AHistory of The Oxford Student
Charlie Bowden Editor-in-Chief, Michaelmas 2023
Published Michaelmas 2024
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I must thank Zoe Flood for all the support and encouragement she has provided me throughout this project, including putting me in touch with many of her predecessors. She has also been instrumental in cultivating an OxStu alumni mailing list and LinkedIn network which will hopefully benefit many future editors.
I would also like to express my heartfelt thanks to MartinAlfonsin Larsen and Gaspard Rouffin for allowing me the chance to share some flashpoints in the OxStu’s history in the newspaper itself through my ‘Time Capsule’column in Trinity 2024.
Thanks are additionally due to Joseph Hettrick for sharing wisdom gathered through his OULC history project and to Robin J. Danvers, Emily Hudson, Matthew Kerry and Martin Alfonsin Larsen for commenting on drafts of this project. I’m grateful to Rhea Kaur for her help with the front cover design.
I am immensely grateful to the following OxStu alumni who spoke to me about their experiences at the paper: LauraAitken-Burt, SimonAkam, AzeemAzhar, Alyx Barker, Anvee Bhutani, Peter Cardwell, Rodrigo Davies, Isabel Fleming, Zoe Flood,Alex Foster, Patrick Foster, Rob Hands,Alexander Haveron-Jones, Charles Hotham, Maria Kostylew, Helen Lewis, River Macilraith, James Mackintosh,Anna Maybank, Mary Morgan, Jennifer Mori, Tom Ough,Abbas Panjwani, Georgina Quach, Tom Rayner,Alice Richardson, Madeleine Ross, James Rothwell, Karl Smith, Vishesh Srivastava, Kiran Stacey andAndrew Wang. Their contributions have provided the backbone to this skeletal history.
My thanks must also go to the following alumni of OUSU who spoke to me about the governance and finances of the OxStu over the years:Alan Beattie, Nikki Smith, Rob Vance, Elliot Wallace and Ray Williams. I would additionally like to thank the following alumni of other publications that preceded or have coexisted with The Oxford Student:Anthony Martin of OUSNEWS; Sham Sandhu of The Word; andAdam Saxon of Cherwell, who each provided valuable external perspectives on the paper
Finally, thank you to the staff of the Bodleian Libraries, the Oxfordshire History Centre and Oxford Westgate Library for collectively hauling a metric tonne of newspapers from storage to my desk over the past year. None of my archival escapades would have been possible without your assistance.
Editorial preface
All photographic material in this publication is the copyright of the Oxford University Students’Union.
Introduction
The Oxford Student was founded in 1991 by the Oxford University Students’Union (OUSU)1 as a biweekly publication and inevitable rival to the more established Cherwell, its elder by more than 70 years. The OxStu, as it is more fondly known, has never truly been able to escape its association to its independent counterpart. Even the paper’s undisputed proudest moment – winning Newspaper of the Year at the 2001 Guardian Student MediaAwards – was overshadowed by local rivalry. The Guardian’s own headline on the paper’s success read ‘Cherwell’s rival wins best student paper’.2
In the eyes of some, it is still ‘the other Oxford student paper’. Indeed, the OxStu came to prominence by virtue of its difference from Cherwell, recruiting early editors who were rejected from their rival or who disliked its reporting style and editorial focus. The most recent history of the University does not mention the OxStu once, despite its chronology extending over two decades after the paper’s establishment. Cherwell, by comparison, receives a fair few mentions.3
In the 23 years since its win, the OxStu has had an inalienable (and sometimes infamous) influence on life at the University of Oxford.As with any student paper, its history is marked more by change than continuity, at least materially: its editors are replaced at the end of every eight-week term regardless of their performance or the scope of their ideas. The Oxford Student has continually evolved in small ways since its establishment, though many of the substantial elements of the paper have been more or less constant: its sections; its editorial independence from its owner; and the appointment of two new Editors-in-Chief per term.
The aim of this project is to provide the first comprehensive examination of the paper’s history. In taking as my subject every edition and event that the publication has dealt with since its establishment, I cannot spend too much time focusing on specific incidents, articles, sections or people. I am also conscious that most contributors to the paper are still alive today, so I will not delve into how personal circumstances or relationships affected the production of the paper.
Taking a thematic rather than chronological approach past the paper’s early years, I hope to make clear that the OxStu of 1991 is not too dissimilar to the paper’s 2024 iteration. Many of the problems faced by its founding editors still plague the staff today.Above all, the paper’s ownership by OUSU has been the singular structural anchor providing a steady mix of blessings and curses over the years. However, there is far more to this publication than its business arrangements: if the editorial needle hadn’t moved much in 33 years there wouldn’t be much point in this historical pursuit.
As a former Editor-in-Chief and especially as a fallible and opinionated human being, I cannot hope to produce a truly objective history of this paper. I invite those with other perspectives who feel so inclined to produce an alternative examination of it. What I can assure the reader is that I am not attempting to produce a golden record of the paper’s best
1 The Oxford University Students’Union currently brands itself as the Oxford SU. For the sake of consistency, I will refer to it henceforth as OUSU since it has been known by that acronym for most of the paper’s history.
2 Will Woodward, ‘Cherwell’s rival wins best student paper’ (https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/oct/18/media.studentmediaawards), The Guardian (18 October 2001).
