College newspapers

Evilution

Just wondering what everyone thought of the college newspapers, The University Record and the Trinity News? I kinda miss Piranha myself actually, it was a good laugh. I'd love to write for it if it went into publication again.

snorlax

whats Piranha? i never knew we had three papers.

i like the trinity news, it's impartial and not as biased as the record(seems to go on non-stop about the union). in the trinity news there's also plenty of reading in it and some good writers.

Agent Smith

piranha's comming back next year,

aodh_rua

Aren't there six College publications...

University Record
Trinity News
piranha!
Miscellany
Divercity
Icarus

As with most things the publications are only as good as the people that get involved and so they can be hit and miss.

Evilution

aodh_rua wrote:

Aren't there six College publications...

University Record
Trinity News
piranha!
Miscellany
Divercity
Icarus

As with most things the publications are only as good as the people that get involved and so they can be hit and miss.

I've never read Miscellany and never even seen the last two in college. I've started writing for the Record lately and agree that a lot of the writers are heavily into the SU. There are some decent articles here and there though. Does anyone have any ideas for what they WOULD like to see in the papers though?

aodh_rua

Divercity covers multicultural stuff and Icarus is mainly arts based with writing and photography. I haven't seen either this year but then again I've not spent too much time in House 6 or the Arts Block.

The papers are well worth getting involved in, and if you think they're not doing things right then you've always the option of saying so and offering to fill the gap by writing.

The Record can run the 'risk' of getting lots of SU types, although if no-one else is about I'm sure they're happy to get the writers. Back in the day I tried to avoid SU activists and I didn't run officer reports so that the paper could act in a more critical way. I think Gareth Makim was much the same, but its an editorial decision and most years it goes the other way.

John

Divercity has been handed back over to One World, they're going to be rejuvinating it.

I find the papers grand to read but the quality of the photos is shocking. Don't use a photo unless you're able to see what's in it. Or print the same picture twice with different captions.

xeduCat

Wish it was that easy...many problems lie with the printers. there aren't that many places that will do occasional college newspapers - they're usually regional presses with spare capacity. I could give you page after page of problems caused to the Record and TN this year by our respective printers. Sometimes with shocking ineptitude, and causing great embarassment to the papers, e.g. where something leaves Dublin 2 electronically and everything's right, and returns 24 hours later with an entirely different picture.

steppen

Not a college newspaper, but does anyone know if The Slate will ever reappear?

aodh_rua

The Slate won't be reappearing as the lads have moved on to bigger and better things that are further from the lawyers.

wayfarer

aodh_rua wrote:

Aren't there six College publications...

University Record
Trinity News
piranha!
Miscellany
Divercity
Icarus

Was The Thunderer not another publication. I never saw it in print but I stumbled upon its website once while searching tcd.ie. I cant find it now though!

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

wayfarer wrote:

Was The Thunderer not another publication. I never saw it in print but I stumbled upon its website once while searching tcd.ie. I cant find it now though!

If you can remember how long ago you saw it on TCD.ie you can go to http://www.archive.org/ and type in www.tcd.ie into the 'wayback machine'. This will show you all the information on tcd.ie at any given date in the past...

for example, here is the first tcd.ie website from 1998:

http://web.archive.org/web/19980113013559/http://www.tcd.ie/

wayfarer

No need Ive found it again. Strangely it doesnt show when you use googles tcd search but its there on the standard google search

Its not a proper college newspaper, its only published online as part of the citizens, politics and decisions course. Heres the link

foxybrowne

The Slate was great, but I think it finished at the right time, it never lost its edge. On the other hand Private Eye is there a long time and is still as cutting as ever.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

On a slight side issue: was up at the smedia office today - they seemed to have quite literally hundreds of applications (boxes and boxes of them). Don't know how anyone even gets nominated. Was tempted not to hand in the due 12 euro for my own meagre efforts, and just walk away...

gom

There are a very large number of Student run publications in College.

The SU has several manuals/guides each year. Usually topical apart from the Freshers Week guide for first years which is an intro to the Union mostly and full of ads secondly. As far as I am aware the SU contracts the production of that particular one to outsiders.
The University Record is the shining star of the SU line up in terms of Student publications. Its basically a Student Union Propaganda rag. Not sure how often it comes out but that usually depends on the sitting editor's management plan. The Univeristy Record has been fairly similar in my years in College. Tried to get involved in my first year but never got any feedback from the then editor(who I don't even remember come to think of it).

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DU Publications has a number of titles(its name gives it away I think). PUBS, as it is affectionitly known by its supports/hacks/lackys is the independent producor of Student Publications in Trinity. If you have an idea for a publication bring the proposal to DU Publications and they might be able to make it happen with grants and access to an excellent and unequalled resource for student print media.

Trinity News is the oldest(est 1947) student newspaper in the country(up trinneres!) and has been the starting point of many well established Irish and International journalists in the world today. TN has a history of being as impartical and professional as possible with brief spells of anti-union retoric in the past. TN has mostly been a broadsheet but in my first year in college it was a tabloid. Currently TN is considered the favourite for the Smedia awards for Best Newspaper.
Current Editor(04/05) = Ian Carey. Next years editor(05/06) = Andrew Payne

Miscellany Ireland's oldest student magazine(circa 1880). Miscellany is considered the cutting edge of student commentary and has a history of pushing the bar on various issues. In teh past Miscellany has taken the positions that no one else dares to and made a cause out of it. I counted 3 anti-union articles in the last issue (1 comes out a term). Polite Society is of particular immusement if you are involved in hackish circles on campus.
Current Editor(04/05): Niamh Flemming-Farrell. Next Year's Editor: Ronan Ó Dubhslaine

