Gair Rhydd - History

History

The first paid editor, Meirion Jones (now on the BBC's Newsnight), was elected in 1980. Since then, gair rhydd has won numerous student media awards, including several in the early 1990s and, more recently, the title of Best Paper at the NUS/Daily Mirror National Student Journalism Awards 2004, Best Newspaper at the Guardian Student Media Awards 2005, with deputy editor James Anthony also being named overall Student Journalist of the Year, and Quench winning Best Magazine, adding to its award for Student Publication of the Year 2005 at the EMAP Fanzine Awards.

The paper's current editor is Chris Williams. The sub-editor of gair rhydd is Tom Parry-Jones, and the co-editors of Quench are Jo Southerd and Laura Evans.

Past editor Tom Wellingham and two other student journalists were suspended when, on February 4, 2006, they reproduced a controversial cartoon depicting Mohammed. The issue was withdrawn from publication within a day of being released, and the editor published an apology in the next issue.

In 2006, gair rhydd celebrated the publication of its 800th issue. Later that year, on 12 June 2006, a one-off Berliner format edition (issue number 818) was published, making gair rhydd the first non-national British newspaper to use this format, and the only one not owned by Guardian Newspapers. In June 2009, gair rhydd published its 900th issue.

At the 2008 Guardian Student Media Awards, Quench was named Magazine of the Year at an awards ceremony on 26 November 2008. gair rhydd was named runner-up in the Newspaper of the Year category at the following year's awards.