“I will do whatever is necessary to get our media to where it deserves to be”
Rachel Harvey – County College
Rachel Harvey, Bailrigg FM’s Station Manager and former Assistant Manager, thinks she has the creativity and innovation to reinvigorate LUSU’s Media and Communications.
She feels the real core of the role is effective teamwork and leadership, with which she has had much experience through her extensive work with Bailrigg FM. As well as working with Bailrigg, Rachel has also been involved in other forms of media, starting up her own newspaper in her secondary school; an experience that she thinks would benefit her in working with SCAN.
Alongside this, Harvey feels what sets her aside for this role is her originality and ability to come up with new and inventive ideas. Harvey has been told before she can often “come up with too many ideas” which she views as working to her advantage if elected into this role.
She stressed the importance of collaborative work to encourage the growth of media within Lancaster, involving not just the three main forms of Lancaster Media, but also others such as LU Cinema. She is currently working on a joint media murder mystery with LA1:TV, and if elected she would like to carry out more events like this.
She also emphasised that publicising issues and events will be crucial, actively publicising events to the student body so that everyone knows what is going on within Lancaster. One way she would achieve this is by advertising college events in SCAN, as well as improving the currently “underrated” college magazines in order to publicise events and LUSU issues on a college level. She acknowledged that communicating with the student body can be a “difficult issue” but she believes she has the ideas and creativity to change this.
When questioned on the combination of the roles of SCAN Editor and Vice President (Media and Communications), Harvey maintained they should be the same role. However, she believes there should be more emphasis on the role of SCAN’s Assistant Editor, providing critical reflection and an “outsider’s perspective.”
On the controversial topic of new independent medias surfacing at Lancaster, Harvey said she thought the upsurge of new student media was “fantastic” and that these new newspapers were perfectly capable of working on their own, but she would provide support for these papers if they needed it. She also believes that having rival newspapers on campus would “push SCAN to get better and better.”
Overall, Harvey is “incredibly determined,” adding that she “will do whatever is necessary to get Media and Communications at Lancaster where it deserves to be.”
