The Tab

The Tab
Type Youth news site
Format Online
Owner(s) Tab Media Ltd
Founder(s) George Marangos-Gilks, Jack Rivlin, Taymoor Atighetchi
Editor-in-chief Joshi Herrmann
Founded June 2009
Headquarters London
Circulation 5,000,000 unique visitors per month
Website thetab.com

The Tab is a youth news site published by Tab Media Ltd. It was launched at the University of Cambridge and has since expanded to over 40 other universities in the United Kingdom and over 70 in the United States and Canada.[1] The name is both an abbreviation for 'tabloid' and a nickname applied to Cambridge students (from 'Cantabs').

The Tab's network consists of one main national site and an individual sub-site for each university. The vast majority of stories are produced by students, with a student editorial team for each sub-site. Professional editors in the Tab's offices in Shoreditch and Williamsburg offer guidance and editorial insight to their students teams, as well as writing for the site on a regular basis.

History

2009–2012

The Tab was launched in 2009 by Cambridge students Jack Rivlin, George Marangos-Gilks and Taymoor Atighetchi.[2] The website was marketed as "Cambridge University's Online Tabloid" promising to "provide fast news and entertainment direct to your rooms".[2] The Tab was initially funded entirely by its three founders, although it now funds itself through advertising and other investment.

At its inception, "Tab Totty", a Page 3-esque feature, featured photographs of scantily clad Cambridge University (male and female) students in provocative poses. The feature was widely criticised, with Cambridge University's Women's Officer stating "We can do better as a university". The subsequent controversy was picked up by several mainstream British newspapers, and made international headlines.[3][4][5][6]

In 2009, the site's readers voted British National Party leader Nick Griffin "The worst person ever to attend Cambridge University"[7] with 44% of the vote.[8] In early 2010, The Tab ran an April Fool's hoax claiming Griffin had been stripped of his degree. This was subsequently reported by The Sun who believed the claims to be genuine.[9]

In its first year of existence, The Tab made more than 20 appearances in the national media.[10]

In November 2010, The Tab released documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act detailing recent disciplinary procedures enacted across the University.[11][12] Details from the documents released were then reported by national newspapers, including The Daily Telegraph.[13]

In June 2011, The Tab published a pilot print edition of 5,000 copies in May Week and another freshers' week edition in October 2011. This tradition continued in the following years.

2012–present

In Autumn 2012, The Tab expanded to 12 other British universities. Backed by external investment, Rivlin and Marangos-Gilks aim to build a mass circulation online paper for students across the country.

The news site has received praise from multiple journalists, including Louise Mensch and David Dinsmore,[14] and has held journalism training events in association with The Telegraph.[15]

They have since expanded their team at their London office to 33[16] and reach over 5,000,000 monthly readers.[17]

The Tab gets around six stories into the British national press a week.

Grace Vielma assumed the helm as UK Editor in July 2015, with former Tab editor Joshi Herrmann joining from the Evening Standard as Executive Editor in September 2015.

In August 2016, Jack Rivlin assumed the role of CEO and Joshi Herrmann was appointed as Editor in Chief.

Former assistant editors and local Tab Editors Oli Dugmore and Josh Kaplan took on the roles of UK and US Audience development editors respectively.

America

The Tab opened its first American bureau in Brooklyn in July 2015, with UK Deputy Editor Matt McDonald assuming the role of US Editor. The Tab's first scoop to make the national papers came four days before it launched its first sub-site - a video of a UVA hockey player chugging a beer on the ice which they broke on their Facebook page made the Washington Post, USA Today and several other titles.[18][19]

The site launched at 23 colleges on the East Coast in the fall of 2015 - including all eight Ivy League institutions, and major public universities such as Penn State, University of North Carolina, and University of Connecticut.

They were read by over 350,000 people in their first full month and broke several stories which made the American national press. Their coverage of a Dartmouth Black Lives Matter protest was featured on Fox News and quoted in the Washington Post.

In April, The Tab broke the news of where President Obama's daughter Malia was attending college.[20]

They launched 20 further colleges on February 1, 2016, across the Midwest and South and in California. Their expansion continued over the summer of 2016 to include universities in the Southwest and West Coast.

Babe

In June 2016, The Tab launched Babe, its women's vertical. Targeted at "Babes who dgaf", the section gained traction and eventually developed into a sub-site with its own design. They currently have over 500,000 fans on Facebook and publish hundreds of stories a month, making it the fastest growing women's site on the internet. Currently edited in the UK by Roisin Lanigan and Daisy Bernard and in the US by Eleni Mitzali.

Awards

The Tab was highly commended at the Newspaper Awards in 2012 and 2014.[21] Editor-in-Chief Jack Rivlin was noted as one of 30 people under 30 to watch by the Guardian and was named one of the Evening Standard's Power 1000 in 2013.

