Chris Opoku: “I wanted to give people a space to freely share their opinions without fear of judgement”
A GCU student has launched her own magazine and is giving more than 30 contributors around the world the chance to share their opinion on social and political issues.
Fourth year BA (Hons) Multimedia Journalism student Chris Opoku has combined her passion for writing with her love of magazines to create The Chritical.
She said: “I grew up near Venice in Italy and only moved to Scotland six years ago. Writing has always been something I enjoyed doing. I started my own blog in high school and also developed an interest in current affairs and politics. From there, I just decided journalism was the way to go.
“I completed a feature writing module during third year at GCU and I really enjoyed it. I then knew that magazine feature writing was what I really wanted to do and in January this year I started my own.”
Chris added: “I didn’t see much point in The Chritical only being my voice. A lot of people on both the right and left of politics feel like they can’t express their opinion because readers will automatically be like, ‘oh, you’re clearly with this political party’. I wanted to give people a space to freely share their opinions without fear of judgement.”
In order to create that space, Chris worked tirelessly over four months to promote and recruit ahead of The Chritical’s first edition.
She explained: “When I officially launched in January, I recruited volunteers on social media – the majority of them being students. I made an Instagram page and I kept it blank to help build a bit of mystery around the magazine. I was posting things like ‘guess the title’ to draw attention to the page. People started to notice and eventually I received quite a few applications.
“From there, I developed a really strong team. There are now a total of 32 individuals involved, and we’re still looking for more! We have so many different roles, including a total of 15 online writers, as well as graphic designers, photographers, and our very own admin team.”
The magazine, which mainly focuses on social and political issues, launched in May with a bumper 76-page edition marking its debut.
Chris said: “We released it both online and in print. It felt so special because it was created and designed by our amazing team of volunteers.
“The main ambition of the magazine is to present different viewpoints around certain topics. It’s really nice that we can be civilized and don’t attack each other for our opinions. We can all provide evidence to show why we think the way we think. It’s a great way to show that opinions aren’t always black and white – they can be grey!”
She added: “Our team is massively varied in terms of ethnicity, political views and geographical location. Two of my classmates from GCU are actually involved, but we come from all over the world. There are contributors from Ireland, England, Ghana and New York, to name just a few!
“I really value building a relationship with everyone, so we’re all constantly in touch. The dream would be for us all to meet one day in person.”
The efforts of Chris and the other volunteers received some well-deserved recognition when they were invited to attend ‘Magazine Street’, a brand-new one-day conference held in Edinburgh at the end of September.
The purpose of the event is to celebrate all things magazine publishing, with The Chritical firmly earning their place at the table… and the stage.
Chris said: “There were roughly 200 attendees; students and professionals. Myself and Devon, who’s my classmate and also the arts and film editor of the magazine, went along. It was great to have that bit of support, and also gave her the chance to network in-between the different workshops on offer!
“I was asked to speak about The Chritical and our journey so far. When I got up on the stage, I saw all these people who were there for one reason: magazines. It just felt a nice, safe place for me.”
She added: “There was really good discussion throughout the day around building a community within the world of magazines. It was all practical and very helpful.
“We got some new followers on the page and nice messages from people. I got an email from a distributor who offered their help too.”
Aside from the benefits of networking and public speaking, the event also provided the opportunity for Chris to reassess the future of the magazine.
She said: “I felt quite inspired after it and decided we’re going to relaunch the first edition to make it bigger and better. We’ve had a real insight into how we can be more professional as a publication, and we're all in agreement it can only be of benefit.
“We’re now also going to look at writing longer articles to try and stimulate debate, as well as including more original photography.”
So, the future of The Chritical certainly seems to be in order, but what about Chris on a personal level?
“I hated the idea of doing a Masters before The Chritical; however, over the last few months, I realised that I need to improve my journalistic skills if I want to continue to develop the magazine. As a result, I’ve decided to go and do a Masters in magazine journalism down in London next year.
“It all just stems from wanting to help take my team further. They are so talented and I really want the world to see what they have to say for themselves.”
You can follow The Chritical on Twitter and Instagram
By Ross Clark
Got an SHLS or GSBS story? Email me at Ross.Clark@gcu.ac.uk or message me on Twitter