“Oh, that’s interesting, they have a newspaper here”

“In ten years’ time, I’ll open the newspapers again and think of Maastricht”

About fifty centimetres, no more, says Andrea Bonanomi, when describing how thick his collection of Observants from the last few years is. As the third-year Psychology student puts it, he has “made a whole journey with the newspaper”. Since coming to Maastricht, he has read and kept every issue, without exception. “The newspapers were always something familiar and are a remembrance of my time here.”

Now it is the end of an era, for both parties. “I have nearly finished my Bachelor’s, I’d like to do a Master’s, but I don’t really know yet what. Or where. I’m mostly thinking about what I want to do with my life.”

How straightforward it all seemed when he first arrived here and still had everything to discover. “When I first saw Observant, I thought, oh, that’s interesting. They even have a newspaper here that’s published weekly.” Reading it became part of his routine, a way to learn all the ins and outs of the university, as well as get to know the city and student life. Although stories about the latter aren’t necessarily his preferred subject. “I’d rather read about things I don’t know about yet, or that surprise me, as a way of learning new things.” He remembers an article on fossil excavations, “highly recommended. I’m interested in history, how things change over time, both in the city and at the university. You see that reflected in the newspaper too.”  

According to him, such stories demonstrate the value of print. “Only the best is printed, there’s limited space, so the editors have to make decisions,” says Bonanomi, who has occasionally seen the quality of other media decline once they made the switch to online. “The digital world is unlimited, everything fits, it becomes quantity over quality.”

He doesn’t expect that to be the case immediately for Observant – he has signed up for the weekly newsletter, where he will still be able to follow the news, and other stories. At least keeping them will be a lot easier – and lighter. “When I go back to Italy, I’ll take my stack of Observants with me, to my parents’ house. In ten years’ time, I’m sure I’ll pick them up again and think back to Maastricht.” 

“I’ll never bump into my good friend again”

Like a good friend waiting for you every week. It’s the best way Yuan Zhu can describe it. For the Computer Science student, Observant has always been more than a newspaper. “A fixed part of my life as a student, a weekly meeting that fuels my curiosity and raises certain expectations. And if we’d missed each other, because I was out of town, for example, it really felt like a loss. Or very bad luck,” says Zhu, who came to Maastricht nearly two years ago.

Thanks to the newspaper, the Chinese student learnt all about the city and the university. He also practiced his language skills, by comparing the English articles to the Dutch ones printed on the other side.

He’s brutally honest when he calls the switch to exclusively online reporting “an impoverishment of the human experience. The physical paper invites you to slow down, and is, in fact, a reason to push aside the digital world – which already commands so much of our attention – for a while.” What’s more, says Zhu, there are limits to paper. What you see is what you get, there is no more to the newspaper than the pages of text in your hand, and that’s a good thing. “Online, you can endlessly click through and lose yourself in a jumble of information.”

However, he will still follow Observant, albeit with a heavy heart. “The newspaper was a part of the university and student life, and it provided rhythm and structure. Call it a ritual, that repeated itself time and again whenever a new issue hit the stands. That’s coming to an end; I’m still here, but my good friend has vanished, at least physically.”

“Maybe we’ll have to print the articles and hang them up”

The stand that always held Observant had already disappeared, “it was taken away at the start of the academic year due to a lack of interest,” says Mijke Kapsenberg, chair of rowing association Saurus, pointing at an empty spot in the clubhouse. Yet the newspaper has not completely vanished, on the door of the board room, there are still cuttings from previous years. Some are still reasonably intact, others are yellowed or torn, a few have been laminated.

“They’re a nice memory of everything we’ve done here. Such as results we achieved, or debates (sometimes national) we played a part in.” For example, the article at the top of the door talks about the loss of the lightest rowing class – popular among students – in global competitions and how Saurus is handling that. The articles, says Kapsenberg, are also a reminder that media is important, that sometimes you need them to tell a particular story.

The fact that the paper was not always well read is a “generational thing”, she says. “Most students grew up in a digital world, they’ll skim something and then scroll to the next thing. You have to actually pick up a paper, take it with you, take the time to read it.” Something she herself enjoyed, when she had the chance. “Especially if there was a new issue, I’d pick one up. But when I’m busy, I prefer to read online. I’ll continue to do that, I like the variation of news and background and facts you might never have heard of before. For me, the end of the physical paper is not the end of Observant.”

But what about the collection on the board room door? Will that wall of fame be expanded on? “I will miss that, yes, cutting them out and hanging them up. Maybe we’ll just have to print the articles and stick them on the door.”   

A new morning routine

Stefanie Hollanders-van Oostrum, programme assistant UM-MUMC+/azM collaboration, likes paper. It’s not that she’s never online, she even has a blog. “But being able to hold something, that is special. I’ve even featured in a paper or magazine a few times, it was all I could not to paper the walls with them.”

In her attic, there are several scrapbooks full of articles on her favourite band, Take That. “There used to be the International News Stand in Maastricht station; on Sundays, I would buy all the British newspapers they were in. Now, a few times a year, I order all the newspapers and magazines I want to cut things out of from abroad. Sometimes I pay more in import duties than I do for the magazine!”

She also read Observant on paper from the start. First as an Economics student. “I used to take it home, my parents would read it too. And still do – my father has since died, but if my mother doesn’t see a copy of Observant at the Dominicanen bookshop, she sends me a message me to ask why there wasn’t one.”

When she started working for the Executive Board as a secretary in 2010, the paper helped her to get to know the organisation better. “Every Thursday morning, one colleague would bring a stack for the whole department. I would start with Bergbroeder [pseudonym used by Wammes Bos, who wrote satirical pieces about the Executive Board and particularly then President Jo Ritzen]. Later, I was the colleague who would bring a stack of Observants for the rest, although I have to say that in the last few years, I was the only one who still read the actual paper.” Has she saved any articles? “Yes, of Jo’s departure, and subsequent President Martin Paul’s. And of course, my own column. In 2023, Observant held a writing competition about holiday woes, which I won.”

After the summer, her Thursday routine will look slightly different. “I always used to get a coffee from Coffeelovers in the Student Service Centre – that’s gone too, it’s Bandito now – and then flip through the paper. It’ll take some getting used to.”