University Record - 2nd Edition

wesclark

Big improvement. No howlers anywhere and two stories that most people should read and enjoy on the front page.

well done simon & co

Andrew 83

Ill be in Trinity this evening so will check it out then. What's the stories?

wesclark

Andrew 83 wrote:

Ill be in Trinity this evening so will check it out then. What's the stories?

Hist treasurer resigning over 'bullying' unt "The Agent"

nutball

The lead stories are one on Kathy Troy resigning as Treasurer of the Hist and one on The Agent in TN.

Sadly, the Dep Pres and/or his writers seem to have an enormous amount of difficulty differentiating between 'News' and 'Opinion'. The 'Kathy Troy' article is exactly that - a shamelessly one-sided affair masquerading as a news article, with a gratuitous paragraph-long plug for the Phil concluding it (wtf?). The article on The Agent manages to be somewhat newsworthy until it descends into ill-presented opinion territory at the end ("If you need anonymity to write something you probably shouldn't be writing it at all... These 200 or so 'hacks' have never had trouble finding fora in the past to bitch about one another so by no means can this be dressed up as a college service" etc.).

Even articles that could for the most part be considered news reports in the real sense are given headlines that don't belong in that section, viz. the report on College adopting Fair Trade tea and coffee with the incongruous title "How fair is fair trade?" above it, indicating that the editor either a) didn't actually read the article or b) has limited reading comprehension skills.

And then! What they do consider 'Opinion'? Something called 'Radical Mike', a deeply unfunny mock-Agony Aunt column, followed by (a pattern emerging..!) a deeply unfunny 'Dear Diary' column. Since when is that 'Opinion'? The only title that wouldn't be a lie would be something like 'Unmitigated Rubbish', but even 'Features' would suffice.

The Record's never been great, but this is really ... eugh. In fairness, the books, music, cinema, fashion etc. seem grand. At least they are what they're meant to be.

Too many holes to pick. Though I did like the layout of the front page, as well as the headline inside: 'Hist hosts historical evening'

And since TN has made the leap to a working website, I'm curious why the SU website still has a blank for where the PDFs are meant to be. If it is the sheer size of the PDFs then putting up the text should be do-able.

I also assume that the officer reports will be in Aontas if that's on it's way.

Stargal

They put the Agent on the front page? Seriously?

Two stories on the front page - "Hist Treasurer resigns over 'schoolyard bullying'" and "The Agent sparks campus controversy". Former continues on page 4, latter on page 5.

Andrew 83

The Record has had that problem of differentiating between News and Opinion for a number of years.

Stargal

That Agent headline is ridiculous.

Bartronilic

I read some of it and didn't notice any "Agent" thing and read the TN and so no "Agent" thing. What's the "Agent" thing?

TN's 'The Agent' piece, which the Record did a story on. It's on the front page.

Or did I misunderstand what you said?

CmcC

I would be of the opinion that the front page, main article is slanderous to several individuals and the Hist in general. Accusations are made of a person nature that are not backed up by facts but presented as such, these are actually opinions or one side of a story. It amounts to libel and defamation of character because the accusations are directed at one person only and the Hist in general in my opinion and Im sure legal experts will be consulted on it. It should probably be withdrawn.

As I said already, I think more important things are going on in College than the s### about the hist/phil/gmb/hacks. Its all well and good reporting on it a few pages in but, as someone people would term a GMB hack Im actually sick of reading about it. If all the SU can write about is the GMb its a sad day. It amounts to laziness.

For example:The College just brought back peoplefinder, launched a modified Strategic Plan, the Seaned Registry office f###ed up the Seanad electoral register(see Irish Times) by leaving off nearly 100 voters for the next election(including my own), a nobel laureate gave a lecture on thursday night, 3 SU officers sit on board and theres not one real student story of interest. also the Lincoln Place Inn has been 'reserved' for a client and planning permission applied for its refit, class rep elections have been held and the SU shop got a make over. What is that editor at? There are a tonne of stories that would fill any newspaper. I could think of a few more fairly quickly. Lecturer loses in many arts subjects, while plenty of recruitment down the science end. Frances Ruane, a TCD prof to become head of the ESRI, the nations economic think tank; new front sq residences opened to students, the increase in energy charges for students in College residnences and also how students in private accom will also have to pay more..........

