''SCAN: Student Comment and News'' is a multi-award-winning
student newspaper
A student publication is a media outlet such as a newspaper, magazine, television show, or radio station Graduate student journal, produced by students at an educational institution. These publications typically cover local and school-related new ...
at
Lancaster University
Lancaster University (officially The University of Lancaster) is a collegiate public university, public research university in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. The university was established in 1964 by royal charter, as one of several new univer ...
. It publishes during term time in print, and throughout the year online. ''SCAN'' was founded in 1967, making it one of the longest-running student publications in Europe, and is now managed by the
Lancaster University Students' Union (LUSU).
History
First abbreviated from ''Student, College, and Administrative News'', ''SCAN'' began in June 1967 as a one-page
newsletter
A newsletter is a printed or electronic report containing news concerning the activities of a business or an organization that is sent to its members, customers, employees or other subscribers.
Newsletters generally contain one main topic of ...
printed 500 times on
carbon copy paper by the staff at Lancaster, one month before the university's first
graduation ceremony
A graduation is the awarding of a diploma by an educational institution. It may also refer to the ceremony that is associated with it, which can also be called commencement, congregation, convocation or invocation. The date of the graduation ...
. The founding edition was a folio-sized transcript of the latest decisions made by the Student Representative Council (SRC), produced at a grand cost of
£6.5s.3d.
:101 In 1973, shortly after gaining enough money to open its first
sabbatical position, the SRC began designating
editors
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, a ...
for the growing publication. Two years later, the SRC was rebranded as the Lancaster University Students' Union, and editor itself became an elected sabbatical role. ''SCAN'' growth quickly began to outpace that of LUSU's finances. Though the paper charged up to £400 to design and display a single advert, the union was forced to request a 20% increase in its share of university revenue in 1979 to continue printing.
Under elected leadership, ''SCAN'' began to distance itself from LUSU for the sake of political and operational independence. Its slogan changed from "The Lancaster University Students' Union Newspaper" to simply "The Voice of Lancaster University Students". It also moved to its own campus headquarters in Slaidburn House in 1997, to which it would return in 2014.
''SCAN'' underwent perhaps its greatest changes, however, in the late 2000s and early 2010s. In 2008, editor Dan Hogan relaunched the paper as ''Student Comment and News'', maintaining the original acronym while strengthening its brand culture.
A year later ''SCAN'' switched publisher from Central Lancashire Printers to
Trinity Mirror
Reach plc (known as Trinity Mirror between 1999 and 2018) is a British newspaper, magazine and digital publisher. It is one of the UK's biggest newspaper groups, publishing 240 regional papers in addition to the national ''Daily Mirror'', '' ...
,
going colour from cover to cover on 100% recycled paper. In 2010 the paper joined the Lancaster University 'joint student media initiative' sharing its membership, facilities, and coverage more closely with
LA1:TV and
Bailrigg FM, and editor Lizzie Houghton introduced arts & lifestyle section ''Carolynne'' as "''SCAN'' stylish, more lighthearted sister". The section is named after an older publication at Lancaster, founded in 1964 and rated second only to the magazines in
Oxford
Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town.
The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...
, which publication was in turn named by
Bowlander William Smethurst after his girlfriend, Carolynne Harmsworth. In its first printing run under Tabitha Lambie, the Carolynne section was scrapped, described by existing editors as "dead weight."
Most recently, in 2013, Rachel May Quin became ''SCAN'' first non-sabbatical editor. The position is now open to, and elected by, members of the joint student media initiative only, further improving the newspaper's independence but resulting in a 97.3% drop in editorial election
turnout from 2010 to 2015.

For much of its history ''SCAN'' was not Lancaster University's only student newspaper. It overlapped with historical titles like ''Carolynne'' and ''John O'Gauntlet'', which provided far more comical, scandalous, and pointed coverage of student life at Lancaster but disappeared in 1971 and 1972 respectively.
