The Beagle is AU’s newest publication with a satirical look at everything from President Neil Kerwin’s food preferences to the excessive wealth of the student population. Three AU students, who have chosen to remain anonymous, are behind the creation of this comedic news organization.
“To be honest, I had the idea a year and a half ago, but I’m a big procrastinator,” said one of the three writers, who calls himself D. “This year, the three of us got really into reading The Onion. We figured we could make one more specific to AU.”
The Beagle staff writers want to let AU students know that they should be self-deprecating more often.
“A big thing we’ve noticed is that a lot of people at AU, ourselves included, take themselves really seriously and are not willing to laugh at themselves,” D said. “We want people to be able to laugh at themselves.”
Eleven articles have been published since The Beagle’s debut on Feb. 9. Articles have touched on AU’s historically low turnout for athletic competitions, the temporary closing of Megabytes and the rivalry between President Kerwin and SG President Pat Kelly. The staff writers draw on inspiration from current AU events and ongoing trends.
“Mine usually come to me when I’m sitting in class daydreaming,” D said. “Headlines usually come first. Once you have it in your head, it doesn’t take that long.”
The Beagle also publishes a print edition every Monday.
“We’ve been funding it ourselves just because we really like the idea of having print editions,” said N, another anonymous staff writer. “We’ve been using a lot of our leftover printing dollars.”
After just three weeks of publication, The Beagle has amassed more than 450 Facebook likes and 120 Twitter followers as of Feb. 16. The writers said they were very surprised by how quickly their publication attracted attention.
“We’ve gotten lots of positive reception from people we wouldn’t expect,” said A, the third Beagle writer. “What really struck us the most were alumni who were hopping on board as well.”
The reception hasn’t all been positive. The writers posted on The Beagle’s Facebook page that an MGC official prevented them from distributing their print editions on Feb. 17.
“It was a minor run-in, so we thought we’d joke about it,” N said.
Nonetheless, The Beagle has tentative plans to expand in the future. Submissions from AU students started arriving within two to three hours of the publication’s launch. The staff hopes to start including contributions from the AU community soon.
“We’ve toyed with the idea of adding video segments,” N said.
Video segments pose a challenge to the writers’ anonymity, however. The writers have chosen to remain anonymous to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to themselves individually.
“We honestly just think it’s funnier,” N said of the decision.
The three-man staff is most proud of the story Neil Kerwin Likes Mudbox Wontons so far, but they’re looking to tackle new subjects from any angle.
“Everything is about the AU community,” A said. “We’re not gonna avoid certain things, we’re not gonna specifically target anything.”
The writers will take reader feedback into account as they continue, but they have no plans to stop publishing anytime soon.
“As long people are going to keep reading them, we’re going to keep writing them,” D said. “We just have so much fun doing this.”