Finally: Nobody cared about the agent apart from the people in it and it was a forum for John McGuirk to put a few opinions out there. Hardly front page news and im sure the people would have perferred it wasn't highlighted further and names revealed.

xeduCat

shay_562 wrote:

I'd have liked it if I thought for a moment it was intentional. But that would suggest someone on the Record staff had two brain cells to rub together, which clearly isn't the case.

See, that's the sort of destructive discourse that poisons the atmosphere for student volunteering, student-led activities and extra-curricular goings-on in general. There are a lot of excellent critical arguments on this page, necessarily harsh in some cases, but saying things like no-one in an entire group of people (all of whom give up time and effort for free bar the editor) has any intelligence is exactly the nonsense that leads to the same handful of people being involved in SU, clubs, socs and publications year after year.

You are involved in societies and student activities, right? So presumably you think that encouraging others to be engaged and active is a good idea. How does that sort of slagging help?

I understand that people can have strong feelings about other newspapers, societies etc, and that criticism of policy decisions (i.e. they shouldn't have run that event that way, they shouldn't have printed that, they shouldn't have spent money on that, or so on) is healthy. However I'd suggest that general scattergun negativity towards volunteers is in itself A Bad Thing.

The man is a ****wit, plain and simple, and something should be done.

Why don't you go up to his office and tell him that then? I have no desire to defend the Record or its current editor but isn't that a bit harsh, especially if it's from the safety of a computer?

Crash

Could wesclark please stop shilling? its interesting to note that the only posts that that account has made have all been in TN and UR threads. I personally don't take kindly to underhanded efforts at publicity and anything along such lines will be treated harshly.

xeduCat

What do you have in mind?

Andrew 83

Think the Agent piece is a bit hypocritical. I'm not defending the content of the Agent piece in TN necessarily but instead pointing to two things which either shouldn't have been put into the article or else should have led to changes in the rest of the paper.

1) The piece lambasts in an opinionated way the fact that the column is anonymous. This is despite the fact that the Record regularly uses false names itself. I find it hard to believe that Stetson Kennedy is a real person (apologies to you Stetson if I'm wrong on this) while the last issue had an article by Fox Alexander amongst others. Also is Radical Mike still David Quinn under an alias or is there someone else now penning it? Either way their identity isn't exactly clear.

2) The article also says that the Agent column 'overstepped reasonable boundaries'. What then can be said of the cartoon of a dog giving Hitler a blow job on the back page? The most inappropriate thing I have ever seen in a student newspaper by a long way. I don't even get it or why it is there.


The paper is better than the first but still has a long way to go. Some more random thoughts:

- I think A sports page should always be on the back page, particularly in a tabloid. The second last page would have made a good back page in my view.

- Although Conal Campbell is Deputy Editor I think an opinion piece regarding the PD's should also state that he is a member of that party. Although it didn't really say anything controversial a reader should know that.

- All credit to Carolyn Power on an excellent article about the demise of Smash Hits in the music section. Would not be out of place in a national music publication


EDIT: Removed name of a real person I suspected to be fake.

gymrabbit

I actually haven't had a chance to read this paper yet. I should also mention that I keep confusing the physics guy Apexaviour hates with Simon Hall. I Like Simon Hall, don't really know why, never met the guy.

Just on a side note. I think it's pretty horrible to go around slagging people off on a message forum, using their real names etc. while posting with an alias/nickname. This goes for the writers in the UR doing the same thing. Even if some of these guys put themselves out in the public domain for critism i.e. SU presidents etc.

Agent Smith

Andrew 83 wrote:

1) The piece lambasts in an opinionated way the fact that the column is anonymous. This is despite the fact that the Record regularly uses false names itself. I find it hard to believe that Stetson Kennedy is a real person (apologies to you Stetson if I'm wrong on this) while the last issue had articles by Anne Lavelle (could this be a reference to TN's John?) and Fox Alexander amongst others. Also is Radical Mike still David Quinn under an alias or is there someone else now penning it?

well, Anne Lavelle does exsist, she's A Pro for SFSOC

Pet

&#231 wrote: »

Could wesclark please stop shilling? its interesting to note that the only posts that that account has made have all been in TN and UR threads. I personally don't take kindly to underhanded efforts at publicity and anything along such lines will be treated harshly.

