The end of the Interrobang is to me much like experiencing a death in the family. I know this as I begin to write this final column on the anniversary of my dad’s passing 17 years ago on March 26, and my mom’s sudden passing just over two years ago on March 2. Two sorrows to which I still feel to this day. The personal outreach I did to many past staff is very much like having a loved one pass. There’s the reflection, the sharing of stories, the sadness of what will no longer be, and in this instance what the Interrobang meant to them and how for so many, it helped lay the foundation for their careers.

My Interrobang story goes back 35 years or so, first as a student writer, then as a freelancer, then as a contract employee to being hired full-time as Publications Manager and editor. The Interrobang was and still is for so many of our student staff the gateway to being active members of the Fanshawe Student Union (FSU).

For me, if Interrobang had not existed, my time at Fanshawe and with the FSU would have been two years of attending classes and not much else. As a student in the Broadcast Journalism program, my time to be active in the FSU was non-existent. I didn’t have time to run for election and commit to the hours needed, there was no appeal to being a class rep and the time needed for that. I was in a program that demanded I attend classes, work the news desk and on-air shifts that included, mornings, afternoons and evenings. On top of that, I needed to generate two original news stories a day. So, when I discovered that FSU published a newspaper called Interrobang, I had my aha moment, and I never looked back.

I recall working up the nerve to march on down to the Interrobang office to inquire about how I could be involved. What I found was a perfect match. I found my people. My time commitment was to meet a deadline; it didn’t matter if I worked on my stories during the day or after midnight, the goal was always the same: have your story in by the deadline. It fit my schedule perfectly, as it has for all those students past and present that have contributed to the success of Interrobang. Especially for those students with intense course workloads who were constrained by time.

Interrobang was for me what it was for so many of our staff: family.

The Interrobang office was always a hub of activity of writers, photographers, cartoonists and graphic designers. Student leaders often dropped in to connect. It was an area of debate, an exchange of ideas, love and laughter. I went from being a boy to a man. My student experience was so much the richer in large part to the Interrobang and the opportunities it created to make a difference and an impact that can’t be measured in numbers alone.

It provided a lifeline to not only the staff who worked on the publication, but to our readers who could connect with other students in programs they’d never heard of, celebrating student successes no other news outlets would report since it would only matter to the Fanshawe community.

It’s a message that has been repeated many times over since the announcement Interrobang will be ceasing publication with this last issue. What a loss for the students of Fanshawe this will be. And while the impact may not be felt tomorrow, it will be felt sooner than later. Who will tell the stories of varsity athletes, of students doing good in the community, stories of Fanshawe students winning marketing competitions? Stories on our student filmmakers, fashion designers, photographers and so much more?

How does one encapsulate 35 years of their work life into words and constrained by space? I have an endless amount of personal reflection when it comes to Interrobang. To the columns I wrote as a student championing the FSU’s ambition to open a full-time bar and restaurant that came to be known as the Out Back Shack. To the 10s of thousands of stories we covered, including one where a student was violently sexually assaulted in a boardwalk west of Highbury Ave., who opened up to Interrobang to tell their story to our readers.

Recently, the fence outside of T Building has been in the news after a driver crashed into it, but what you may not know is that fence was erected in the first place to force students to cross Oxford St. at the intersection, because multiple students had been hit attempting to cross in an unsafe manner. Each time Interrobang was there to report the news to Fanshawe students.

One of the first students to open my door as editor and pitch me their column idea was Nauman Farooq, nearly 28 years ago. The column was a motoring one, reviewing automobiles and talking cars. As he reflected to me recently, that opportunity to contribute to the student newspaper turned into a career for him as an automotive journalist that has been flown around the world to test cars on closed tracks. He’s tested some of the most exotic cars in the world, been loaned vehicles for weeks at a time all the while tracing his start back to Interrobang.

I look back and see so many student faces that turned their time at Interrobang into careers as journalists, communications experts and executive roles, and I can’t help but feel so proud of each one of them. I look back at the editors and reporters that helped shape so many of our students…every one of them I have a personal story that I wish I could share about them. But know this if you are reading this: I truly appreciated our time together, and even as time has slipped on by, social media has allowed me to keep up and cheer on your successes.

From a personal standpoint, I would like to thank my editor, Kim Jarmyn Carter. I’m not sure what it was exactly that you saw in me when I first approached you about contributing to Interrobang. Your mentorship and friendship helped shape me as I was finding my people on campus. It helped ignite a fire and passion in me about the importance of student journalism and has fuelled me since. I am very much looking forward to grabbing a can of Coke with you this summer. That you opened the door for me to succeed you as Publications Manager and editor is something I have never forgotten. It turned a student job into a 30-year career at the FSU as of July 2025. I am forever indebted to you, and in a way, all those that I have had the honour of hiring, mentoring and supporting during my tenure should know that you are the root for all that has come since. I took over a role that was an office of one, full-time person and a bunch of part-time students, and grew it to include several full-time roles while always maintaining and growing student positions and insisting that the most important voices were those of our students. That above all, students would drive our content, and their stories would always be our reason why.

I want to acknowledge all those individuals over the years who were trusted sources of information. They made columns like the Buzz Box, an entertainment style, edgy column that put the college on notice. Those sources came from every corner of the campus including the highest offices, feeding us the breadcrumbs to publicly alert students to things they should be paying attention to, and calling out potential changes that would not be of benefit to them. I miss the days of the plain, brown, unmarked envelope being slid under the office door with photocopied documents, highlighted and pointing us in directions to expose the backroom decisions being made without transparency.

Finally, I’d like to thank our readers. Without you, there would have been no reason for our existence. There is something to be said for walking around campus helping with distribution and having you readers eagerly picking it up to read it.

As many of you have indicated over the years, this was your connection to the campus. It helped keep you informed, and this will be the greatest loss to our campus community: independent, student-driven storytelling that informed readers with facts, rather than some messaging that is seeking an intended outcome. I know during the lead-up to winding down the Interrobang, it has been cited that the Meta block on Canadian journalism has led to decreased online views, which is true (from about 10,000 views to about 5,000 views an issue). I do believe that is a bit of a red herring argument though, as numbers don’t always tell the full story, or can be used to drive a narrative.

I’ll take the view that despite the Meta block and all it has done to damage journalism in Canada, 5,000+ readers were still seeking out Interrobang content without being driven to it by social media links. Thank you to those who continued to seek out the content despite the obstacles in finding our content.

Remember this: Interrobang is defined as a “?” and “!” fused together to share the same point and means to question vehemently. I urge you all to continue to question vehemently anything and everything, today, tomorrow and forever.