Quality of the College View 2010/2011

Deckof52

Hi everyone ,
Just curious about what 'the view' of students on the college view.

So, what do you think about the quality of the College View this year?
Good Points?
Bad Points?

This isn't meant to offend. I'm just curious of what people think about it, the highlights, low-lights, problems, successes and everything in-between.

Deckof52

Wolfe Tone

Whats your agenda?

Deckof52

Nothing. Hahaha
I just wanna find out what people think tbh
I think it's healthy to discuss the quality of the 4th Estate and perhaps what their Agenda is; if they have one!

robby^5

I stopped reading it last year. I wont judge what it is this year as I haven't read an issue in months, but last year and for years before that it was a rag pushing its own agenda and I wont waste anymore time reading it.

Maybe this year things are different and I would hope they are, good idea for a thread.

Green Hand Guy

I agree with robby. Haven't read it much this year, but last year I found it a disgracefully biased rag used only to push certain people's agendas. Quite a lot of stirring **** for the sake of it.

It's a shame, because a few years ago I used to do comic strips for the College View and found the people involved back then were really nice and the paper as a whole seemed a lot less mean spirited.

stringy

agree with previous posts, stopped reading it after the sensationalist rubbish and mostly negative news reporting. maybe this year was different, it appears next year they need to re-build

myk

The SMedias were last night. While a DCU student won the most prestigious award; Student Journalist of the Year, this is awarded for work in the national media. The Newspaper of the Year, Editor of the Year and Journalist of the Year awards seem to have all been won by Trinity- which incidentally doesn't have a full time journalism degree like DCU has.

myk

And is it just me, or is their website; www.thecollegeview.com a year out of date...

wonderfulname

Yeah the website is a joke.

phantom_lord

The paper could really do with a lot more proofreading.

Grudaire

phantom_lord wrote: »

The paper could really do with a lot more any proofreading.

fixed that. :pac:

Although when you see editorials with misspellings and nonsensical sentences you know that the editors aren't paying much attention.

robby^5

It's actually laughable that in this day and age they could possibly neglect their website for so long.

Dont they know print media is dead?

Iano_

Should they not have a web designer? There's no mention of one as far as I can see!

But the Paper itself has been great - continuously improved over the 3 years I've been here. Although not a JR student, the whole layout is pretty impressive for a Student Newspaper & I actually read some of the articles this year unlike before.

In the latest Issue both the S.U election coverage and the Irish pages have been excellent!

robby^5

Iano_ wrote: »

Should they not have a web designer? There's no mention of one as far as I can see!

Wouldn't need one, just someone to stay on top of content management.

It's laziness, exactly what I've come to expect from such lazy journalists to begin with.

Grudaire

The article on sexism is laughable,

She didn't bother to actually look up any facts. Sure the price of Car insurance is no longer allowed to be based on sex, but it's quite clear that although young females lose out, they stand to gain when it comes to the rest of the changes that the very same ruling brings in:
- Women are more likely to claim Income Protection
- Women live longer so Pensions cost more

Either she chose the ignore 3/4 of the ruling, or she didn't have a clue what she was talking about. Either wayit's pretty Daily Mail (Pathetic) reporting.

Popz2

In Fairness to The College View they don't have the same resources behind them that other colleges have e.g both Trinity and UCD have a paid full time Editor, UCD also has a paid full time designer as does Trinity so they have the time to dedicate every waking hour to the paper as they haven't course work to worry about.

Also both the Trinity and UCD papers were both given small offices with computers in so that they can work from there. DCU despite it being the so called top Journalism college in Ireland won't even give the CV a tiny office that they could work from!

The People who work on the college view have to fit what is essentially full time work hours in on top of their course work. I know from speaking to a couple of people that use to work on it that the paper takes up nearly all of their time and they often end up having to stay up till the early hours of the morning to get it to the printers on time as there are so few people helping out this year with things like layout.

If someone isn't happy with the website or anything else the way it is why not volunteer your time to help them with it next year. I got an email from them the other day and they're looking to take people on for next year. It's a paper for the students by the students so if you're not happy with it why not put aside some of your time to help instead of moaning about it. Actions speak louder and all that...

