Best of The Tab

Date Arthur (7 February)

Bristol team use The Tab to find unlucky in love Arthur a date for Valentines. 

Classic community involvement and a new twist on the boring love / hate valentines article. Every students wants to know what other people on campus are up to particularly when it comes to dating.

Klute Smashed Up (4th Februrary)

Popular Durham student club reports thousands of pounds of vandalism. 

Students love news about their local club. A guaranteed hits cow.

Wednesday Night Street Style (4th February)

This Gonzo style feature combines people, fashion and humor.

Rebecca Cohen shows you how easy it is to blur the lines between sections and use your camera phone. Very Vice.

Guild Student Elections  (3 – 9 February)

Great team effort covering union sabbatical elections. 

Student politics is often boring and few people care. These articles focus on the fund side of election – particularly the personalities. Video used extremely well here and here.

They’re lovin it (1st February)

Three Exeter students getting very creative with fast food dining.

Congratulations for creating a viral sensations – these images have gone around the world.

 

Freeze gets Fashionable (30) January

Durham club goers are asked their opinion on the up and coming event of term.

Working in association with the university fashion show, Durham Tab TV have produced an entertaining collection of drunken vox pops.

Worst Oxonian (23 January)

A round up of the worst alumni Oxford has produced. This article is best done when each member of the team writes about one person. 

Both funny, informative and cheeky. This  article captures The Tab’s scurrilous yet rigorous reporting.

Snow Day (22 January)

Pure form picture story from Leeds showcasing the best of the white stuff. 

Curated from Twitter, Facebook and university societies. Students are always happy to share their pictures when you ask.

Homophobia on Campus (14th January)

News editor brings attention to Homophobic bullying and Liverpool university’s failure to take the issue seriously. 

Fantastic piece of investigative journalism highlighting universities failure to deal adequately with reported problems. Cat Reid’s interview formed the basis of this story.

Bitchell: Red White and Fuck You (14th January)

The outspoken Oxford columnist everyone loves to hate. 

Columns should always arouse a reaction in people. Bitchell certainly does that. Is the joke on you?

 

Hockey fresher loses fives, finds himself in Edinburgh (13 December)

Exeter students catches train to Edinburgh and back as forfeit for losing drinking game.

This story started life as a tweet but we built it into something much bigger. We found great pictures and a video, meaning few words were needed to tell the story. The report shows the fun you can have with online news. Readers enjoy short, snappy articles with lots of photos. The story eventually found its way into The Sun.

Jesus jokers in Eton mess (12 December)

Second year students tell prospective undergrads only pupils from public school get into Cambridge.

The Tab has expanded well beyond Cambridge, but this story takes us back to our roots. Oxbridge students are often accused of being toffs. However, the response in the comments section shows Tab readers know where to draw the line. The news was gathered through word of mouth, showing the importance of good contacts.

A night with Leeds’ biggest lads (4 December)

Our Leeds editor spent the evening with the self-proclaimed biggest partiers in town.

This is an excellent gonzo-style feature, with our Tab man actually trying a new experience. Rather than writing a colourless, keyboard-warrior article, Dave went out and lived something. Most importantly, he took a photographer with him. The pictures tell the story better than any words could.

Christian Union decides women should be seen, not heard (3 December)

Bristol University Christian Union bans women from speaking at its meetings.

While lots of students news taps into a national conversation, this story sparked it. Our story was picked up by The Guardian, The Times and The Telegraph and a lively debate took place on Twitter. A follow-up investigation by our Bristol team revealed accusations of homophobia in the Christian Union, giving a new angle to a developing story.

 

Milking: the new craze? (22 November)

Newcastle students kickstart a viral sensation – pouring milk over their heads.

As simple and effective as they come. We spotted a video on YouTube with just 500 views, and published a story with the video embedded. Within two days the story had gone round the world and the video had 500,000 views.

Cuth’s rugby banned after Jimmy Savile social (19 November)

Durham rugby players told they can’t play after tasteless dress-up event.

Showing student stories can tap into the national news agenda, The Tab’s report on St Cuthbert’s students dressing as the disgraced Jimmy Savile was picked up by The Guardian. Stories such as these require the writer to tread a fine line. The facts must be reported but there is a danger of alienating students if they feel their friends are being victimised – we therefore chose not to name the rugby players.

Tab Sportsweek and Green Machine

Weekly live blogs covering the progress of Bristol and Exeter’s sports teams every Wednesday.

The aim of these blogs is to make reading about uni sport quick and interesting. They can be compiled largely from the news coming in on Twitter, and with a bit of liason with sports captains (email them explaining you want to cover their fixtures).

Best dressed on campus and Fashion in the forum

Tab style spotters on the hunt for the best dressed students.

These articles combine everything great about The Tab: pictures of your mates taken by student journalists getting out from behind their computers. The premise is simple. Take a camera outside the Library, snap a few well-dressed students and you’ve got a piece everyone will want to check out.

Leather up and Trick or treat?

Fashion shoots based on particular themes.

Our fashion editors often put together big shoots and certainly put in a lot of work to bring them together. The results look extremely professional and are a good way to involve a group of friends in The Tab. The main thing with shoots, of course, is to have fun.

Forgery (9 November)

Outrage as Leeds’ snowsports society has promo photo copied by Reading.

A picture story (i.e. one which is about a photo) featuring two obviously popular images. The only twist is the story was written in a humorous mock-horror way. We added a poll to involve readers.

 

Fit college (23 October)

Two couples: vote for which is fitter.

We didn’t invent this format and it’s not very ground-breaking, but boy it is popular. It’s simple, get two couples with each one representing a subject, hall or year (in this case it’s a Cambridge college). Take a picture of each couple and get readers to vote on which is fitter. The key is the contest, which keeps people coming back to check on. These polls attract more votes than student union elections.

We know what you watched last summer (18 October)

Nottingham staff and conference delegates surfed porn an average of 200 times a day during summer holidays.

We sent a Freedom of Information request to Nottingham University asking for traffic statistics for the nine most popular porn sites in the world. We deliberately asked for it during a period where students would not be on campus, so we could pin the blame on uni staff and guests.

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