SCAN (newspaper)

SCAN

Lancaster University
Front page on 14 June 2015
Type	Fortnightly newspaper
Format	Compact
Owner(s)	Lancaster University Students' Union
Publisher	Trinity Mirror
Editor	Laura Wilkinson
Founded	June 1967
Language	British English
Headquarters	Lancaster University, Bailrigg, Lancaster, LA1 4YT
Country	United Kingdom
Readership	7,340 (fortnightly)
Website	scan.lusu.co.uk
Media of the United Kingdom List of newspapers

SCAN: Student Comment and News is a multi-award winning student newspaper at Lancaster University. It publishes fortnightly 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).

First abbreviated from Student, College, and Administrative News, SCAN began in June 1967 as a one-page newsletter printed 500 times on carbon copy paper by the staff at Lancaster, one month before the university’s first graduation ceremony. 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 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’s 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.^:5

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.^:260SCAN 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, 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’s 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, which publication was in turn named by Bowlander William Smethurst after his girlfriend, Carolynne Harmsworth. Most recently, in 2013, Rachel May Quin became SCAN’s 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.