The University Times

This article is about the student newspaper at Trinity College. For the faculty and staff newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh, see University Times.
The University Times

The front page of “The University Times”
on January 21, 2014
Format Broadsheet
Editor Sinéad Baker
Deputy editor Dominic McGrath
Founded 2009
Headquarters Mandela House, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
Circulation 10,000
ISSN 2013-261X (Warning: Check ISSN)
Website universitytimes.ie

The University Times is the largest student newspaper in Ireland. Published from Trinity College Dublin, it is financially supported by Trinity College Dublin Students' Union but maintains a mutually agreed policy of editorial independence. universitytimes.ie is one of Ireland's leading student news websites, with a readership of over 100,000 unique monthly readers. In 2015, the website had over one million[1] unique readers.

Published alongside the broadsheet newspaper, The University Times Magazine is a culture and feature supplement published with The University Times, focused on national and international issues, including politics. Radius, the Dublin culture supplement, focuses on events and culture ran on Trinity's campus and the surrounding city centre.

The current editor, Sinéad Baker, is the eighth to hold the position since the newspaper replaced the Students' Union's community publication The University Record in 2009, and is the second editor independently elected – separate from the Students' Union's Communications Officer. She ran uncontested.

In April 2014, The University Times won "Publication of the Year" for the first time at the Union of Students in Ireland awards ceremony. It won the award for the second year in a row in 2015 and again in 2016.[2]

Alumni of the paper have gone on to work for the Independent, the Sunday Business Post, the National Journal, the Union of Students in Ireland, Storyful and Twitter.

History

The University Times was founded in 2009 by Rob Donoghue, who was also elected Communications Officer of Trinity College Dublin Students' Union. In his first editorial, Donoghue wrote about the importance of the free press, writing: "Any measure that attempts to impose a chilling effect on the immutable right of a newspaper to print what it is right to print is failing to protect the members of this College. The paper stands for the right to say just as much as it stands for your right to hear."

The University Times Magazine was founded in 2012, with Tommy Gavin serving as its first editor.

Radius, the paper's Dublin cultural supplement, was founded in 2015 under the editorship of Edmund Heaphy, with Carla King-Molina serving as its first editor.

Format

The University Times newspaper consists of a 20-page broadsheet which is divided into sections: News, InFocus, Comment & Analysis and Sport.

The University Times Magazine consists of a 24-page pullout magazine. A typical issue runs three long features as well as its usual culture sections: Fashion, Music, Literature, Food & Drink, Film & TV. The magazine is unique in that it looks beyond Trinity and Dublin, looking at national and often international politics and developments.

Radius consists of a 20-page pullout magazine focusing on events and culture in both Dublin and Trinity College Dublin. As well as the culture sections working for the magazine, it also has a section for Theatre and for Societies. It's content focuses exclusively on events that are in the city – within a certain "Radius" of Trinity College Dublin.

All sections produce daily online content year-round, as well as the nine print editions produced over the course of an academic year. The news section concentrates on the news and goings-on of Trinity College Dublin as well as the activities of students' unions and developments in Irish higher education.

Website

The paper's website, located at universitytimes.ie, is built on WordPress with a custom theme. Traffic to the website is primarily driven by social media, where much discussion of current events takes place between students and staff. In recent years the website has grown in prominence, to the point where volunteer writers are often more interested in having their work displayed on the website than in print – a radical change in attitudes from previous years.

The website, built by Edmund Heaphy, has won several international design awards, including best overall news website and best redesign of a news website at the Society for News Design’s (SND) annual conference in San Francisco in 2016.[3]

The newspaper operates an "online first" policy, meaning that online content is prioritised over print, and most content produced by editors and writers does not feature within the print edition. As such, the website's traffic has increased hugely in recent years, with a peak monthly unique readership at just under 150,000 and with one million unique visitors to the website in 2015.

Layout and design

The University Times Headers
The University Times section headers

The nameplate of The University Times is set in Utopia Std with a Semibold Display weight. There is a ligature on the Th in The. The rest of the paper is set in Utopia Std or Whitney of various weights. Each page of the paper contains a header that contains the name of the paper, page number, date, and section indicator. Sections have their own associated colours that are incorporated into the design.

Style

The University Times operates its own style manual based upon the Oxford Manual of Style. The manual indicates that the full title of the paper is The University Times noting that the, The is part of the title and that it gets a capital letter. Other publications with the definite article do not get a capital for example the Irish Times, the Guardian, and the New York Times. In the news section people are referred to by their full name at first mention and then only by their second name on subsequent mentions. Honorifics and academic titles are only used when appropriate.

Elected Editors

Awards

The newspaper was awarded "Newspaper of the Year" at the Irish Student Media Awards in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Former editor Tom Lowe won Irish Student Journalist of the Year in 2011. In 2014, it was once again awarded "the 'Web Design of the Year" award, and received nominations for "Newspaper of the Year".[4] The University Times won the "Publication of the Year" category at the USI Student Achievement Awards. Aisling Curtis won the "Journalist of the Year" award for The University Times.

In 2015, The University Times won "Publication of the Year" for the second time, and Sinéad Baker, the newspaper's Assistant Editor, won "Journalist of the Year". Edmund Heaphy, the newspaper's Deputy Editor and Editor-elect, won the international College News Design contest organised by the Society for News Design and judged at the society's 37th annual conference in Washington DC. The judging panel consisted of Dan Zedek, Design Director and Assistant Managing Editor of the Boston Globe, SND President and Hearst Corporation Presentation Editor, Lee Steele, and Marianne Seregi, the Art Director of The Washington Post Magazine.[5]

References

  1. ↑ http://www.universitytimes.ie/2015/12/the-most-read-articles-of-2015/
  2. ↑ Usi.ie
  3. ↑ http://www.universitytimes.ie/2016/04/in-san-francisco-the-university-times-wins-six-international-awards-including-best-newspaper-design-and-best-website/
  4. ↑ Oxygen.ie
  5. ↑ Universitytimes.ie

External links

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