University Record - 2nd Edition

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.

mcguirkj

mcguirkj wrote:

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.

To be picky, there can be a private ballot if needs be (not show of hands).

mcguirkj

That was picky Donal....

Probably why you only used to be somebody

I voted for you, as an aside.

mcguirkj

mcguirkj wrote:

That was picky Donal....

Probably why you only used to be somebody

I voted for you, as an aside.

Time Magazine

Andrew 83 wrote:

(When is Council by the way?)

We're not telling you because you can't go.

</injoke>

Tacitha

In some ways, I'd agree that this year's editions of the Record have been better than last year's: they're not gone altogether, but spelling/grammar/layout errors are far less in evidence. I found it very depressing last year to think that visitors might pick up an issue and use it to form an opinion of the general student population. Someone - editor, subeditors - certainly deserves credit for a huge improvement here.
On the other hand, given that the paper isn't primarily for visitors and is for the student body at TCD, it's not acceptable that there is so little information on major issues like re(-re)structuring, modularisation, semesterisation, and college finances. The SU is very well placed to know how these debates are progressing, and how much they matter, but the Trinity News is the paper that actually deals with them. No reason not to have society gossip, music notes, cartoons, but the Record this academic year seems to be veering away from college matters in favour of light entertainment - if this isn't just an editorial foible and reflects the priority of this year's SU as a whole, that's worrying.

Boston

I don't know, I think I'll vote against this motion, on the grounds that it directly caused the iraq war.

Tricity Bendix

mcguirkj wrote:

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.

I suggest you read this thread again, sir.

No one bar the original shiller seems to be entirely pleased with the content. All the posts I've read are quite negative, bar your own.

Awayindahils

Motion defeated 49 to 56 votes.

Troglodyte

Awayindahils wrote:

Motion defeated 49 to 56 votes.

Damn shame.

Tricity Bendix

Awayindahils wrote:

Motion defeated 49 to 56 votes.

Was there a bitter and divisive debate? Oh, how I love those...