Urizen

I really think that they'd benefit hugely from an office, or at least a room. I realise that DCU has some space issues compared to Trinity and others, but still, there has to be space SOMEWHERE. I've been looking into it myself over the last while. I certainly think it's possible with some dedication.

cocoa

to be fair, they don't exactly give the impression they'd welcome any help offered. Sending an e-mail stating you are 'hiring' for next year gives a message that it's more about work than about volunteering / having fun / enjoying yourself.

monument

While offices would help, the College View's problems are larger.

As others have pointed to, the main roles of editor and production editor are unpaid, unlike at TCD and UCD. The roles are hard ones, and few people ever realise how hard they are (including many who work on the paper).

The larger problems? Structures and processes need to be improved and streamlined. Things like the paper's page count need to be made more manageable if problems keep occurring (like typographical errors) and to reduce the chances of all nighters (which should be an exception, not the rule).

It's easy to say, but hard to put good structures and processes in place and harder to keep in place given the differences in the teams each year.

It's can be even harder again to accept that you must cut pages if you can't handle what you have. But if you want attention to detail in all aspects of the paper, you must allow the time for it.

Tone and style are another issue. The paper cannot afford to be partisan -- DCU is too small for it -- and there's a happy balance to be struck between sensationalist and boring.

The USI agenda pushing should go down as dark days for the paper.

Popz2 wrote: »

If someone isn't happy with the website or anything else the way it is why not volunteer your time to help them with it next year. I got an email from them the other day and they're looking to take people on for next year. It's a paper for the students by the students so if you're not happy with it why not put aside some of your time to help instead of moaning about it. Actions speak louder and all that...

Oh, dear god. Please....

Sorry for the strong reaction, but updating a website like the College View's with all its printed content (without automation software) is a very manual and time consuming job. Anybody volunteering to do it needs their head checked or has way, way too much time on their hands.

With the current resources and software, it needs to be worked into
the production process. But if most of team is not interested in the website, they just need to put PDFs online and leave it at that. I'm not saying it's imposable, it's just a lot of mind-numbing, time consuming work for even two or three people.

OctavarIan

monument wrote: »

With the current resources and software, it needs to be worked into
the production process. But if most of team is not interested in the website, they just need to put PDFs online and leave it at that. I'm not saying it's imposable, it's just a lot of mind-numbing, time consuming work for even two or three people.

It might be worth encouraging writers to produce a print and web version of their articles. The web version would include relevant links, a link to a sourced image and possibly even adjusted writing. This would make manual updating of the site much quicker.

I'm not sure what CMS the current College View site is running on, but I'm sure there are plugins for whatever it is that would add functionality to the backend to allow writers to submit their articles to the site themselves. A quick vet and approval from the online editor would then be all that's needed.

Yes it's a big task, but most of the work would be in setting up the submission system. Make it possible for all the section editors to approve articles as well to speed things up.

Other colleges have online news publications, other media societies in DCU have (excellent!) and frequently updated sites as well. In my opinion college newspapers should be taking advantage of their positions to go crazy online, see what works and what doesn't. To not have an online presence at all is, quite frankly, bollocks.

Granted I'm sure they've had problems with finding the people willing to put the work in over the past year, the newspaper industry isn't very appealing at the moment (to put it very mildly).

thusspakeblixa

Hi there, Niall Farrell (outgoing CV ed here). I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

The issue with the website was one of time, difficulties with the CMS and understaffing in equal parts. I was never trained in in how to administer the current CMS (which is a mad version of wordpress) and I didn't have the time to find an online editor (I am a final year with a job too).

I'd really like if people would tell me what they want to see from the CV, so I can relay suggestions on to next year's team.

monument

OctavarIan wrote: »

It might be worth encouraging writers to produce a print and web version of their articles. The web version would include relevant links, a link to a sourced image and possibly even adjusted writing. This would make manual updating of the site much quicker.

