Pi (magazine) Information

Pi is the name of the official student media outlet of University College London Union and the name of its former newspaper. It publishes Pi Magazine during academic term time in addition to its website, Pi Online.

Pi was originally launched as a newspaper. In the aftermath of World War II, there was strong popular support amongst college and UCL Union officials for some sort of community project that would bind together the rapidly expanding campus. Pi was conceived as a fortnightly news-sheet, written and published internally by UCL students. It was first published in 1947.

The founding editor was Richard Lubbock, a first-year medic, who modelled the four-page broadsheet after the style of an American high school newspaper. The purpose was to provide news and entertainment for students, and journalistic experience for the editorial team.

The name, Pi, was chosen in honour of the Provost of the College at that time, Sir David Pye.

The paper was popular, even charging a small fee for each issue. Though the initial focus was on student politics, as the paper recruited a more diverse base of writers and journalists, new areas began to receive attention - sports became a prominently featured section, as well as academic discourse and regular interviews with London celebrities. Pi drew favourable comparisons with other heavyweight student newspapers, such as the London School of Economics Beaver. British journalist and TV personality Jonathan Dimbleby was once the editor. Former contributors include TV psychiatrist Raj Persaud, Chief Executive of healthcare group Circle Ali Parsa, Chief Executive of Maitland PR, Neil Bennett and the Guardians racing correspondent Greg Wood.

In May 2007 Pi Magazine Society was constitutionally renamed as Pi Media Society to take into account Pis expansion into other media formats; Pi Squared Newspaper (now simply Pi Newspaper) and a website. Since then, there has been careful emphasis by Pi Media to rebrand Pi Magazine as a journalistic outlet for student life and culture. Pi Newspaper has now taken the role of providing news on local and national student issues.

Pi Magazine came runner up in 2009 for the Guardian Student Media awards under the Best Magazine category.

A typical issue of Pi contains a wide variety of sections of supposed interest to UCL students, such as special features and sections such as arts, music and fashion. Pi Magazine was shortlisted for Best Magazine of the Year at the Guardian Student Media Awards in 2009 and was subsequently awarded runner-up.

Alongside the magazine, Pi Squared was launched in October 2006 as a sister publication in newspaper form. Its second issue made it well-read around the university with an article describing toilets in the main building of UCL as a cruising zone for men looking for sex with students. In 2009, the name was changed to Pi Newspaper and it has since been notable for high level interviews (for instance, Archbishop Desmond Tutu) and organising lectures and speakers for the general UCL community.

Both publications are distributed around the UCL campus, including UCL Union bars, departmental common rooms and libraries.

The magazine and newspaper are published separately by the society and have separate editorial structures.

Unlike many other student publications, Pi Magazine, Pi TV and Pi Online do not have a paid full-time sabbatical editor. Editors are elected annually at the society AGM from University College Londons pool of undergraduate and graduate students although for a few years during the 1980s it was run on a collective basis with no one individual having overall editorial control.

Sections in Pi include: News and Investigations, Comment, Politics, Science and Technology, Travel, Sport and Arts and Culture. Editorial positions are elected to once a year at one of two Annual General Meetings taking place at the end of the first and second terms at University College London.

In December 2012, following concerns that internal competition between the magazine and the newspaper was mutually harmful, the decision was made by the editorial board that the content should be merged while retaining the glossy magazine format. This publication was entitled Pi Magazine in a return to the original nomenclature of the publication founded in 1945.

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