Yeah I noticed that too.

Saying that, I like the discussion that comes after each issue - perhaps this year's staff should be pointed towards boards.ie/tcd to read the general consensus?

Andrew 83

agent smith wrote:

well, Anne Lavelle does exsist, she's A Pro for SFSOC

Ok my bad on that one, I'm still doubting the existence of the others though.

Agent Smith

/me waves


HELLO DAVE!

mcguirkj

CmcC wrote:

Finally: Nobody cared about the agent apart from the people in it and it was a forum for John McGuirk to put a few opinions out there. Hardly front page news and im sure the people would have perferred it wasn't highlighted further and names revealed.

Frankly, Cathal, I've put up with this **** from you for long enough. The fact that that article said that "speculation centred" on me is precisely because you and every other sad little hack it that **** society of yours is still convinced that everything that goes wrong in the society is in some way connected to something I did, and as such have spent the last three weeks complaining that it must have been me who wrote it.

For once in your life wake up to the fact that you, and a succession of people before you, took everything good about that society and turned it upside down, to the extent that the "Clique" you tried to replace has been replaced with the most inward looking, bitchy, and nasty group in the college. I don't like Kathy, but at least her email of resignation was brutally honest about that, though I know you'd prefer if people never got to read it.

As regards the slanderous, and libellous allegation you made above, I couldn't be bothered even engaging with it, I made a clear statement on the matter in this issue of the record and will be making no further comment on it. If you have an issue with the content of TN I strongly suggest you take it up with the Editor, and leave me the hell out of it.

Grow up.

Crash

ok, two points. 1) any more accusations of John having written the article, unless they can be proven, will be deleted straight away. Don't just throw about opinion or rumour as fact, its plain stupid.

In respect to the agent article, I have a bit of a problem with this site being used out of context to back up an article. If el editor needs clarification of a point he can feel free to ask me in person, but the agent article was misleading as to what occurred on here.

Awayindahils

I love when I take a day off from posting on here, the whole place turns into a brawl.

As for the Record I've never been a huge fan, but I thought that this issue was significantly better than the last. The Hist story was coming anyway. Infairness rather than getting angry about the story being published, the Hist need to find out who leaked the email and deal with the issue as quickly as they can.

The Agent should never have been printed in the first place, but John should not have been singled out in the article as he was, nor should've ELizabeth O'Brien and Paddy Cosgrave, yeah it was a talking point in college for a couple of days but making you're competitor front page news, is possibly not the best move.

I thought it was fair enough, the aritcles definetly had a team phil/su slant but that seems to have become a feature of college life this year.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

nutball wrote:

The article on The Agent manages to be somewhat newsworthy until it descends into ill-presented opinion territory at the end ("If you need anonymity to write something you probably shouldn't be writing it at all...")

lol - Worst.Ignorance.Of.Own.Papers.History.Ever

what was that famous Record story two years ago, attacking someone under a false name?

Crash

ah yes, the Ed Reilly piece iirc...

Andrew 83

Roundtower2 wrote:

lol - Worst.Ignorance.Of.Own.Papers.History.Ever

what was that famous Record story two years ago, attacking someone under a false name?

Penned by the ever mysterious Jennifer Davis.

That film article was pants.

Simon's thrown up the PDFs on to the website, it seems. So for anyone who hasn't seen the record (only second issue so far), enjoy!

http://www.tcdsu.tcdlife.ie/index.php?nodeId=11

CmcC

Sorry about the confusion John,

I frankly couldn't care less about the content of the Agent, apart from the bit at the bottom of that piece, and I was objecting to the fact that the Record article made it worse by actuall naming the person and allowing all of college to know. the substantive content of my post was on the record, nothing to do with you, apologies if you got that impression.
Secondly, apologies about saying it was you, several people had said it to me it was you, people not actually in the Hist at all, so sorry for the mix-up, They were obviously mistaken but i hope you can read my post above and see that it was a small part of a long article, and if you have other personal issues with me as you have vented in your post, please take them up with me personally.
however its obvious you hate things that are written anonymously as much as I do.

