The Jute Journal began in February 2025 as a weekly newsletter under The Magdalen, boiling the week’s news down into one email. A £35m deficit had been revealed in November 2024, and students and staff were getting mixed messages or none at all. Our first story, Suffering Staff Speak Out on Leadership Failures, went out that February. From there we kept covering the financial and management crisis, with one goal: telling students what was happening at their university.
It grew quickly. We launched our own website, built an editorial team, and started publishing news online.
Summer 2025 was spent putting a core team together, building the site and preparing our first print issue. The team was formed over a pint in The George Orwell, one of Dundee’s best pubs and fittingly named after a famous journalist. Eva Milne was Editor in Chief and Connor Bertie Deputy Editor, with Nick Whelan as Head of Print, Alexander Stewart as Head of Photography and Esme Ong as Head of Copy. We all agreed Dundee students deserved more than official statements and corporate emails.
In June 2025 Eva went on BBC Reporting Scotland to talk about the financial crisis and The Jute Journal, which helped spread the word. Our first print issue came out in September 2025.
Since then we’ve printed four issues, been on national TV and radio, been featured in The Courier, and been recognised in several awards and shortlists.
For 2026/27 Connor Bertie took over as Editor in Chief, with Nirmi Parekh as Deputy. Meet the current team.