The future of Cardiff Student Media (CSM)

Elaine Morgan, student media co-ordinator, started her career at Cardiff Students’ Union in 2003 and has been dedicating her time to CSM for 20 years. Though her title may have changed over time her key role has remained consistent—to support and guide current and new editors at the paper.

Elaine shares her hopes to rebuild the CSM community postpandemic.

“As a long-standing staff member of student media, I’ve seen many changes, but none more so than the pandemic. For the whole of 20/21, Gair Rhydd and Quench were produced from students’ homes and published on-line. This was a huge departure from the usual buzz and excitement that could be felt in the media office on deadline day, when the room would be full of section editors and contributors finalising their pages.

In 2021, when we were allowed back into the workplace, most of our contributors had no experience of using the office and the transfer of experience had been lost.

We wanted to recreate that atmosphere again and bring back the sense of drive and community that coming together in one space can provide.

It has taken time, but we are seeing a turnaround in the use of the media office and beginning to see all the PCs in use in the days leading up to deadline day and that great sense of togetherness and community is beginning to emerge once again.” ously, it featured the occasional Welsh language article here and there. Then, with its move online a few years later in 2012, the Gair Rhydd officially entered the digital world.

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