UCL Pi Media

History

The publication was originally launched as a newspaper. In the aftermath of World War Two, 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.

The paper was extremely 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 Oxford Student and the LSE Beaver. British journalist and TV personality Jonathan Dimbleby was once the editor.

Pi Today

A typical issue of Pi Magazine contains a wide variety of sections of interest to UCL students, such as student news, an opinion section covering current student and general issues, and other sections such as arts, music and fashion. .

Editorial structure

The magazine is put together by the members of its UCL Union society, and they elect a student editor each year, though the Media & Communications Officer (a position elected annually in elections open to all UCL students) of the union is ex-offico editor. The current student editor is Simon Dedman; the current Media & Communications Officer is Alan Gardner.