:87-107 In 1993 a short-lived
parody
A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satire, satirical or irony, ironic imitation. Often its subject is an Originality, original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, e ...
of the paper, ''Self-Centred Arrogant Nonsense'', was circulated around campus, and in 2012 a more elaborate imitation, ''SCAM: Student Comment and Moos'', was "stealth-distributed" on the printers in the university library and online at scam.lusers.co.uk. More serious rivals in 2012 included ''The Whistleblower'', which claimed to be "Lancaster University's Only Independent Student Newspaper", and ''Fritz'', a high-tech magazine run by members of the
Management School. Both ran on a platform of true political independence from LUSU, but neither could sustain the funds for more than four editions. There were also college based newspapers, of which probably the most significant was Pendle Witch, which in the mid-1970s emerged from the new Pendle College and was the base for a serious challenge to the Students Union by an anti-establishment group. Ironically, its leader was Bob Lawrence who was then elected as editor of SCAN.

Since 1967 ''SCAN'' has claimed many journalistic achievements. It has worked with the police to gather information on crime and delivered breaking news on Parliamentary scandals and national strikes. Every year the ''SCAN'' sports team reports live and in detail on the
largest intervarsity sports tournament in Europe, and the number of students reading ''SCAN'' criticisms of voter turnout in university-wide sabbatical elections is often greater than the turnout itself. ''SCAN'' has also interviewed
MPs,
cabinet ministers
A cabinet in governing is a group of people with the constitutional or legal task to rule a country or state, or advise a head of state, usually from the executive branch. Their members are known as ministers and secretaries and they are ...
,
NUS presidents, and such diverse names as
Owen Jones
Owen Jones (born 8 August 1984) is a left-wing British newspaper columnist, commentator, journalist, author and political activist.
He writes a column for ''The Guardian'' and contributes to the ''New Statesman'', ''Tribune (magazine), Tribune ...
,
Ian Hislop
Ian David Hislop (born 13 July 1960) is a British journalist, satirist, and television personality. He is the editor of the satirical magazine '' Private Eye'', a position he has held since 1986. He has appeared on many radio and television pr ...
,
James May
James Daniel May (born 16 January 1963) is an English television presenter and journalist. He is best known as a co-presenter, alongside Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond, of the motoring programme ''Top Gear (2002 TV series), Top Gear'' fr ...
,
Simon Bird
Simon Antony Bird (born 19 August 1984) is an English comedian, actor, director and producer. He is best known for playing Will McKenzie in the multi-award-winning E4 comedy series ''The Inbetweeners'' (2008–2010), as well as its two films ( ...
,
Rolf Harris
Rolf Harris (30 March 1930 – 10 May 2023) was an Australian musician, television personality, painter, and actor. He used a variety of instruments in his performances, notably the didgeridoo and the Stylophone, and is credited with the inventi ...
, and the
Kaiser Chiefs
Kaiser Chiefs are an English indie rock band from Leeds who originally formed in 1996 as Runston Parva, before reforming as Parva in 2000, and releasing one studio album, ''22'', in 2003, before renaming and establishing themselves in their cur ...
. A complete archive of ''SCAN'' is kept in refrigeration beneath the university library.
Organisation
''SCAN'' is run by students at Lancaster University and is managed by student-led company LUSU. It has the conflicting tasks of entertaining and informing the students of Lancaster while giving its writers a
low-stakes environment in which to develop, and of voicing student opinion while constantly and speculatively testing it. Unlike most
student societies
A student society, student association, university society, student club, university club, or student organization is a society or an organization, operated by students at a university, college, or other educational institution, whose membership t ...
at Lancaster, ''SCAN'' is a constitutional part of the union. LUSU's vice president for Campaigns & Communications has ultimate control over ''SCAN'' content, but the editor is able to influence union policy from a permanent seat in LUSU Council. In order to contribute regularly to the paper, a person must become a member of ''SCAN'' by paying £3 to the joint student media initiative. The editor is the budget holder and spokesperson of ''SCAN'', and is elected each year from the membership at ''SCAN'' summer
AGM. The remainder of ''SCAN'' executive, including the heads of photography, web, and mobile, the production team, and the eight sections editors, are selected from the membership at the discretion of the editor. Section editors may select a deputy and can remove the editor with a
vote of no confidence
A motion or vote of no confidence (or the inverse, a motion or vote of confidence) is a motion and corresponding vote thereon in a deliberative assembly (usually a legislative body) as to whether an officer (typically an executive) is deemed fi ...