Scoops

Major scoops for The Tab included the "milking" craze, which was broken by the Newcastle edition[22] and went around the world.[23] In December 2012, the Bristol title revealed a ban on female speakers at the university's Christian Union.[24] In November 2013, The Tab Exeter broke a story about staff in the student bar recording a sex act seen on the CCTV cameras.[25] This story also went international, making headlines from New York to Japan. Starting in September 2013, The Tab pioneered a campaign to get Student Unions across the UK to ban Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines, after Edinburgh University Students' Association boycotted it.[26] Later in the year, the site published an exclusive story after DJ Tim Westwood was caught unleashing a torrent of sexist jibes at Leicester's Student Union.[27] In February 2016 The Tab Reading interviewed Amber-May Ellis a student at the University of Reading who got a tattoo of homeless Ian Beale on her thigh, the story subsequently went viral. It was widely shared, featuring in all the tabloids and on This Morning, including elsewhere.[28]

In one week in 2014, The Tab broke 4 stories which were later picked up by the national press.[29] The Tab dubbed this "The week The Tab dominated Fleet Street".

False scoops

In April 2010, an April Fools' story alleging that Cambridge had stripped Nick Griffin of his degree was picked up by The Sun.[30] Later in the year, the site managed to convince a rival student paper at Cambridge that a phenomenon known as "bog snorkelling" was a new craze at the university, purveyed by interviewee Mack Rivling (a parody on the name of co-founder Jack Rivlin).[31] April Fools' Day 2014 yielded even more nibbles for the site, as people across the country fell for their practical jokes. The most notable was the Cambridge story, alleging that Prince William had received a third class degree.[32] The same year, The Tab Manchester's April Fools' joke about a beloved halls of residence being knocked down came true.[33]

Controversies

The "Rear of the Year" competition run by The Tab, which asked students to anonymously submit images of their bums to be rated by others, drew controversy in 2013 which led to Cambridge editor Will Heilpern defending the contest on national television.

In October 2016, a group of University of Nottingham students dressed as a rollercoaster were reported by the Tab to be impersonating The Smiler rollercoaster crash of June 2015. This article was picked up by the national press including the BBC, ITV and the Metro. The Tab reporter, Joseph Archer admitted to the Daily Mail that he had 'not spoken to the group to ask what their costume was about' as the bar they were in was 'very busy', a statement that the group of students said was wrong. The Tab later issued an apology for their incorrect accusations and admitted that they had 'messed up'.

Sites

United Kingdom

The Tab operates sites at over 40 universities in the UK:

United States

Canada

References

  1. ↑ "The Tab - Stories you care about". The Tab. Retrieved 2016-10-31.
  2. 1 2 About Us, The Tab, Cambridge, UK.
  3. ↑ Richard Edwards, Cambridge University in 'totty' row, The Telegraph, 29 October 2009.
  4. ↑ Rowenna Davis, Cambridge's tawdry tabloid 'totty'. The Guardian, 27 October 2007
  5. ↑ James Clothier, Cambridge girls in sexy pics row, The Sun, 30 October 2009.
  6. ↑ Nicola Boden, Cambridge University row students set tabloid website complete with Page Three, Daily Mail, 30 October 2009.
  7. ↑ The Guardian, Diary, 4 December 2009
  8. ↑ Jack Rivlin, "Official: Griffin is Worst Tab", The Tab, 28 November 2009
  9. ↑ Sun April fooled by student's BNP story, News Blog, The Guardian, 2 April 2010.
  10. ↑ The Tab's Facebook page
  11. ↑ Alasdair Pal, Deaned!: Cambridge Discipline Uncovered, Part 1, The Tab, 1 November 2010
  12. ↑ Alasdair Pal, Deaned!: Cambridge Discipline Uncovered, Part 2, The Tab, 8 November 2010
  13. ↑ Martin Evans, "Discipline files reveal high jinks of Cambridge students", Daily Telegraph, 10 November 2010.
  14. ↑ "The Tab's Blog". blog.tab.co.uk.
  15. ↑ "The Tab's Blog". blog.tab.co.uk.
  16. ↑ The Tab. "Tab HQ". The Tab.
  17. ↑ @TheTab. "The Tab's Twitter".
  18. ↑ Allen, Scott (2015-09-14). "Virginia club hockey goalie chugs beer during game, gets ejected". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2015-11-19.
  19. ↑ "College hockey goaltender ejected after chugging beer on the ice". For The Win. Retrieved 2015-11-19.
  20. ↑ "EXCLUSIVE: Malia Obama pictured in Harvard t-shirt". The Tab Harvard. 2016-04-30. Retrieved 2016-10-31.
  21. ↑ "The Tab's Blog". blog.tab.co.uk.
  22. ↑ http://newcastle.tab.co.uk/2012/11/22/milking-the-new-craze/[]
  23. ↑ http://newcastle.tab.co.uk/2012/11/26/holy-cow-outrage-as-milking-goes-international/[]
  24. ↑ http://bristol.tab.co.uk/2012/12/03/christian-union-gags-female-speakers/[]
  25. ↑ "The Tab Exeter". exeter.tab.co.uk.
  26. ↑ "The Tab Edinburgh". edinburgh.tab.co.uk.
  27. ↑ "The Tab Leicester". leicester.tab.co.uk.
  28. ↑ Crofts, Hannah (February 2016). "Meet the Reading third year who got Ian Beale tattooed on her thigh". thetab.com. Retrieved 3 September 2016.
  29. ↑ "How The Tab dominated Fleet Street". tab.co.uk.
  30. ↑ "The Guardian". theguardian.com.
  31. ↑ "The Tab Cambridge". cambridge.tab.co.uk.
  32. ↑ "The Tab Cambridge". cambridge.tab.co.uk.
  33. ↑ "The Tab Manchester". manchester.tab.co.uk.

External links

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