Hello and welcome everyone to Western’s Sydney Universities Media Day, thank you so much to the WSUP team for inviting me here and letting me be part of this special occasion. First off, I would like to introduce myself, my name is Eugenia Kourkoutas, and I was an editor for W’SUP News from September 2024 to January 2025. I am an upcoming graduate of Western Sydney University finishing with a Bachelor of Arts with majors in social anthropology and social cultural analysis.
My journey within the WSUP Team started before I even joined in knowing that I have always been fascinated by the ways our lives have been shaped by our cultures, societies, and histories and how all of these factors have created an essential foundation in the ways we view people, places, and beliefs within our modern world.
However, it would be naïve of me to not mention that these essential foundations of history and society has and continues to uphold social injustices and continuous inequalities that are faced by people of all ethnicities, genders, sexualities and backgrounds today. Therefore, throughout my university studies and even dating back to my HSC courses, I have always admired the work of social researchers, scholarly writers and most importantly, journalists.
I loved the ways they spoke the truth of things happening in our world, raised awareness of these social inequalities in ways that were professional yet impactful. It made me realise the power of journalist writing, how it commands your attention. Yet it also showed me how emotional it can be, in giving people justice, sparking change, and evoking the need for education just by understanding our world or someone else’s within just a few sentences.
It is magical, powerful and I wanted to be that change. I wanted to teach and bring understanding through my words and hopefully be a voice for others who felt voiceless within this world. However, these aspirations came with pressure and doubts. Doubts of thinking that was never good enough or worthy enough to become a journalist because I did not get a bachelor’s in communication or journalism and that therefore, no one would give me the chance to at least try and pursue this dream.
Suddenly I got a notification in my mailbox. It was an email from Western Life, showing me, a digital flyer saying that the Western Sydney University student paper WSUP News was hiring. I applied thinking, “what I do I have to lose” and a couple of weeks later, I got the message saying I was accepted.
To say I was excited was an understatement, I was excited, terrified, nervous all at once for this amazing opportunity, thinking how wonderful it will be that I can finally apply everything I’ve learnt within my degree and use it to help and become a voice for others.
Within my time at WSUP I was able to become molded into the person I wanted to be. I was able to be a platform for the student voice not only in Western but for other universities and communities beyond, educate our students of things happening within Western Life and validate that the lives, feelings, and experiences of all students have and will always matter.
This success, however, did come through a multitude of errors, mistakes, and learning. I remember requesting a meeting with my Publication Director Natasa when I first started the position. Telling her how I was absolutely terrified to begin, and I did not feel as confident as my peers in what to do and how I can juggle my workload along with university assignments and a part time job. But even with these fears, I kept on trying.
I listened intently during my induction, which taught me the basics of journalism structure and integrity. I gave myself schedules and routines to ensure I kept up with deadlines and assignments and I learnt so much from the experiences of my peers who kept me asking questions and helped me so much with my stories when I was not sure.
And slowly but surely, each story got better, my confidence grew, and I started to become proud of my work and most importantly, proud of the person I was becoming. My greatest achievement within my time at WSUP was when I was able to cover a long piece article detailing updates about a refused encampment protest that occurred at the University of Wollongong. I was proud of the work I put in, to seek the truth, and bring a story highlighting the importance of student resilience and freedom of speech.
But my greatest achievement was the feedback I got from the student who brought us the story herself about her student organisation. She reached out to me personally, saying how important, meaningful, and accurate the story was to herself and her community, thanking me for my time and care with her experience and her story. She ended her email by saying “if you are planning to pursue journalism as a career, I am sure it is a bright future ahead.” This brought me to tears knowing that I did my purpose in bringing awareness and change through my words, solidifying that this career is where I am meant to be.
Overall, I say this story as a means of motivation and validation. My experience within WSUP not only solidified my love for journalism but it also exemplified the continuous importance of student media. Each and every one of you and your peers have a story to tell, a life story that matters and an opinion that deserves to be heard, uplift those stories and continue to write about them within Western Sydney and beyond.
I have seen the passion in my peers when I have edited their work or when they have brought in stories, you all have that same fight for justice, integrity, and the truth. Therefore, I ask of you to continue on, delve into these stories and open those opportunities to yourself to grow within your writing even through the mistakes.
My final message to everyone is that no matter what degree you take or whether you are an editor, contributor or even just a lover of journalism and are wanting to make a change, do not let your fears or doubts hold you back. Take the writing workshops, journalist seminars and opportunities that our academics and publications provide. Your words can and always will matter.
Let yourself learn as much as you can and make those mistakes so you can grow into the best writer, journalist, essayist, or researcher you can be. In a time where uncertainty and censorship divide us, be that uniting force to highlight the student voice and our resilience to prosper and show humanity where others do not.
I will leave you with two quotes I want you to remember within your writing journeys. They are from the novel ‘Burn this Book’ by Toni Morrison, within Chapter Two, co-author John Updike says, “we must write where we stand, as wherever we do stand there is life and an imitation of life we know, however narrow, is our only ground.” And as Toni Morrison also says within the same novel, “a writer’s life and work are not just a gift to mankind, they are its necessity.” So, I ask you all as well as myself to continue to be that necessity, that voice for your peers and that change for society the world needs to hear.
Thank you.
