“Don’t go bankrupt, don’t get sued, and don’t get kicked out of the office.” These are the three pieces of advice that almost every editorial team at The College Tribune is gifted by their predecessors. Then the keys are handed to you, and you’re on your own. The College Tribune is often described as a labour of love, and it’s not hard to see why. This Fresher’s Week, when classes end and a horde descends upon the N11 bypass to venture into town, the lights in a small, dark office in Newman Basement will still be on and work on issue 2 will be underway.
In a time when even big publications struggle to make ends meet, with some unfortunately returning to the ashes, the fact that a paper run by a bunch of 20-year-olds with no oversight or financial backing has made it to its 40th volume is nothing short of a miracle. But it has, and further, not to oversell the best student newspaper in the country, it has thrived. It has broken national stories; its writers have won countless awards, but crucially, it has reported on news relevant to the UCD community. It has done so in no small part thanks to much caffeination and, always in due course, sleep deprivation, but largely due to the dedication of those 40 teams. This team is both terrified and privileged to have the opportunity to try and continue it.
Finding out, while digging through the archives of our 2011 MacBooks, that old editors would record interviews on GarageBand was only the first of many surprises we’ve encountered since taking charge of the Tribune. From the investigation of the Clubhouse bouncer being on the run many years ago to the rumoured ‘great DramaSoc swindle’ allegedly carried out by our very own UCD alumnus Chris O’Dowd, this paper has had no shortage of impressive and frankly alarming stories to tell.
The Trib’s existence and independent status have been hard-fought for. Every time the university has hinted at interference or the financial situation gets a little too precarious, the editorial team somehow prevails, and the print editions keep getting churned out. But why? What makes this ‘labour of love’ worth it? Does anyone, bar you, our perhaps sole dear reader, even care?
It is that independent status that makes this paper what it is. Our role is not simply to report on campus events or to entertain you with the agony aunt, but it’s to hold this university’s institutions to account. Every year, peer mentors tout the claim that UCD is a large town, and every town needs a newspaper. Each student, staff member and alum is owed a press that will dig around, even if it is occasionally done with a child’s spade in place of a shovel.
An academic institution with no free press is an institution without true academic freedom. While academics can participate in discourse through their work and publications, it is here at the Tribune that we, the students, have that chance. In a university that tears down political messaging and non-approved posters, the Tribune stands as a firm reminder that students have never been ones to follow rules. Here’s to hoping they don’t for another 40 volumes…
– The Editorial Board, Volume 40