Trinity College Dublin students have voted against slashing the funding of The University Times following a referendum on whether to dramatically cut funding for the newspaper over controversy into its reporting methods in a recent news story.
Seventy-four per cent of voters were against the motion to make the editor of the University Times an unpaid position and to limit the funding to just €3,000, according to the newspaper’s website.
The number of valid votes cast was 3,059.
Eleanor O’Mahony, the editor of The University Times said: “I’m over the moon that this referendum failed to pass and that students saw that this was a cynical attempt to shut down a newspaper in the wake of dissatisfaction with one story.”
The newspaper sparked controversy when it reported on allegations of an initiation ceremony involving an all-male student society, the Knights of the Campanile.
In the process of reporting, it placed a recording device outside the apartment of the president of the society, where it was alleged the ceremony was taking place.
The University Times reported that members were being taunted, jeered and shouted at over a period of time.
Staff at the newspaper defended the recording on the basis that it was in the “public interest”.
The Knights of the Campanile, established in 1926 to “further the sporting activities” of the college, is an all-male society with a maximum of 50 student members allowed at any one time.