I'm not sure what CMS the current College View site is running on, but I'm sure there are plugins for whatever it is that would add functionality to the backend to allow writers to submit their articles to the site themselves. A quick vet and approval from the online editor would then be all that's needed.

Yes it's a big task, but most of the work would be in setting up the submission system. Make it possible for all the section editors to approve articles as well to speed things up.

The main things which are time consuming is the need for editing and subediting -- everything from spelling and grammar to fact and libel checking.

And even with an easy to use system (like Wordpress which isn't messed up etc), you'd have to make sure everybody knew how to use it. And then you have to convince them to use it...

Keep in mind that with a paper like the College View all of this content is edited in a short time. Having to upload this to a CMS is a time consuming process.

OctavarIan wrote: »

Other colleges have online news publications, other media societies in DCU have (excellent!) and frequently updated sites as well. In my opinion college newspapers should be taking advantage of their positions to go crazy online, see what works and what doesn't. To not have an online presence at all is, quite frankly, bollocks.

Over all in the last few years Irish student newspapers have not been great online, to say the least. Some have been great, others ok from time to time, but overall very mixed from year to year. Very up and down in general. And that's including the papers with some full time staff.

What other media societies in DCU? Is their online content really comparable to the amount of articles publicised every second week in the College View?

I agree with your overall point, but it's very hard to "go crazy online" when the paper it self is so time consuming.

wonderfulname

monument wrote: »

I agree with your overall point, but it's very hard to "go crazy online" when the paper it self is so time consuming.

Surely it wouldn't be necessary to publish every article to the site, just enough of the main stuff so the homepage looks active?

monument

wonderfulname wrote: »

Surely it wouldn't be necessary to publish every article to the site, just enough of the main stuff so the homepage looks active?

Sure, I wouldn't disagreed with that approach, but that's hardly going crazy online, is it?

If there isn't enough willing man power or resources, putting up PDFs seems like the best way to go.

Art_Wolf

monument wrote: »

Keep in mind that with a paper like the College View all of this content is edited in a short time. Having to upload this to a CMS is a time consuming process.

If everything takes so much time, might it not be an idea to scale back from monthly to something more manageable? Get the quality up and then begin reducing the time between publications.

Choc123

Gonna throw in my two cents.

As a newspaper the College View has massive potential. It's a small, media savvy campus that should benefit from a fortnightly newspaper.

One of the problems it faces is its image. The College View has never been received well by even a large minority of the student population - it has a reputation for being a rag that has been there since I started here in DCU.

Even when the paper changed its layout and was reporting strong news and sport stories, it still came under criticism.

If the paper doesn't rock the boat, it's deemed boring. If it does, it's too opinionated. Unfortunately, no editorial team has hit this problem on the head. It is my view that the paper should stick its neck on the line, it should have controversial commentators (which it hasn't since abolishing the comment editor position), it should stir things because that's what gets people reading.

The latest couple of issues of the College View - in terms of its layout and content are quite poor.

But unfortunately, as other posters have rightfully stated, it is a far bigger task than nearly everyone realises. The CV team do have degrees, theses, jobs and with no paid positions, working right through the night is not very appealing. And the worst thing is, getting criticised on boards.ie just demoralises the editorial team even more.

If you have a problem with an article, do the mature and sensible thing and write send a letter to the editor.

Indeed, the CV needs a major overhaul and I certainly don't envy next years editorial team. It needs to consider what the student population want - and in my view that's being entertained and informed. But it also needs to be different and unique as well as holding the College and the Students Union to account. With cuts set to be across the board in universities, it's an ideal time to write for the College View.
But more importantly, it needs constructive comments. Have the critics forgotten that the CV is your paper. You pay for it. Get involved instead of shouting it down on an online forum.

Deckof52

We have a new editor of the College View.
An opportunity to congratulate her and also
to make your views known so that they can
be taken on!
Congratulations Ms. V
=]

Green Hand Guy

Choc123 wrote: »

If the paper doesn't rock the boat, it's deemed boring. If it does, it's too opinionated. Unfortunately, no editorial team has hit this problem on the head. It is my view that the paper should stick its neck on the line, it should have controversial commentators (which it hasn't since abolishing the comment editor position), it should stir things because that's what gets people reading.

