because I know it’s important. I’m not just doing it for money.”

In practice, the structure limits them. CAB is chaired by AUSA’s Engagement Vice-President and includes the Association Secretary, an academic, an industry appointee, and the editors—who collectively share just one vote between them. Other members of the editorial team may attend only if the chair permits, and even then, they do not vote  “We have repeatedly been excluded from decision-making and consultation,” Li wrote in one of several emails in late August.

This is the paradox: three editors with identical contracts, but when it came to the biggest decision in nearly a century of Craccum’s history, they found themselves divided, and one of them acted unilaterally after a meeting from AUSA’s general manager.

What makes this fight combustible is not just governance but money. Each editor has cited a different figure for Craccum’s budget:

• Lewis Creed told students the magazine’s budget was $150,000, and that sudden cuts in 2025 had triggered the push for independence .

• Harry Sutton, in his 19 August statement, cited $116,826 for 2025 and $117,000 for 2026, calling it “not a loss, not a real gain” .

• Lee Li said the numbers were “misleading” and pointed to official Student Levy consultation documents that listed $150,000 for Craccum in 2025 while Sutton insisted it was $116k. “The numbers don’t add up,” she said. “We’re trying to figure out where that $30,000 went.”

To resolve the contradictions, I wrote to the University of Auckland media team on 21 August asking directly which figure was correct. Their written response on 26 August confirmed that:

• The 2025 Student Levy consultation documents had indeed provisionally listed $150,000 for 2024;

• AUSA later told the University the final 2024 allocation was $124,575;

• The figure “as submitted for the 2026 consultation review” for 2025 is $116,826;

• AUSA advised the University that there was no plan to reduce funding between 2025 and 2026, but the University admitted it had no detailed 2026 forecast in hand.

The University also acknowledged that the consultation documents wrongly described Craccum as “weekly,” which it called an “oversight” .

When I put the same questions to AUSA and CAB members, including where Sutton’s $116,826/117,000 figures originated, I received no replies. Multiple emails over the week of 21–25 August—including direct requests for CAB membership lists to follow up with individuals—went unanswered.

What this means is that the original trigger for independence—a “cut” in 2026—never formally existed. The University is clear: funding is flat between 2025 and 2026. But for editors inside Craccum, the sense of being cut is not an illusion. They saw their pay rate drop, their hours capped at 15, and their print schedule collapse to just seven issues in Semester Two. They watched as Student Levy documents said $150,000, while only $116,826 made it through. In their eyes, the missing $30,000 was proof of structural neglect, even if the University frames it as a difference between provisional and final allocations.

That gap between what’s on paper and what’s lived in the newsroom explains the rift. Creed and Li reacted to the reality of fewer pages, fewer roles, and tighter controls; Sutton reacted to the official spreadsheets. Both can claim to be right. But only one side saw their staff, their contributors, and their output shrinking.

Li and Creed also complain of reduced independence: “We don’t have advertising control—ads run that we don’t find appropriate. We don’t have access to a Craccum bank account. We have to pay and then be reimbursed,” Li said. Complaints go beyond day-to-day frustrations. In 2024, AUSA amended its constitution to add a line that Craccum’s “editorial independence” applies only insofar as content does not result in “legal, reputational and/or financial trouble” for the Association. In 2025, that language was lifted directly into Craccum’s staff contracts.

The way it was done, Li and Creed said in a joint statement, undercut Craccum. The “reputational harm” change was not debated as a standalone amendment. Instead, it was folded into a package of constitutional updates described in the meeting minutes only as “some changes driven by the Incorporated Societies Act.” No one explained to members that the effect of those words was to give AUSA the power to shut down any Craccum story it judged reputationally damaging.

This is the heart of the incorporation push. “Seeking editorial independence is one of the key reasons we want to become an Incorporated Society,” Li and Creed wrote in an email on the 25 of August. “Incorporation would grant us self-governance, which in turn ensures editorial independence. The idea is that being an Incorporated Society would protect Craccum from AUSA amending their constitution to interfere with Craccum’s governance. This was how our editorial independence was eroded in the first place” (Craccum independence statement, August 2025).

Li and Creed see two possible paths forward. The first is full incorporation: drafting their own constitution, electing their own officers, and writing in explicit protections—like mandatory Māori and Pasifika editor roles—that can’t be quietly deleted. Under that model, Craccum would still contract with the University for funding but would no longer sit under AUSA’s constitutional umbrella. The second path is reform from within: a motion at the SGM to restore the pre-2024 clause guaranteeing “complete editorial independence” and to codify it more strongly inside AUSA.

But even that “stay” option, they warn, is fragile. A strong SGM resolution could restore independence, but a simple majority at AUSA’s next AGM could strip it back out. “In that scenario,” the editors wrote, “the proposed changes could easily be undone within a year at the next AGM, so it would be important that Craccum would have an on-going strong lobbying presence and turn out at AUSA meetings to maintain our funding and freedom.”

That fragility is why the “reputational harm” clause looms so large. In a single stroke, it turned editorial independence from a right into a conditional privilege. For Lee and Creed, the lesson is clear: as long as AUSA can rewrite its constitution without debate, Craccum’s ability to report critically is compromised. Incorporation, they argue, would prevent that ever happening again.

Ultimately, the decision now lies with students. “The ultimate decision for the future of Craccum will be up to UoA students to vote how they want their student magazine to operate and be governed,” the editors wrote. “We welcome debate about these issues because student media matters. Our goals haven’t changed; the open letter exists alongside the SGM as expression support for student voice against funding cuts and censorship.”