It has been over 20 years since the Media and Communications (MECO) program was established at the University of Sydney. It has been many years more, though, since the University first embarked on the teaching of journalism, as we discovered thanks to Penny O’Donnell while writing this introduction. Among the books in her office, O’Donnell has a copy of Wayward sojourn: Pioneer tertiary journalism education in Australia, a master’s thesis by Glen Coleman, completed at the University of Technology Sydney in 1992. Four journalism diploma courses began in the 1920s: at the University of Western Australia, the University of Melbourne, the University of Queensland, and the University of Sydney, the latter of which ran from 1926 to 1931.

As Coleman writes: “In Sydney, the course almost immediately fell apart through apathetic non-attendance; appalling failure rates; mutual antipathy between journalism and academe, and newspaper rivalry (both particularly severe in genteel Sydney); and, finally, absence of funding.” The course awarded only one diploma in 1930, to Kenneth Hutton Wilkinson. The University of Queensland hosted the only journalism diploma course that thrived in this period. It took until the 1950s for other Australian universities to establish and sustain journalism courses and until 2000 for the University of Sydney to do the same.

In February 2020, the MECO staff met at a two-day retreat to discuss plans for the year, including ideas for 20th anniversary celebrations. At some point during the retreat, the idea for a book arose. It was envisioned as a collaboration between staff and students, modelled on the University of Sydney Anthology project, and aiming to capture stories about teaching and research at MECO in 20 chapters.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The University campus closed down in March 2020 and plans for a celebratory party were shelved. But we kept working on the book through the pandemic, regularly meeting on Zoom. And we continued working on it for many months afterwards. The project took far longer to bring to the finish line than any of us had expected. Students joined, and then moved on. Colleagues struggled to find the time to contribute. Competing priorities and unrelenting workload pressures kept getting in the way. In the end, it took over three years to write and review the chapters.

While we did fill some of the gaps in the discipline’s institutional knowledge, this is not a history book. Inside stories contains a mix of reportage-style pieces and essays written by students and academics in 2020–22 about the research, teaching, people and infrastructure of MECO. They reflect the opinions and experiences of those who were available to talk to the contributors. Not all were, for various reasons, and the uneven coverage remains a key weakness in the journalistic pieces. Despite these shortcomings, the book contains fascinating insights, perspectives and moments chronicled to preserve the rich tapestry of our discipline at the University.

This book shows the dynamic landscape of media and communications in the first two decades of the 21st century and demonstrates how a discipline can keep reinventing itself in this context. The first three chapters look at the history of MECO. Chapter 4 focuses on the merger with Digital Cultures. Over the years, MECO staff members have occupied offices across several buildings at the University, and Chapter 5 chronicles these movements. Chapter 6 looks at the role of the Digital Media Unit in supporting the discipline’s research and teaching. The following chapters (Chapters 7–13) provide insights into the teaching across undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, focusing on the pedagogy of theory and practice and how these have evolved over the years. The chapters on internships (Chapter 14) and overseas fellowships (Chapter 15) showcase successful programs that have been a distinct feature of MECO education. The following three chapters focus on research at MECO: the higher degree research program (Chapter 16), and national and international research collaborations (Chapters 17–18). The book then turns to look at MECO during the COVID-19 pandemic (Chapter 19) and concludes with the future of the discipline (Chapter 20).

An edited collection about the history of a department sounds like a vanity project, but in the process of working on the book we learned much about the importance of collective knowledge and accumulated wisdom that shapes institutional culture, guides decision-making and informs future directions.

In a world characterised by rapid change, institutional memory serves as a bridge connecting the past to the present, allowing an organisation to draw upon past successes and failures to navigate current challenges. By providing a sense of continuity, institutional memory provides context and helps preserve core values and identities while fostering growth and adaptation. It is not simply a catalogue of what has been – it is a crucial tool that informs what could and should be.

This has been a long journey, and we would like to thank all the students and staff who contributed to the book, agreed to numerous interviews, and responded to endless emails with requests for extra information and clarification. We are particularly grateful to Catharine Lumby, Penny O’Donnell, Margaret Van Heekeren, Gerard Goggin, Steven Maras, Fiona Martin and Rod Tiffen. Steven Maras has been invaluable in making the book more accurate and thorough.

Special thanks to the many students who volunteered to research and write chapters while working on their assessments (many also holding down a job): Nikbanoo Ardalan, Anna Jenica Bacud, Rebecca Bowman, Cindy Cameronne, Longtong (Sylvie) Chen, Johanna Ellersdorfer, Chris Gillies, Kiran Gupta, Tim Piccione, Marco Stojanovik, Weien Su, Jenny Welsh, Victoria Wills and Yonglin (Tina) Zhu. We would also like to thank Emily Garnett for her contribution.

We are grateful to Elizabeth Connor, Bethany Cannan, Marcus Miller and Robert Crompton for their help with collating data and facilitating access to various files. Many thanks to Maria Barbagallo for the photos and Diana Chamma for designing the cover.

Finally, we would not have been able to complete the project without the help of Sophie Belotti who copyedited the manuscript with care and attention to detail, Holly Ford who meticulously proofread the first pages, and Chelsea Sutherland who created the index. Chelsea Sutherland and Isabelle Laureta took care of typesetting and finalising the design of the book. Thank you so much.

The ensuing chapters invite you to delve into our past, witness our struggles and successes, and anticipate our future. This book is more than just a historical account – it is a collection of inside stories about our department’s unyielding spirit and a tribute to the enduring power of a dedicated group of people.