To be honest, that's a bit of a double-edged sword. I gave up on reading it when it turned into a bitchy pro-USI propaganda leaflet. To me, and I'm sure many others, it seemed to be run by an elitist clique intent on pissing everyone else off and forcing their own agendas, which is completely not what you want.

Controversy is only good if it's properly directed. The SU aren't the enemy, and I'm sure it doesn't help them deal with the University authorities when the student media seems intent on undermining them at every turn. If the College View want to fight for the students, then they should help them rather than constantly try to make them look incompetent.

Imagine if the Union and the College View worked together. I'm sure as a united front they could get far more students involved in both groups and have much greater success lobbying the University.

I'm not saying the SU is perfect, and of course genuine scandals should be reported on, but much of what I've read has been just petty and malicious. The SU were elected by the student body, the CV team was elected by... a small clique of mostly journalism students. It actually disgusts me when they claim to be "the voice of the students." They don't speak for me and little of what they say is in my interest.

Of course, all of this is based on the College View from a year ago. I haven't read it this year so don't know if anything has changed. If so, then that's great. Keep up the good work ! But if not then they really need to take a proper look at how they're running things.

SantryRed

Is there anyway I can get copies of past College Views lads?

KenHy

monument wrote: »

The main things which are time consuming is the need for editing and subediting -- everything from spelling and grammar to fact and libel checking.

And even with an easy to use system (like Wordpress which isn't messed up etc), you'd have to make sure everybody knew how to use it. And then you have to convince them to use it...

Keep in mind that with a paper like the College View all of this content is edited in a short time. Having to upload this to a CMS is a time consuming process.




Over all in the last few years Irish student newspapers have not been great online, to say the least. Some have been great, others ok from time to time, but overall very mixed from year to year. Very up and down in general. And that's including the papers with some full time staff.

What other media societies in DCU? Is their online content really comparable to the amount of articles publicised every second week in the College View?

I agree with your overall point, but it's very hard to "go crazy online" when the paper it self is so time consuming.

It shouldn't take long to put stuff online. Scan, create pdf, upload takes about 15 minutes, what's sent to the printers? couldn't that be uploaded. I'm not in DCU anymore but I would have read a simple pdf if it was made available.

On the quality, I have no idea what it's like this year. In the past it was always quite good for a paper put together by volunteers, even last year when it was obviously biased it was quite well put together for a obviously biased paper.

*shadow*

SantryRed wrote: »

Is there anyway I can get copies of past College Views lads?

I use to design it so once my Thesis is out of the way in the next couple of weeks I'll upload the Pdf's that I've got onto issuu and you'l be able to view some of the old issues there

monument

Art_Wolf wrote: »

If everything takes so much time, might it not be an idea to scale back from monthly to something more manageable? Get the quality up and then begin reducing the time between publications.

There's a few options:

• Reduce the page count, keep the frequency
• Keep the page count, reduce the frequency
• Keep the page count, improve the processes
• Slash the page count, improve the processes, and increase the frequency

All of those could be done, some are harder than others. But it's more of a menu of options -- you have to look at suits each team and what they think is possible.

Green Hand Guy wrote: »

To be honest, that's a bit of a double-edged sword. I gave up on reading it when it turned into a bitchy pro-USI propaganda leaflet. To me, and I'm sure many others, it seemed to be run by an elitist clique intent on pissing everyone else off and forcing their own agendas, which is completely not what you want.

Controversy is only good if it's properly directed. The SU aren't the enemy, and I'm sure it doesn't help them deal with the University authorities when the student media seems intent on undermining them at every turn. If the College View want to fight for the students, then they should help them rather than constantly try to make them look incompetent.

Imagine if the Union and the College View worked together. I'm sure as a united front they could get far more students involved in both groups and have much greater success lobbying the University.

