Daily Teddygraph
TEDDY HALL STUDENTS reacted furiously on Tuesday when a brief ban on alcohol entz bizarrely made the front page of the Daily Telegraph.
The ban had only been in place since 12 February, and was ironically removed by the Dean, Dr Robert Whittaker, on the same Tuesday.
One Teddy Hall second year PPEist commented: "It's amazing that the Telegraph would put 'students get drunk', on the front page on a day at which war with Iraq drew closer. And even more amazing that they weren't aware of the fact that students still do occasionally drink."
Olly Petter, Teddy Hall JCR President, found the article "lazy journalism," stating "It is a pity that they go for a cliched Oxford story at a time when we are close to obtaining an ambitious and important arts week. and at which our sports teams are on the verge of winning several competitions." Editor of the OxStu Charles Hotham added, with not a hint of self-congratulation: "not to mention leading the field in student journalism this term."
In removing the ban, which had not affected the Teddy Hall bop in 5th week, Whittaker noted that "a set of constructive proposals were tabled by the JCR President." Petter described the proposals as "unprecedented," explaining that "they will raise awareness and responsibility not just for those organising the events, but for those that come to events." He insisted that drunken events this term were not unheard of previously in Teddy Hall or other colleges, instead "the difference is that this is the first time that anyone's done anything about it."
The Telegraph article, written by Neil Tweedie, used an amalgamation of information from different OxStu stories over a period of years. He referred to a comment by Caroline Boon when she was JCR social secretary, ignoring the fact that it was in relation to an incident in Michaelmas 2001, and completely unrelated to current events.
The journalist also sought to draw a spurious link between the fact that students still drink and the introduction of fees, Tweedie writing that "Student loans there may be, but the spirit of Brideshead lives on." Petter disagreed, stating that "student hardship is definitely a different issue."
The story also appeared in the Daily Mail, in a slighlty more accurate form, who admitted that they had garnered it from the pages of last week's OxStu.
27th Feb 2003