.
2,000 copies of the newspaper are distributed in 'bins' around campus every other Monday morning. ''SCAN'' does not charge for its papers or advertise for external companies, and has no formal political sympathies. Its editorial stance varies significantly from year to year and its opinion pieces demonstrate wide
internal pluralism, sometimes to the point of being combined into contrived and supererogatory 'head-to-head' articles. However, ''SCAN'' legal and financial dependence on the students' union has often brought its true political independence into question. On 23 November 2015, the union censored a cartoon in ''SCAN'' about a failed LUSU referendum on whether to divest from Israeli companies. To avoid such situations ''SCAN'' editors often try to build working relationships with union representatives, though it is not unusual for a leading candidate for vice president to be incapable of naming the editor in the first place.
The ''SCAN'' office can be found on the ground floor of Slaidburn House on Lancaster University campus.
''SCAN Online''
The newspaper's website, ''SCAN Online'', was launched in 2001. It hosts articles from print editions and web-only content. Almost 100% of ''SCAN'' budget is spent on print, and the site is considered a cheaper, simpler, and faster way of
breaking news
Breaking news, also called late-breaking news, a special report, special coverage, or a news flash, is a current issue that warrants the interruption of a scheduled broadcast in order to report its details. News broadcasters also use the term ...
. Editor Rachel Harvey predicted in 2012 that ''SCAN'' would have to revert to monthly printing or move entirely onto the website. Since then publication frequency has not changed, but the number of pages per edition has declined.
The site is regularly redesigned and has gained photo, video, and live blogging capabilities. ''SPINE'' was introduced as a new online section in October 2013 by editor Rachel May Quin, in an effort to improve online content and reflect the industry's shift toward digital media consumption, hosting
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , ) is a Raster graphics, bitmap Image file formats, image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released ...
- and
meme
A meme (; ) is an idea, behavior, or style that Mimesis, spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying c ...
-based
listicle
In journalism and blogging, a listicle is an article that is structured as a list, which is often fleshed out with additional text relating to each item. A typical listicle will have a title describing a specific number of items contained within, a ...
s with plans to produce
viral content
Viral phenomena or viral sensations are objects or patterns that are able to replicate themselves or convert other objects into copies of themselves when these objects are exposed to them. Analogous to the way in which viruses propagate, the te ...
. This has since been dropped but was revived by an independent group of students in 2019–20. The ''SCAN Online'' site crashed several times in 2014–5, meaning further sections and features could not be introduced until ''SCAN Online'' was completely renovated.
The current version came online in October 2015 and now stands on Wordpress in its current capacity. It was decided in 2021 that the Fashion & Beauty section would be taken out of print and posted entirely online after a record low submissions of articles.
Notable contributors
*
Louis Barfe - author, journalist, and research consultant
*
John Freeman - comic writer and designer
*
Warren Nettleford
Warren Nettleford, is an English television presenter and reporter from Dudley in the West Midlands. He is of Black British heritage.
Education
He attended Bishop Milner RC School in Dudley (now Bishop Milner Catholic College) where he was D ...
-
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
producer and
Channel 5 reporter
*
Dave Shackleton - music journalist, Vice President of
Sony
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...
Awards
See also
*
Student newspaper
A student publication is a media outlet such as a newspaper, magazine, television show, or radio station Graduate student journal, produced by students at an educational institution. These publications typically cover local and school-related new ...
Notes
References
External links
scan.lusu.co.uk
{{Lancaster University
Student newspapers published in the United Kingdom
Biweekly newspapers published in the United Kingdom
Culture of Lancaster University
Newspapers published in Lancashire
Newspapers established in 1967