I'm not saying the SU is perfect, and of course genuine scandals should be reported on, but much of what I've read has been just petty and malicious. The SU were elected by the student body, the CV team was elected by... a small clique of mostly journalism students. It actually disgusts me when they claim to be "the voice of the students." They don't speak for me and little of what they say is in my interest.

Student unions tend to do a very good job at making them self look incompetent and undermining them self... That's for another tread...

It's the student media's main roll to challenge power and expose incompetence -- "power" in this respect includes DCU, the SU, the Government etc, etc.

While I don't think it's healthy for an SU to be viewed as the "enemy", it would be worse for them to be viewed purely "on the same side". I'm not saying the SU and the paper can't work together, at times, but you seem to want a union propaganda paper rather than an independent student paper.

KenHy wrote: »

... what's sent to the printers? couldn't that be uploaded. I'm not in DCU anymore but I would have read a simple pdf if it was made available.

Indeed, as I have mentioned, it should be done a team any year are not bothered to maintain a full blown website. It's the very least which should have been done in the last year or two.

For any pedants out there: Yes, the PDFs sent to the printers are large files, but it takes feck all time to save smaller sized PDFs for on screen reading.

ndx11

Well I have wrote for the CV, im a JR student and I think its crap. The most recent issue one of the worst ever. Alot of it is badly written, with stories just sourced online and facebook.

There was like a 600 word story in the latest issue about how many people had joined a FB page/event concerning UCD's ball. How is that news?

The Editorial on page 2 was laughable, it doesn't actually say the editors name! For somebody who claims to get a buzz seeing their name in print its quite the mistake.

Maybe its because the editor hasn't attended any lectures this semester. I wasn't aware that the same credits awarded for passing modules were also made if you wrote half a newspaper on your own.I thought getting a good degree was the best thing you could take out of DCU.

From the years I have spent involved with the CV I have come to the same view as many people posting on this thread, Its controlled by a small clique of JR students only interested in having held a title position in a publication to put on their Curriculum Vitae.

The College View for your C.V. Boom!

XPS

ndx11 wrote: »

Well I have wrote for the CV, im a JR student and I think its crap. The most recent issue one of the worst ever. Alot of it is badly written, with stories just sourced online and facebook.

There was like a 600 word story in the latest issue about how many people had joined a FB page/event concerning UCD's ball. How is that news?

The Editorial on page 2 was laughable, it doesn't actually say the editors name! For somebody who claims to get a buzz seeing their name in print its quite the mistake.

Maybe its because the editor hasn't attended any lectures this semester. I wasn't aware that the same credits awarded for passing modules were also made if you wrote half a newspaper on your own.I thought getting a good degree was the best thing you could take out of DCU.

From the years I have spent involved with the CV I have come to the same view as many people posting on this thread, Its controlled by a small clique of JR students only interested in having held a title position in a publication to put on their Curriculum Vitae.

The College View for your C.V. Boom!

Oh lol. Pot, kettle. People in glass houses. Other cliches.

Also no paper puts the name of the editor on the editorial. Would agree with some of the online sourcing but its two things; lazy JR students or students who don't have the confidence to source their own quotes.

If you read any of the college papers you will find that they cover stories in other universities, it's student news (general).

monument

ndx11 wrote: »

... with stories just sourced online and facebook.

There was like a 600 word story in the latest issue about how many people had joined a FB page/event concerning UCD's ball. How is that news?

That internet thing... sure it'll never catch on. The internet is a valid source.

Did not see it but I'm guessing the UCD ball coverage and the facebook page was related to it being cancelled? That seems like news to me.

ndx11 wrote: »

The Editorial on page 2 was laughable, it doesn't actually say the editors name! For somebody who claims to get a buzz seeing their name in print its quite the mistake.

Are you just trolling? Editorials don't usually have names attached to them.

ndx11 wrote: »

...I thought getting a good degree was the best thing you could take out of DCU.

You thought wrong, getting experience is far more valued in the trade.

ndx11 wrote: »

....Its controlled by a small clique of JR students ...

