Patronising cowboy tactics
Hands up who started smoking as a result of the Altered Radio 'Listening Thrills' campaign last Hilary. If you did, we'd be glad to hear from you, but suggest you stand on High Street if you want to destroy your lungs effectively.
The news that solicitors acting for Philip Morris Products, owner of the Marlboro brand, have written to Altered Radio management criticising them for distributing promotional material based on the design of the cigarette packaging is to be greeted with ridicule and dismay.
The fact that a huge tobacco company is lecturing a tiny student radio organisation which does not make a profit (in fact a sizeable loss), on promoting cigarette usage in young people is both ironic and offensive.
Granted, Philip Morris does pour a considerable amount of money into the Youth Smoking Prevention Programme and appears to make conscientious efforts not to promote its products to young people (which it is banned in law by doing for the most part anyway).
Yet it still manages to make huge profits selling the suicide sticks which eventually kill those stupid or addicted enough to smoke heavily.
The Hilary advertising campaign was clever, inventive and, we hope, effective. 'Listening thrills' is obviously a parody on the words 'smoking kills'. It wasn't promoting smoking, in fact, residually it was reminding people of the latter phrase.
Dr Jeremy Philpott of the Patent Office told this newspaper: "Parody works because the consumer is not confused, no one is going to mistake a radio station for a brand of cigarettes".
Exactly. Because guess what? The public - and Oxford students - are not stupid. Philip Morris, global conglomerate that it is, should remember this and back off a group of defenceless students playing music.
Celebration and defiance
The celebration of 300 editions, 13 years, our shortlisting for Guardian Student Newspaper of the Year 2004 and the largest ever edition of this great newspaper today is marred by news that Patrick Foster and Roger Waite will this term face the Proctors for their brilliant front page article on 27th May 2004 headlined 'University IT network wide open to hackers', which we encourage every new reader to look up on www.oxfordstudent.com.
The Oxford Student and all its staff stand full square behind Foster and Waite as they defend themselves against the ridiculous, ill-founded and draconian charges designed to penalise two defenders of public interest, the free press and the rights of students. We will not tolerate any sanction for their brave and thoughtful behaviour, and neither should our readers.
CLARIFICATION: A letter in the 10th June 2004 edition of The Oxford Student included a letter headlined 'Protecting Apathy' from Felicity Walker-Buckton of Magdalen College. We now accept that Walker-Buckton was not the author of the letter, and apologise for any distress or inconvenience it may have caused her.
6th Oct 2004