Finally, I don't really care what Kathy has to say about the Hist or anybody else. Obvisously you have issues with the hist but my beef with the reisgnation article is that James O'Brien, the Hist Auditor gave a detailed response to the accusations made it in which the editors ignored, slanting the article and also the fact that the writer is in the same class as Kathy Troy.

mcguirkj

CmcC wrote:

Sorry about the confusion John,

I frankly couldn't care less about the content of the Agent, apart from the bit at the bottom of that piece, and I was objecting to the fact that the Record article made it worse by actuall naming the person and allowing all of college to know. the substantive content of my post was on the record, nothing to do with you, apologies if you got that impression.
Secondly, apologies about saying it was you, several people had said it to me it was you, people not actually in the Hist at all, so sorry for the mix-up, They were obviously mistaken but i hope you can read my post above and see that it was a small part of a long article, and if you have other personal issues with me as you have vented in your post, please take them up with me personally.
however its obvious you hate things that are written anonymously as much as I do.

Finally, I don't really care what Kathy has to say about the Hist or anybody else. Obvisously you have issues with the hist but my beef with the reisgnation article is that James O'Brien, the Hist Auditor gave a detailed response to the accusations made it in which the editors ignored, slanting the article and also the fact that the writer is in the same class as Kathy Troy.

Apology accepted Cathal. However, the "issues about you that I vented in my post", firstly, are not personal issues with you, for whom I've always had high personal regard, but issues with a direction you persued in office, and secondly, have been raised with you personally on numerous occassions, and are no secret.

One more point, perhaps slightly tongue in cheek, - haven't you in the past been quite a believer that the membership of the society should be told the full truth on matters that effect the society that are aired in the College media?

I trust you'll be putting significant private pressure on the Auditor to respond fully to the Record Article and put the views of th Treasurer in context by way of, say, an email to the entire membership...

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

lol

Dave Larkin

Funnily enough, I volunteered to write for the Record in Fresher's Week, and they still haven't contacted me yet. Oh well, patience is a virtue and all that.

piby

Yeah that happens all the time, people sign up and don't get contacted . If you're still interested in writing your best bet is to e-mail the editor Simon and let him kno what you'd like to write (sports, news etc.). Thats what I did and I got a reply from him straight away and now Im writing for them and they're always looking for writers so its not like they wont have something for u .

SOL

So am I the only one who thinks it is funny that the front page contains two storys, on relevant to about 2% of people in college, the other a story about an article about those 2%?

I thought it was a college news paper, society gossip of all the "news" has to needs the least ammount of help in spreading around.... so maybe next issue we'll get something relevant... maybe not though...

Bartron Prime

I also think it's fairly humourous. But I've always had an odd sense of humour. But it was especially funny as they lambast the article in the Trinity News in question for being so insular then proceed to place it on their front page. Where was the article about college's financial status? Not to mention the factual inaccuracies in their two front page pieces.

As for the relevancy, dude, one can hope. Barring sections such as Music (I really liked the Smash Hits article) I am unimpressed with the most recent issue. It was stylistically and gramatically challenged. I expected to see headings such as 'Le Penis' due to the lack of care shown for the layout. Still, one can live in hope. The Record needs to focus on issues that concern the wider student body as is its mandate. The internal affairs of a society do not count as front page news.

I just don't think this issue of the Record was good. The editing wasn't up to scratch, its lead stories were irrelevant (and inaccurate) and it confused News/Opinion. I accept that, as an SU publication it will have a certain slant, and I expect that, but the most recent issue just had personal slants. They have some great people writing for them, they just need to tighten it up and pull it together. But, drop Radical Mike. Off a building. Into a vat. A vat of oil.

Boston

Well The SU seem to hate it. Don't worry john, I'll be voting on your side.

M10: Motion on Standards in the University Record

Council wishes:
To express its sadness at having to bring such a motion to the first meeting, yet feels deeply the drop in quality in the University Record this year.