That should be avoided, but at the same time it won't work as a democracy.

smorgasbord

For the most part, I felt that The College View did a good job given their limited resources. There were definitely issues with proofreading - spelling/grammar mistakes from students pursuing Journalism/Communications is kind of laughable and need to be stamped out if The College View and other campus publications - Campus Magazine was the worst for these mistakes - want to gain more credibility and respect.

I did find that it was very hard to break into, especially for students outside of JR. I e-mailed Flux on three different occasions this year about writing different pieces and received only one response, telling me that they had my name and they would get back to me, which they never did. The same names popped up in the bylines every single week and I think that next year's editorial team need to be more inclusive and pick from a wider pool of writers.

Choc123

smorgasbord wrote: »

I did find that it was very hard to break into, especially for students outside of JR. I e-mailed Flux on three different occasions this year about writing different pieces and received only one response, telling me that they had my name and they would get back to me, which they never did. The same names popped up in the bylines every single week and I think that next year's editorial team need to be more inclusive and pick from a wider pool of writers.

That is somewhat a mistake on your part I'm afraid. Pitching stories is useful but even in the journalism industry, editors don't like to get emails proposing stories. They want well written, accurate and preferably exclusive articles.
As a freelance journalist, I don't pitch stories to editors. I go out and find stories, write them up and send them in. That way you can impress, get published and get a phone call to do more. The whole pitching ideas is fine but it shouldn't be seen as the way to getting published. Having said that, I only write news, arts probably differs. Show a bit of initiative and it's only a matter of time when the CV includes your work.

Monument is spot on in relation to the SU/CV partnership suggestion. That goes against the key principles of what a paper should be - independent and objective. Although papers like the UCD Observer are technically SU papers, they have a certain level of independence. The CV has to keep the SU and the College to account. It hasn't done that for a couple of years but once upon a time it did:

The article on former president Ferdinand von Prondzynski's plans to sell the helix which resulted in him telling a national newspaper that quotes attributed to him by the particular journalist were "completely inaccurate". He later issued a full apology to the paper. How many CV stories do you remember that made it into a national newspaper?

The front page story about how the Estates Office were letting the air out of tyres of bicycles tied "illegally" to poles on campus. This resulted in a member of staff being investigated for his actions.

The story about former student and DCU GAA SU election candidate Conor Mortimer. The CV revealed how his campaign was being funded directly from the GAA Academy.

The article on the major row between a professor and the former SU President etc etc etc..

These are just some of the original and in many ways investigative stories that the paper has published in the past. There are so many stories on and off campus but they need to be found. That takes a level of ambition that I hope the new news editors will show.

I think everybody needs to give the new editorial team a chance. As the editor wrote in her editorial, it is an opportunity for a clean sheet.

smorgasbord

Choc123 wrote: »

That is somewhat a mistake on your part I'm afraid. Pitching stories is useful but even in the journalism industry, editors don't like to get emails proposing stories. They want well written, accurate and preferably exclusive articles.
As a freelance journalist, I don't pitch stories to editors. I go out and find stories, write them up and send them in. That way you can impress, get published and get a phone call to do more. The whole pitching ideas is fine but it shouldn't be seen as the way to getting published. Having said that, I only write news, arts probably differs. Show a bit of initiative and it's only a matter of time when the CV includes your work.

Sorry, if I wasn't clear - I wasn't actually pitching stories, I was just trying to put my name forward so they would give me either stories or albums/films to review, which is the way one gets into The College View. Like I said, they never got back to me, despite my e-mailing three times and despite saying they would.

Choc123

smorgasbord wrote: »

Sorry, if I wasn't clear - I wasn't actually pitching stories, I was just trying to put my name forward so they would give me either stories or albums/films to review, which is the way one gets into The College View. Like I said, they never got back to me, despite my e-mailing three times and despite saying they would.

Don't believe that this is "the way to get into the College View" - It might be the conventional way but as a former editor, if you wrote me a story without pitching it and it was decent I would keep in touch with you about writing more. Pick an album and write a review and bang her in!

smorgasbord

Choc123 wrote: »

Don't believe that this is "the way to get into the College View" - It might be the conventional way but as a former editor, if you wrote me a story without pitching it and it was decent I would keep in touch with you about writing more. Pick an album and write a review and bang her in!

