Once upon a time in the year of 1998 Jussi Edlund studied at Kungsholmens Gymnasium in class N2B. As he was quite interested in web design he started KIWS, Kungsholmen Inofficial Website, with forums and other fun elements. The idea grew and together with – amongst others – Erik Åstedt, Erik Klarén and Bo Ekdahl, the first edition of Kungsholmen Magazine was released just in time for the start of school in 1999: The web-based magazine KZINE.com. There had been student magazines at Kungsholmens Gymnasium before, such as Kungsholmens Gymnasiums Skoltidning and MOPS, but these had all been in paper. KZINE was an entirely new concept and it featured a forum, scribble boards and the persistent ad for Rimi (nowadays ICA), which funded the magazine.
In the spring of 2000 KZINE was on the verge of closing down as the editorial staff merely consisted of third year students that would soon graduate. Luckily, Solvej von Malmborg managed to maintain KZINE and in the fall of 2000 a new version of KZINE.com was introduced, with design and programming by Jonathan Hise Kaldma. During this year a few articles were written, but the main focus was on the forum, which grew exponentially, and users were eventually enabled access to an account and profile of their own. Jonathan continued to run the site during the school year 2001/2002.
During the summer of 2002 the editorial staff received word from the web host that it was time to update the domain. For some reason this was not paid any attention and the domain KZINE.com was bought by someone else.
After the summer KZINE was re-established under the new domain KZINE.nu, under the management of Devi Brunson and design by Ludvig Fjell who was also responsible for KZINE until the fall of 2004 when the domain name KZINE.se took over. This time management was placed in the hands of Sebastian Lönberg, with Daniel Sidenbladh as image editor, and Robin Bartholdson as designer. The two of them continued to run KZINE from the spring of 2005.
During the fall that same year KZINE continued with a, to a large extent, new editorial staff and the website and magazine flourished more than ever. The webpage was renovated once again by Robin Bartholdson and more focus was put on the design of KZINE.se as a magazine. During the early summer of 2005 Daniel and Robin handed over KZINE to the new editorial staff with Lovisa Berndt as editor-in-chief and Philip Ahlbom as Webmaster.
Up to this point, KZINE had been a fairly small organisation, involving almost only the ones in charge. But this was subject to change in the fall of 2006 as a great deal of people showed up at the first KZINE meeting of the year. Although most of them showed little interest and eventually dropped out, the organisation was larger than ever before and produced monthly issues on the webpage as well as keeping the community growing. Special Lucia paper editions was printed and sold at Globen’s annual Lucia concert.
As Lovisa graduated in the spring of 2007, Philip, along with Emelie Gustafsson became Editors in Chief, with Erik Hellsing as Image Editor and Anton Tizkiy as Assistant Webmaster. This line-up managed to win Lilla Journalistpriset in the category Best Web-based Student Paper in 2008 – a price which granted the organisation 10 000 SEK.
As the organisation continued to grow much in the same fashion, this editorial staff also faced graduation, and in the spring of 2008 KZINE was left in the hands of the largest editorial staff in the history of the magazine.
In spring 2009 a new editorial staff was elected to continue the great work of the former editorial staff, but something went wrong. Board members dropped out, the website crashed and in the spring 2011 the paper wasn’t producing any articles at all. The end of the school year was approaching and the two remaining board members were both going to graduate. Was KZINE about to go under?
Just a few weeks before school ended spring 2011 an emergency meeting was set up. Anyone who wanted to help continue on the legacy of KZINE, instead of letting it close down was encouraged to come. Most of the people that showed up wanted to do everything to try and save the paper and restore it to its former glory. Six out of seven board members were given their positions right there and then, and a last board member, Nicolas Lindberg, was brought in a few months later as Graphic Designer & Webmaster. After tons of work and “fika” a new site was introduced to the students of Kungsholmens Gymnasium on October 27, 2011.
The board stayed unchanged for over a year, until the annual meeting of spring 2013. Nicolas kept his former post, but the rest of the board was replaced. KZINE now had two people sharing the post as President; Beatrice Krüger and Phelan Chatterjee. The new board managed to produce a printed edition of KZINE for the first graders, containing a mix of articles from the website and material produced during the summer. Under the same board, an article on the web criticising the censorship of that year’s school catalogue, managed to get over 5000 unique visitors because Expressen, Nyheter24, Vårt Kungsholmen among others picked up the story.
As the Editor in Chief Antonia Melkersson decided to leave the board of KZINE for the post as President of the Student Union, a new board was elected with the former secretary Nils Jarlöv as President. Henrietta Munter, who had been KZINE’s Photo Manager, became Swedish Editor and Claire Takami Siljedahl together with Lucy Forster decided to share the post as English Editor instead of candidating against each other. Oliver Stenbom took over the post as Webmaster when Nicolas left the board after working with KZINE and restoring the paper to its former glory for over two years.
As one of the prominent student organizers of the school, Panos Tufexis ran for chair of KZINE 2015/2016. After a successful annual meeting a board consisting of Alma Fredriksson as swedish editor in chief, Alma Schoenfeldt as English editor in chief, Agnes Hedlund as secretary, Sonya Sammarco as treasurer, Frida Jonsson as radio manager, Isabella Andersson as radio manager was elected while Vincent von Sydow was reelected as photo manager. Webmaster Simon Sällström was elected to the board after the annual meeting by the board since there had been no candidate available at the annual meeting. During the first semester the podcasts of KZINE were flourishing, expanding onto iTunes as downloadable podcasts for iPhone. Several articles articles stirred up debate, articles as well as thousands of readers during the year: ”INSÄNDARE: Kungsholmens gymnasiums elevkår bekräftar samhällsnormer”, ”Ken & Barbie tackar för sig” and ”REVISORERNA RIKTAR HÅRD KRITIK MOT DEN AVGÅENDE ELEVKÅRSSTYRELSEN”.
As the school’s largest media organization of the school, Jana Paegle ran for President of KZINE 2018/2019. After a successful annual meeting, a new board was inaugurated. This, consisted of Hedda Sundqvist as Swedish-editor-in-chief, Siri Lindblom as English editor-in-chief, Clara Nyqvist as secretary, Alva Norberg as treasurer, Veronika Ekenberg and Emilia Grundby as radio managers, Arthur Markstedt as photo editor and Tawsiful Islam as webmaster. During their first mandate semester, they managed to produce a KZINE Print with a new, fresh look, kept the website running, used Instagram stories for events and a debate article called “ETT BREV TILL KUNGSHOLMENS REKTORER” made a major buzz, as well as Hedda’s environmental article about the plastic and paper utensils in the school cafeteria. KZINE had ambitions of making a digital app with push notifications linked to the website and to connect ISSUU with it, but that task remains unfinished and welcome for the successors of 2019/2020. During the election period, KZINE had ambitions to enlighten and inform the students on the importance of voting and participating in the Swedish democracy as well as sharing easy-read articles and stories from students active in youth organizations for various political parties, environmental and egalitarian trivia, debate promotions, as well as important information about the Swedish elections.
In the fall of 2018, KZINE was turning 20 years old and the board decided to make a special PRINT-edition instead of last year’s Winter-Print. The issue became a success, and around this time, new radio equipment was bought, and podcasts began to flourish alongside Project Mental Health and continued to increase in occurrence in the spring semester of 2019. KZINE became nominated for the “School paper of the year”, and made it to the final – but lost a tight race against Södra Latin’s Latin Lover.
