In our defence
The press statement released this week by the joint organising committee of the May Day celebrations was broadly correct and expressed many sentiments that this newspaper echoes. The group, which consists of the County and City Councils, Emergency services and Oxford University bodies, “expresses frustration at those who chose to jump and inflict injury upon themselves”.
However, this newspaper would take issue with the part of the statement which reads: “However the group believed that the University student media outlets could have been more supportive in their preevent coverage of the warnings”. The Oxford Student does not accept responsibility for the fact that over 100 people jumped off Magdalen Bridge on May morning and we support our esteemed rival newspaper, The Cherwell, for taking the same stance.
The reasons for this are threefold: Contrary to the reports in the national press, only a small proportion of the May Day jumpers were actually students of this university. Secondly, whilst there is no question that some jumpers were not aware quite how shallow the water was, The Oxford Student did not see it as a duty of a student newspaper to tell students that jumping off a 30 foot bridge into an opaque body of water could be dangerous.
Finally, The Oxford Student would like to point out the gravest error in the statement. At no time does the organising committee (the somewhat amorphous nature of which is entirely intentional in order that no single body need take full responsibility) acknowledge the very serious allegations expressed by this newspaper in our edition dated 5th May in which we reported that the bridge guards were betting on the number of jumpers.
Despite our repeated requests the Council have refused to conduct an inquiry into the conduct of security firm, R&R, and whilst the firm’s director of operations has refused to deny the allegations, they are now refusing to speak to the press. It is churlish in the extreme for the committee to issue this release and attempt to place blame on the student press.
We will admit that a short column, printed three days before the event could perhaps have deterred one or two students from jumping, but the role of the security firm present on the day itself was unquestionably far more important in attempting to minimise the number of people jumping and despite being instructed to advise members of the public, not a single person we spoke to who jumped that morning was warned of the dangers.
We do not doubt the intentions of the organising committee in attempting to publicise the dangers before the event and do not suggest that this was motivated by any desire to avoid legal responsibility. But it is not the duty of the student press to warn of the dangers of drinking too much alcohol after finals or jumping through the fire of a burning boat after eights.
Before issuing criticisms of the press, the organising committee for May Day should look at the conduct of a company they themselves employed to prevent the very carnage that occurred that day.
19th May 2005