Well, if this isn't the way to get into The College View, then it needs to be made clearer to students how to do it. At the Journalism Society, we were told to e-mail one of the editors expressing your interest in writing and they would then delegate pieces. And I followed this protocol.
In my initial e-mail, I had actually attached a 250 word sample review of a film that was being released, but was still told that they had my name and would get in touch with me, which they never did. This could just apply to the arts section, but that was my experience with The College View.

Green Hand Guy

Choc123 wrote: »

The CV has to keep the SU and the College to account. It hasn't done that for a couple of years but once upon a time it did:

The article on former president Ferdinand von Prondzynski's plans to sell the helix which resulted in him telling a national newspaper that quotes attributed to him by the particular journalist were "completely inaccurate". He later issued a full apology to the paper. How many CV stories do you remember that made it into a national newspaper?

The front page story about how the Estates Office were letting the air out of tyres of bicycles tied "illegally" to poles on campus. This resulted in a member of staff being investigated for his actions.

The story about former student and DCU GAA SU election candidate Conor Mortimer. The CV revealed how his campaign was being funded directly from the GAA Academy.

The article on the major row between a professor and the former SU President etc etc etc..

Well, that's exactly it! Holding the SU and the College to account on meaningful things like those above is exactly what the CV should do. What I've found though is that some time around two years ago it all turned a bit tabloid, and became more about manufacturing fake controversies to further the agendas of some of the CV team than reporting on real controversies that would matter to the students. At times they seemed to just bash the Union and SPC for the fun of it. I'd be delighted if they returned to the standard of ~3 years ago.

Choc123

smorgasbord wrote: »

Well, if this isn't the way to get into The College View, then it needs to be made clearer to students how to do it. At the Journalism Society, we were told to e-mail one of the editors expressing your interest in writing and they would then delegate pieces. And I followed this protocol.
In my initial e-mail, I had actually attached a 250 word sample review of a film that was being released, but was still told that they had my name and would get in touch with me, which they never did. This could just apply to the arts section, but that was my experience with The College View.

That's a shame but don't let it put you off writing again - it's a new arts team next year.

smorgasbord

Choc123 wrote: »

That's a shame but don't let it put you off writing again - it's a new arts team next year.

Oh, I definitely won't! New year, new beginning!

Also, I don't want to discredit this year's arts team in any way, shape or form. Flux was consistently well-produced and well-written and I just hope that I can be involved with it next year!

thusspakeblixa

ndx11 wrote: »

The Editorial on page 2 was laughable, it doesn't actually say the editors name! For somebody who claims to get a buzz seeing their name in print its quite the mistake.

Maybe its because the editor hasn't attended any lectures this semester. I wasn't aware that the same credits awarded for passing modules were also made if you wrote half a newspaper on your own.I thought getting a good degree was the best thing you could take out of DCU.

From the years I have spent involved with the CV I have come to the same view as many people posting on this thread, Its controlled by a small clique of JR students only interested in having held a title position in a publication to put on their Curriculum Vitae.

The College View for your C.V. Boom!

Do you read newspapers? Most Irish newspaper don't carry the editor's byline in the editorial. The College View has never done it either. It seems you have some personal grievance with the current editor, so please take that to her and don't post it on a public forum. Your point about the 'good degree being the best thing to take from DCU' is also slightly misplaced. A good degree is important, but I have found that most employers value the quality and breadth of your writing more (along with your experience). Hence- most journalists don't come straight from recognised Journalism degrees.

How many years have you 'ben involved' with the CV? I've been involved since 2009, and I can say with some validity that it is not a clique. If you want to level those accusations, I suggest you look elsewhere on campus. As a former editor, I take exception to your last point too. The only reason I took the job of editor was because I thought I could make the newspaper better. Having worked for the paper since first year, I care about it. Obviously, I failed but it was never about my CV. Indeed, I could have made a lot more money freelancing or getting a part-time job. So, for most of the people I have known in the paper, seeing our bylines in it was not a motivating factor for getting involved with the CV.

