More trouble at Cherwell
a cherwell editor resigned last week, citing "work pressures and personal problems" as the reason for his departure.
Mark Hodgkinson had been appointed at the end of last Trinity term to edit the newspaper with Jon Boone, but handed in his notice after just two issues had come out.
Hodgkinson's resignation follows a difficult summer for Cherwell. The paper ran into severe financial difficulties over the vacation after "gross mismanagement" left OSPL, Cherwell's parent company, running up debts of thousands of pounds. Boone and his new team, including Managing Directors Nick Jones and Emily Battle, hope to be out of the financial mire by January.
Hodgkinson claims that "my resignation is in no way connected to the financial situation of OSPL" and told the Oxford Student: "I have had to resign due to a combination of work pressures and personal problems." The third year St Johns Historian also denied that his departure was related to any kind of editorial disagreement. He commented: "I won't wish Jon and the rest of the staff good luck for the rest of term - they won't need it."
Boone himself is "extremely sorry to lose a long-standing member of the Cherwell team", yet remained "confident that the hard work and dedication of all the Cherwell hacks will ensure that the paper will come out every Friday of term." When questioned whether he had any concernns as sole editor, Boone commented that "we have a big team of committed people and we should be fine. It is an enormous shame to lose Mark, but he was put in an impossible situation and we all understand why he had to do what he did."
Cherwell's Deputy Editor for Trinity, widely assumed to have been in the running for Michaelmas Editor with Boone, was Tom Hill, a History and Politics finalist from St Annes. Hill declined to comment on the matter, saying "I've no great urge to pass judgement on the inner workings of Cherwell."
18th Oct 2001