Council deplores:
The use of a picture of Borat as the leading photograph of the Trinity College students’ union newspaper, and further expresses its disappointment at the inclusion on page 3 of a full page ad for a hemp store.

Council is outraged:
By the flagrant lack of sensitivity to student needs in the mock ‘problem page’, and by the astonishing bad taste of the cartoon on the back page of issue 2.

Council deeply regrets:
The frightening drop in standards amongst the University Record editorial team.

Council expects:
More of a publication that is funded by student monies, and that exists in order to represent the students’ union in a responsible and accurate fashion to the college population.

Council mandates:
The Deputy President to ensure that coming issues focus more on real student issues and less on toilet humour, returning the ‘Record’ to the standard to which it was once accustomed.

Proposed by Claire Waters, SS Psychology student
Further signed by Cathal McCann, Anne Byrne, Daniel Curry, Jessica Lee, David Kenny, Josephine Curry, Ealain McMullin, James O’Brien, Darren Mooney, Sein O’Muineachain, Clare Hayes-Brady

mcguirkj

It would be entirely inappropriate of me to express an opinion as to how council should vote on this motion.

I will say two things though:

1) Interesting that the proponants of that motion were a little pissed off by the leading story;

and

2) I though the record was exceptional.

I'm sure council will deliberate wisely on the motion.

Crash

actually when I heard the gist of the motion from someone the first name into my head was Cathal

Stargal

Firstly I do think it's good to see people so interested in the Record that they're willing to bring a motion to Council, rather than just giving out about it.

However - this 'frightening drop in standards' that the motion talks about hasn't just happened this year. For the past two years the Record has been consistently bad. There have been personal attacks, toilet humour, opinion stories being passed off as news and a general lack of any kind of editorial quality control.

The fact that all these people only brought the motion now, when their own organisation is attacked is telling. Why haven't they ever complained about the drop in standards before this? Why do they talk about the hemp store ad, the Borat picture, the Hitler cartoon, but don't mention the front page article on the Hist, despite the fact that as far as I can tell, they're all members of it?

Now I do think it's a good motion and it's about time that somebody brought it. Wish I'd thought of it myself a couple of years ago! But it just seems a bit hypocritical. What does everyone else think?

Also, can someone correct me on this - I thought you weren't allowed to have more than one person seconding this?

And finally - Claire and Séin graduated this year. How come they're down as proposers?

Boston

A **** it, I think I'll move for the record to be disbanded and be done with it. Enough of these long winded hacks.

Crash

joe, you talk an awful amount of crap sometimes.

Boston

A sure, if i gave half a bolix about any of this ****e, I'd be almost dangerous, as it is, I'm just bored by it.

CmcC

Stargal et al:

The motion was written and brought by Claire Waters, a former deputy editor of the Record for two years who worked very hard on that paper and is pissed that its gone down the toilet over the last year.

As she isn't a student rep and as none of the SU were willing to propose the motion for her (even though they all think it but none of them will say it publicly for personal reasons...), she had to get signatures after she had written it and brought it to some SU people who told her what to do.

The motion has nothing to do with the Hist. It is from an editorial point of view. She just got people she knew to sign it so she could bring it to council. I think thats all fairly reasonable. I can assure you of this as I go out with her.

Sein is a Masters student, Claire is a continuing student.

Stargal

Cathal, I worked with Claire on the paper for a couple of years and she did a great job - I wasn't attacking her with my last post, just to be very clear about that.

I'm just trying to explain how it looks from an outside point of view - a badly-written one-sided piece attacking the Hist appears on the front page and the following week there's a motion at Council from a lot of people involved with the Hist attacking the Record.

stargal

stargal wrote:

Also, can someone correct me on this - I thought you weren't allowed to have more than one person seconding this?

And finally - Claire and Séin graduated this year. How come they're down as proposers?

Constitutional changes last year: You can propose a motion to Council if you have it proposed and seconded by members of Council (class reps, members of exec, GSU exec, affiliated colleges presidents etc.) or if you get 10 signatures from students. There are 12 names listed, so I assume that:

1) Rob & the EC checked that they're students, and
2) That because it was sent through, that they are students!