Icarus has been undergoing somewhat of a revolution this year in terms of quality and design. Under its current editor Icarus has been restyled with cutting edge layout and fold out posters and cover CDs. Icarus's is full of poetry, prose, photography, music, lyrics, story boards... etc etc Anything highly arty or creative is involved and 1 Icarus is always remarkible different to the next. Always a delight
Current Editor(04/05): Kate McKenna. Next Year's Editor(05/06): Cathleen McCarrick and Carolette Newman (coeditorship)

Piranha! the original in smart ass satire. Piranha has been banned by many the demi-power person. Its rude, lude and offensive. I can't count the amount of times PUBS has been threated with legal action over articles in Piranha. Many previous editors and contributors opted to remain hidden while producing Piranha for fear of endangering their degrees. In previous years Piranha attempted to run a Sock in the SU eletions against Avril Power. Be woarned... There is rumoured to be up to 5 Piranha photographers at the Trinity Ball this year. They will catch you with Dildos in your hand and coming out your ears. They will catch you at the side of the porter loos getting head off your best mates sister who begged you to take her to the ball.
Current Editor(04/05): Orla Ní Bhraoin. Next Year's Editor of Piranha = Niall Morris

Evoke and Diversity were published by PUBS up until this year. Diversity was originally published by One World and One World wanted it back. So Pubs has an association agreement with One WOrld that PUBS will assist in the production but it remains a One World production(therefore it can be less impartial and more agenda setting)

Evoke was getting into some difficulties so PUBS has put it on ice for the time being. If any serious proposals for Evoke's resorrection they will be taken into account by next year's PUBS committee.

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CSC produce a small but attractive A5 mag that promotes all the societies which they distributed on freshers week.

The Phil produce the Philander magazine which claims to be 'the independent publication of trinity college' but do we really belief that?

The Hist have a rag too but is lower profile than the Philander.

Film-Makers have produced an excellent booklet for their scoiety which was very well put together.

The DUCAC in association with the Dept. of Sport have a 4 page A4 newsletter that is a bit pointless really and usually out of date.

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There are many many student publications coming out from all angles at this point and I would say the number and quality of these publications will increase dramatically over the next 2 years.
Currently DU Publications claims to have the only independent magazines and papers in college. If you belief this not to be true I would love to hear your reasoning and welceom the debate. The current distribution has been mentioned. How do you feel this could be improved. Should the publications have a stall in the Arts/Hamilton block the week they come out?
Should their be dedicated stands for each publication?

Currently most Miscellany, Icarus and Piranha all have very low(less than 1000) circulation and this may be why most people haven't even seen them once. TN and the Record have 3-5 times more of a print run and are measuribly(surface area) bigger than the magazines. Do you think this has an effet on your knowledge of their existance at all? How can that also be improved apon?

Evilution

Dammit, I want to get in contact with one of the piranha peeps. I'd love to get writing in that and really let loose.

gom

Evilution wrote:

Dammit, I want to get in contact with one of the piranha peeps. I'd love to get writing in that and really let loose.

Piranha may be coming out this Trinity term in a new and improved format.
The Current Editor is Orla Ní Bhraoin and you can contact Orla via email at nibhraoo@tcd.ie. She has alot of dirt ready for the next issue.

If you can't get anything sorted for last term get in contact with next years editor of Piranha, Niall Morris. He is off-books at the moment so I don't have his personal email address. You should be able to contact niall on ents@tcdsu.org to let him know that you want to be involved in Piranha nexst year.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

EduCat wrote:

Wish it was that easy...many problems lie with the printers. there aren't that many places that will do occasional college newspapers - they're usually regional presses with spare capacity. I could give you page after page of problems caused to the Record and TN this year by our respective printers. Sometimes with shocking ineptitude, and causing great embarassment to the papers, e.g. where something leaves Dublin 2 electronically and everything's right, and returns 24 hours later with an entirely different picture.

Hmmm ... Datascope the printers would beg to differ. The only reason a different picture will be inserted to the one intended is because of a failure to double-check the quark PDF before sending it.

Wrong pictures get inserted in the wrong place if that picture is too big in size for the space provided. In that case Quark looks for the closest size picture and inserts that. It is a failing in the editing process; it is not a failing on behalf of Datascope or any other of college's printers...

aodh_rua

I would have to agree with Roundtower on the printers. The computers they use aren't clever enough to mess up documents. They print what they get, and if it's not in the right format (wrong size/resolution/fonts and so on) then the result will not be what was expected. Just because it looks right on a screen in Trinity doesn't mean it'll come back right in print. The only problem that the printers can be held responsible for is when something happens in the actual printing process like when ink runs low and the images look bleached.

And gom - what year were you in first year? Oh - and btw as far as I know Miscellany is Ireland's oldest magazine not just student magazine.

Andrew 83

aodh_rua wrote:

And gom - what year were you in first year? Oh - and btw as far as I know Miscellany is Ireland's oldest magazine not just student magazine.

TN was tabloid in 2002/2003 under I think Ian Boyle, it was the year before Renata McDonnell anyway. That's the only year it's been tabloid in my four years.

I've also heard that Miscellany is Ireland's oldest magazine.

aodh_rua

Andrew 83 wrote:

TN was tabloid in 2002/2003 under I think Ian Boyle, it was the year before Renata McDonnell anyway. That's the only year it's been tabloid in my four years.

Over my eight years in Trinity, it has spent a few years in broadsheet and compact (tabloid) style. As with the changing face of the Record from red top tabloid to its more recent incarnations, it really depends on the editor.