Exeposé

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Front page of 21 May 2007 issue of Exeposé
Type	Fortnightly newspaper
Format	Tabloid

Owner	University of Exeter Students' Guild
Editor	Rhiannon Bury and Chris Erasmus
Founded	1987
Political allegiance	None
Headquarters	Cornwall House, Streatham Campus, University of Exeter
Circulation	c. 5,000

Website: www.exepose.com

Exeposé is the official student-run newspaper of the University of Exeter.^[1] The newspaper is read by the vast majority of students at the University of Exeter and has a circulation of up to 12,000. The paper is free and published fortnightly during term time.^[2] It includes a number of sections including news, features, lifestyle and sport. Rated & Reviewed provides students with information on the latest films, book, music and videogames.

Exeposé is compiled by a team of around 20 section editors and headed by two editors, two deputy editors and an R+R editor.^[3] It was the winner of the NUS Student Publication of the Year 2008 and is used as a forum for reportage and debate of both national and student-related issues. As of the 2006 - 2007 academic year it became be a full colour fortnightly paper available to all students at the Streatham and St. Luke's campuses.^[4]

1 History
2 Technical background
3 Current Section Editors
4 Awards and nominations
5 References
6 External links

History

Exeposé released its first issue to the students of Exeter University in 1987, although the existence of a student newspaper in some form can be traced back to the 1938 when the latest news was presented in a broadsheet format newspaper called The South Westerner.^[5] During the early to mid 1990s, Exeposé was produced on a typewriter in an eight-page A4 booklet format, with sections including news, reviews, sport and an agony aunt feature.^[6]

In the mid 1990s, Exeposé became a weekly tabloid newspaper, ranging in size from 8 to 12 pages, and printed by Express & Echo Publications (which has since gone through several name and structural changes, its publishing arm now know as Harmsworth Printing).^[7] During the late 1990s, Exeposé began to increase in size to 16-20 pages on average, some of these pages in spot colour or full colour. Between 2,000 and 2,500 papers were printed for each issue, distributed to drop-off points at Devonshire House and Cornwall House on Streatham Campus and St. Luke's Campus.

Exeposé Logo 1997-2005.

In 1997, a new Exeposé logo was designed based on the Carlsberg logo (as shown in the gallery below) and from 1997-2000 the paper proclaimed itself to be 'Probably the Best Student Newspaper in the World'.^[8] The logo is the longest running in the paper's short history, its use spanning 8 years and over 150 issues.^[9] In 2006 this logo was replaced by a new masthead which reflected was more similar to national newspaper mastheads. After months in use this was in turn replaced by the current mast head in May 2007. ^[10]

In 2007 the paper hit national headlines after Boris Johnson made controversial comments on the subject of the death of an Exeter student in an interview with the paper. His criticism of the University's Athletic Union and its ban on initiation ceremonies was featured by the BBC, The Sun, The Guardian, Daily Express, Daily Mirror, The Times and Daily Mail. ^[11] Johnson later made a statement regarding the intention of his comments on his website. ^[12]

Exeposé's parent site X-Media Online launched a new website for the newspaper in September 2007 as part of an overhaul of all student media sites at the University of Exeter and saw more content put online. An online team was formed with promises of more news, reviews and debate. ^[13]

The 2007/08 academic year marks the newspaper's 20th birthday.

In 2008, the R&R section was redesigned so as to be a part of the main newspaper, rather as a separate pull-out, in an effort to increase readership of the section.

In June 2008, writing from Exepose newspaper was showcased in the inaugral issue of "FS Magazine" as an example of "the best of student journalism".

Technical background

Front page of the Exeposé Open Day Special 2002

From 1995 to 2001, Exeposé was produced using one Apple Power Macintosh 8515, one Power Macintosh 8600 and one Macintosh IIcx, each with a 21 inch CRT monitor, and running QuarkXPress 3.32 and Adobe Photoshop 4. The Editorial Office was located in a small room on Top Corridor (later known as Guild Corridor) within Devonshire House on Streatham Campus.

During post production each week, the pages and images were transferred to several 100MB Zip disks and physically taken down to the Express & Echo Newspaper Office at the Sowton Industrial Estate, Exeter, where the paper was checked for consistency, proofread and sent to Data Reception for printing. The Express & Echo Editorial Team also assisted in checking Exeposé for any legal issues contained in the articles, although this service was stopped in 2001. The whole post production process took on average 6 hours to complete for each issue, a task that became hampered by the increasing age of the computer equipment in use. Technical problems plagued the paper during the period from the summer of 1999 until the middle of 2000, during which the only printer in the Editorial Office remained out of service.

Despite technical problems, it was during this time that Exeposé ran a campaign against the University's Domestic Services that won the paper a Guardian Media Award for Best Student Media Campaign. The centerpiece of the campaign was a "cut-out-and-sue" coupon, printed in the paper, written in protest at the poor upkeep of halls of residence at the time. The coupon encouraged students to write their name in a box on the page, which stated that they would begin legal action against Domestic Services. Hundreds of students signed their name on these coupons, and then posted them to the University.

In 2001, the University of Exeter Students' Guild authorised the purchase of two new Windows PCs, running QuarkXPress 4.1, Adobe Photoshop 5 and Adobe Acrobat 5.0.^[14] This enabled the post production process to become streamlined, with the pages being converted to PDF format before being e-mailed to the Express & Echo for printing.

In 2003, the Editorial Office was moved from Devonshire House to Cornwall House^[15] where it continues to be produced in-house using a suite of Windows PCs and printed by Harmsworth Printing from a PDF master copy (a low res version of which is available to download from the website shortly after publication).

In 2007, QuarkXpress 4.1 was replaced by Adobe InDesign on all of the PCs in the Exeposé office.

It is likely that the hardware will be replaced towards the end of 2008, which will see the production switched back to Apple Mac, due the improvements in the Mac operating system in recent years.

Current Section Editors

Editors: Chris Erasmus & Rhiannon Bury

Deputy Editors: Rebecca Bernard & Gemma Dye

R+R Editor: Jordan Blaxill

News Editors: Catriona Wightman & Adam Walmesley

Features Editors: Sophie Wardell & Nick Pascal

Lifestyle Editors: James Alsop & Clare Hosking

Travel Editors: Rebecca Lewis & Kate Ross

Sport Editors: Tim Hart & David Jarman

Stage and Screen Editors: Xander McAlpine & Katherine Wakeley

Music Editors: Rob Sherman & Hollie Rogers

Books Editors: Elaine Roberts & Ceri Maxwell

Videogames Editors: Daniel Rouse & Rebecca Bernard ^[16]

Awards and nominations

National Student Journalism Awards

2000 - Best Student Media Campaign (won)^[17]
2001 - Best Small Budget Student Publication (shortlisted)^[18]
2002 - Best Student Sports Journalist - Stuart Pollitt (shortlisted)^[19]

Guardian Student Media Awards

2000 - Student Campaign of the Year (won)^[20]
2001 - Student Sports Journalist of the Year - Stuart Pollitt (shortlisted)^[21]
2001 - Student Travel Writer of the Year - William Carless (shortlisted)^[22]
2004 - Student Sports Writer of the Year - Gary Payne (shortlisted)^[23]