The 10 signature thing was a great change, imo, and it's even better seeing it used! Fair dues to Ross for coming up with it.

Bartron Prime

When I came into college (all those years ago), Claire Waters was the News Editor and the University Record was a publication of high quality. Thus far this year, it has been a poorly laid out and improperly formatted newspaper with not enough regard, in my opinion, for actual stories. For anyone to say that the Record is keeping pace with the Trinity News is simply wishful thinking. It's being outclassed and a greater effort is needed.

For the record (mmm...pun), I'm both a friend of Claire's and an ex-committee member of The Hist. I don't think that the names on the sheet have anything to do with purpose of the motion. Claire asked her friends and those who shared her opinion to second the motion. Same as anyone. Saying that it's a Hist motion because they happen to be members of The Hist is just skewed and feeds into the supposed cliquey nature of student activities. 1950+ people were members of The Hist last year. So 7 of them seconded the motion. Big deal. As Cáthal said, it's from an editorial point of view. The standards have slipped and nobody seems to care. I'm all for Claire pulling a Steve Jobs on the Record.

The Hist front page story was an example of the sloppy journalism that has characterised the news section of the Record recently. But the fact that it made the front page is symptomatic. Frankly, who cares about the workings of a society that much? There are stories of far greater importance to the student body that the S.U. has a duty to tell us than this. And yes, that cartoon was gratuitously offensive. I'm a fan of the Features section (Music etc.) but that's incidental to the purpose of the Record.

I apologise for the rather in-your-face tone of that. It's just I'm angered by the shocking decline in the Record and this notion that people can't second a motion simply because they're members of a certain society. Claire truly cares about the University Record and it's mandate. It would be great if the current editorial team shared her wonderful, competent enthusiasism. However, they don't seem to. The Record can be an amazing paper (some brilliant writers), it just needs focusing.

Stargal

It's just I'm angered by the shocking decline in the Record and this notion that people can't second a motion simply because they're members of a certain society.

That's completely distorting what I said. I was very clear that the issue isn't about people from a society seconding a motion; it's about the fact that it comes a week after the society that they're in is criticised on the front page.

And to re-iterate: The drop in standards hasn't been as massive as you're making it out to be. I've read the Record pretty much cover to cover for the past 5 years and this year isn't all that different from previous years.

Andrew 83

People had the chance to change all this two years ago but not enough people voted for a certain potentially ground-breaking candidate for Deputy President... (JOKING!)

I think this year's Record hasn't been much worse than any of the last two year's (minus the Hitler cartoon which was ridiculous, yet college have not reacted to that - I don't think that would be the case if TN or another Pubs publication printed it). The last year that the Record was very good was Gareth Makim's year (2002-2003), while it was still not bad in Katie's year the following year it was starting to decline.

I think the motion is a positive move (though I agree with the view that it will be perceived as a Hist motion by a few so close to the publication of the last issue) and will hopefully make a positive difference whether or not it's succesful.

I don't think people should criticise Simon overly though - he's still only on his second issue and learning and an editor is always reliant on the contributors.

Let's see what happens in the next issue and hopefully it will be a big improvement.

(When is Council by the way?)

Council's tonight in the MacNeill at 7.

mcguirkj

Council is tonight, I believe.

As somebody who works alongside Simon, albeit in a different organisation, I think I have an obligation to defend him here.

The Record, by any objective standard, has improved this year. The layout, design, and content is good, - as evidenced by the almost unanimously positive responses in the early stages of this thread.

This motion, whether by design or accident, has the appearance of a rather pique-filled response to a front page story the authors didn't like. I didn't like the other front page story, frankly, and felt it was unhelpful and rather silly, bu I don't doubt it's newsworthiness.

If people really felt aggrieved by the overall standard of the record, perhaps they would consider a letter to the editor, which would have much more relevance to the readership than a motion at council which will, again, either by accident or design, have the effect of being a referendum on the accuracy of a story anybody with a shred of knowlege knows to be 100% accurate.

On a final thought, in response to Cathal. If people in the SU "privately agreed" but were unwilling for personal reasons to back the motion, what are the chances of its passing?

Not great, I'd imagine.