Out of interest, what did you write? I should know most people who wrote for the newspaper this year, I'd be interested to hear your experience.

JemimaPD

The College View is not so bad.

The only issues I see with it is -

1) There are no details for a closing date for articles for the next edition or when the final issue is being printed.

2) The website for College View is completely out of date by over 1 year.



I know the Archery club within DCU wanted to put something in the Campus Mag and CV about winning the Intervarsity Competition for the third year in a row but couldn't get it done due to the closing date for the last edition of each mag already lapsed.

Grudaire

I also looked for the name in the editorial, and I can see why people looked. The editorial was a bit... grandeous, and it was very unclear who was writing it. I may have missed the "This is the new CV editorial team" article, and it seemed a bit odd for an outgoing article. (Not that I'd have a clue who was or is editor :pac: )

The College View is far better than Campus, and it has a lot of stuff going for it. Sure it gets bashed for some stuff undeservingly, but it is infuriating to see the small things being done wrong. If it thinks it can hold people to account whilst doing so much wrong and having so many mistakes itself then the CV is kidding itself

Nanaki

Cliste wrote: »

The article on sexism is laughable,

She didn't bother to actually look up any facts. Sure the price of Car insurance is no longer allowed to be based on sex, but it's quite clear that although young females lose out, they stand to gain when it comes to the rest of the changes that the very same ruling brings in:
- Women are more likely to claim Income Protection
- Women live longer so Pensions cost more

Either she chose the ignore 3/4 of the ruling, or she didn't have a clue what she was talking about. Either wayit's pretty Daily Mail (Pathetic) reporting.

Who wrote that?

ipadzz

I personally am quite impartial to the CV. I think there is a place for it but there are negatives about it. I'm not going to go into either opinion to be honest. I wrote for it once or twice, since I was in JR, but i'm not a committee member or in any way related to the paper anymore.

The one thing I will mention is that for a module at the end of JR3, we had to do a focus group with a bunch of students about college media and how they use it. The overwhelming response to the paper was that people were full of complaints about it. We questioned about 30 students, making sure it was from a wide range of faculties.

However, when we asked towards the end of the interviews why don't people get involved to make the changes themselves they responded "I have no time". This attitude fuels one - the idea every faculty has about humanities being a school of lazy, elitists, and two - the fact people have everything to complain about but expect others to change how they feel for them.

If people in other faculties have so much criticism to write and say about the paper, why don't you get off your backside and change it then? Chances are the others in your faculty feel the same. Just because you have classes 9-5 everyday and we don't does not mean that we spend the rest of our days picking our noses and lying around. We also brought up the idea that there was not enough pieces relevant to them in the paper (pieces about technology, nursing, science news, teaching, postgrad). Yet when we asked whether they would be happy to write pieces for it, again "not enough time"..."no interest in writing".

You cannot expect a bunch of humanities students to know all about what you want and need. Yes, we can do a good job of finding out the right information but if there is a need for something, we need to be pointed towards it by people in the know! Ask an astronaut to bake a cake. Chances are the astronaut has baked before but isn't really confident about making an entire cake. He/she will try it out but it could be a bit lackluster. But give him/her a few helpful tips before they start and the results will be miles better and the helper will be happy. Do you understand what I'm getting at here?

All the comments here will help next year's team but if you really feel passionate about change make it know and better yet, make it yourself next year! I'm not a supporter of the paper, i actually have a lot of negative things to say about it but that would be directed at the staff more so the content so don't take this as a pro-paper comment. I'm just putting out there what results I got from research I did. College media never claims to be humanities-focused and all the college publications strive to meet the needs and wishes of the entire student body. DCU FM actually have quite a few non-humanities students presenting and working with them.

Grudaire

Nanaki wrote: »

Who wrote that?

It was definitly a girl, I can't say who did and there were no old issues around DCU... Sorry!