Societies Directory

The Tab [TheTab]

The Tab is a highly successful online newspaper serving Cambridge University students. Founded by three undergrads in May Week 2009, it has risen to become Cambridge’s most-read outlet.

Unlike its competitors Varsity and TCS who employ professional staff, The Tab is entirely student run. It recruits a new team of about 20 section editors (and deputies) at the end of each term along with a dozen senior critics and senior reporters. In total about 50 writers and photographers contribute to The Tab each week, writing news, sport, culture, reviews, opinion, features and interviews.

From the very beginning, The Tab’s name has regularly found itself in the national newspapers. The paper’s daring ‘Tab Totty’ feature in its early days attracted global media coverage with news stories in almost every single British national newspaper and many more abroad. Since then The Tab’s news stories have regularly reached the press.

It is The Tab’s approach to covering news that has often made it a distinctive voice in the Cambridge media. A direct, tabloid-inspired tone and a willingness to cover stories that its competitors shy away from has given it the edge in news-gathering. This was recognised by former Sun Editor Kelvin MacKenzie when he wrote a feature about The Tab in The Times. MacKenzie said: "The speed with which The Tab brings university news to the students gives it the edge over its print rivals Varsity and the student union newspaper. When the traditional May Week balls were threatened by protests from the locals over noise and too much alcohol, The Tab ran the story a full week ahead of Varsity.”

The Tab offers an excellent launching pad to make it in the media. It is regularly read by the news editors of the national newspapers and is well-known in the industry as an example of successful journalistic innovation online. The Tab’s ‘author pages’ list all a contributors past work and make it easy for anyone to see their writing, biography and photo when searching the internet.

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