“A newspaper is only as good as its staff”, according to current editor of The University Times, Edmund Heaphy.
According to him, the role of editor is about being a “leader rather than a manager” to the nearly sixty-strong team that makes up The University Times. This year’s sole candidate for the role, Sinead Baker, agrees: “So much of the editor’s job is coordination, the day to day running of the paper, that sort of thing. It’s making sure that everything that goes to print is accurate, that it’s true and fair, that our editorial standard and ethics policy are being adhered to.”
It is perhaps no surprise then that Baker’s platform focuses so strongly on The University Times’ staff, and especially on improving the training and support they are given. In her manifesto, she says: “Our staff need to be equipped with all the necessary tools and given comprehensive training. New staff and writers that join the team throughout the year also deserve to gain these skills so they can produce their best work possible.” The editor’s responsibility to their staff and by extension, the quality of the content they create, is seemingly at the forefront of Baker’s campaign.
But is there more to the role of editor than internal responsibilities of organisation and training? The general consensus seems to be that there is. Jack Kennedy, first-year engineering student, feels that newspapers like The University Times exist to “facilitate discourse on campus”. According to Kennedy, an editor “steers the newspaper overall, and acts as its representative and its public voice.” It is important to him then, that the editor publishes content that will “get people talking and thinking.”
On issues such as the introduction of fees he noted the “high quality of coverage” that The University Times has provided, but emphasised that the most the important part of the role of the paper is to give students a voice on these issues: “Without that perspective, the debate is not going be a representative debate.”
Providing a voice for students was a recurring matter of importance for all interviewed, whether on national issues like fees, or on matters within college. “The University Times tends to focus on college stuff that you won’t get from a national newspaper,” observed second-year history and political science student, Jennifer Ryder. She said: “That’s what makes it unique, I don’t think that covering news without a student perspective is really as valuable.”
She also stressed the importance of the newspaper in providing a platform for students’ views: “If there are students that want to talk about it then it has a place in the paper.” Both Ryder and Kennedy highlighted the need for diversity of opinion and perspective, in particular calling on the editor to ensure that The University Times has as diverse a range of voices as possible. Ryder stated that a good editor should “do their best to include as many different perspectives as possible, without veering into tokenism”. Kennedy, meanwhile, cautioned that the paper must maintain a certain level of “productive discourse and not overstep bounds and guide the discourse towards their own bias.”
Concerns about the difficulty some students have with getting involved in the newspaper, or underrepresentation of certain subsections of the students were raised by Conor Taylor, third-year computer science student. “[The University Times] is mainly written by Arts Block people, so all of the computer science articles come from the perspective of arts people. It’s not very representative.” He suggested the inclusion of more writers from a wider range of academic backgrounds, especially to cover the scientific end of campus: “There are lots of research projects going on down here that aren’t covered.”
This is something that Baker is hoping to prioritise. Speaking to this newspaper on Friday, she noted that The University Times can seem “difficult to get involved in or interact with,” which she hopes to change. She wants to make The University Times a voice for students by allowing greater levels of involvement: “People can even write one opinion piece communicating their views. They don’t necessarily have to be a writer, just someone who wants their voice heard.”
Students also emphasised the importance of a newspaper to hold College authorities to account. First-year law and German student Mary Hastings noted in particular the newspaper’s coverage of the proposed changes to the structure of the law degree last year: “The newspaper was able to step in and be a voice for students. It’s important that someone is listening, that it isn’t just down to college or the law school as to whether your voice gets heard.”
Hastings added that a newspaper “should almost act as an advocate to put pressure on the administration to deal with student’s issues … there would be no other organisation who could do that in a really public way”. Dominic McGrath, News Editor of The University Times, agreed: “You need a robust newspaper to hold both college and TCDSU to account.”
Both Heaphy and McGrath commented on the journalistic standards that The University Times has managed to embody over the last year, with Heaphy noting in particular that the newspaper managed to break stories, such as the details of the government higher education working group, before national papers.
Baker shares this ambition, and hopes The University Times can “push boundaries with expertise”. She added that she wanted to see the paper “pushing to become a national authority on Higher Education, LGBT issues, Mental Health, and Irish Language affairs”.
Last year, The University Times saw its very first elected editor. Though some have been sceptical of the need for an election (Ryder for example remarked that people were “apathetic about the editor in general”), many see it as a positive development. Mary Hastings said that it would “make [the candidate] engage with people.” Similarly, Kennedy felt that the race was “useful in terms of accessibility, they’re more likely to listen to their readers”.
Heaphy agrees, arguing that having been elected strengthened his position when dealing with College authorities: “It gave me a fierce mandate … I was able to say “Look, I was elected by students to do this job you need to give me the right answer”, or “Look, there are loads of students who’ve elected me, who want me to do this job, who want me to get these answers.””
This is a sentiment that Baker shares: “If the provost does something that goes against the wishes of students or staff, you can say that you were elected on that platform. If you can’t say that you have the student body behind you, you don’t have that same weight, the role doesn’t have that same importance.”
Students at Trinity have looked to their press to provide them with a proper voice, whether to express opinions, protest policy, or to hold college to account. This is not a responsibility lost on Baker as she enters into her campaign. “There’s so much we do very well” she says, “I want to ensure that continues.”