3 L. W. B. Brockliss, The University of Oxford: A History (Oxford, 2016).
moments, smoothing over the rough edges, because that would not be factual, interesting or true to the spirit of a student publication. The OxStu has had many hands mousing over its pages as they’ve been put together. No article, edition or editorial tenure can be perfect. In the following 25,000 or so words I hope to display those inherent imperfections, as much as the paper’s spotty records and the limited memory capacity of its alumni can allow.
Prehistory
The Oxford Student was far from OUSU’s first foray into student publications. It published The Oxford Handbook, a comprehensive freshers’guide given out to every new student free of charge, for decades. In the modern day itsAlternative Prospectus is continually updated by the committee of the Target Schools programme. Beyond that, desire for a student union-run news publication at Oxford dates to 1978, just four years after OUSU itself was formed.
The first front cover of OUSNEWS.
The first edition of OUSNEWS, OUSU’s first news magazine, was published in 5th week of Michaelmas term 1978 Though, like the OxStu, it claimed to be editorially independent from its owner, its leadership and editorial focus were tied directly to OUSU. Its inaugural editor,Anthony Martin, was Treasurer of OUSU during his tenure in charge. The first words that a reader saw in the inaugural issue belonged to OUSU PresidentAndrew Waldie. These two figures would be integral to the magazine’s short-lived history: even after relinquishing the editorship to Indra Bhose and Simon Morley in Trinity 1979, Martin remained closely tied to OUSNEWS as itsAssociate Editor His words are the only ones that can be found in both its first and last editions. Waldie, meanwhile, worked on the magazine’s Features section for its second issue and provided commentary on the NUS annual conference
The crucial first pages of articles in each edition covered news related to OUSU campaigns and committee decisions, with a dedicated team focusing on these. Listed among the magazine’s leadership roles was an OUSU Coordinator. Martin’s introduction to the third issue states that the OUSU Executive provided OUSNEWS with “minimal but crucial help”.4 However, this help was seemingly not guaranteed in perpetuity.
In Hilary 1980 the magazine was reborn as Axis, but this new name would only grace two issues before production stopped abruptly. In the foreword to its twelfth and final issue, the magazine’s last editors JonAves and Deb Gearing had no idea whether their publication would survive: “It is quite possible that this will be the last edition of Axis, as we have no real notion of the structure of OUSU publications, as envisaged by the next executive ”5
Anthony Martin, in his final piece for the magazine he started, offered an obliviously optimistic call to arms for journalistic hopefuls: “Getting involved with OUSNEWS is by far your best bet if you want a taste of journalism, at the same time working for a small and informal team, completely independent of Student Union directives” 6 He reassured readers that although the OUSU Executive appointed the two editors, their power over the magazine’s content stopped there and said editors were always chosen from its existing staff. This might have been true, butAves and Gearing were seemingly powerless to prevent Axis from disappearing in Trinity 1980.
4 Anthony Martin, ‘Foreword’, OUSNEWS 3 (1979), p. 3.
5 JonAves and Deb Gearing, ‘Foreword’, Axis 12 (1980), p. 3.
6 Anthony Martin, ‘OUSU publications’, Axis 12 (1980), p. 4.
It only took five years for OUSU to try their hand at another student publication, again intimately connected with the executive of the day. This one was named Oxford Student, without the precursory article which would mark its successor publication. Published twice termly, its first edition, edited by Jo Collinge, arrived in October 1985. It was available for free to OUSU members but cost 20p for everyone else.7 Much like OUSNEWS, Oxford Student featured updates from OUSU officers and committees: its first article with a credited author belonged to Sean Maguire, organiser of the 1985Alternative Careers Fair.8
16 pages long, the magazine contained little more than a few pages of OUSU news and a brief succession of double-spread articles However, Collinge wasted no time in tackling the big issues. The first edition included a debate on sanctioning SouthAfrica for apartheid and an interview with Martin Galvin, then Publicity Director of NORAID which had been accused of being a front for the IRAby the governments of the UK, US and Ireland Both articles received complaints in letters to the editor published in the second edition. Brasenose JCR also condemned the magazine for the Galvin interview.
One of the more peculiar elements of the short lifespan of Oxford Student was that, despite its name, several issues featured contributions from Oxford dons. The subjects they wrote on were not ones that modern academics would typically publish widely, at least not in a magazine aimed at students.
Dieter Helm, still a Fellow of New College and Professor of Economic Policy at Oxford today, had an article published on student loans in collaboration with OUSU President Mark Stephens in November 1986.9 However, he complained in the March 1987 issue (which was its last) that the editors of Oxford Student had “substantially altered” his piece by removing crucial contextual paragraphs without his consultation.10 In the penultimate issue BarbaraA. Kennedy, Fellow in Geography at St Hugh’s College, participated in a written debate on women’s colleges in her capacity as St Hugh’s Tutor forAdmissions.11 The women’s group at the college criticised Kennedy in the final edition, suggesting that the tone of her piece
7 In the modern day every Oxford student is considered a member of OUSU In this case it is presumed that the magazine was free to members of the OUSU Executive, as it is unlikely anybody unaffiliated with the University would have seen reason to purchase a copy.
8 Sean Maguire, ‘So you don’t want to become an accountant?’, Oxford Student 1 (1985), p. 3.
9 Dieter Helm and Mark Stephens, ‘Students: can you stand a loan?’, Oxford Student 8 (1986), pp. 11-12.
10 Dieter Helm, ‘Right of reply’, Oxford Student 10 (1987), p. 4.
11 Beverly Cox, Rachel Glennerster, and BarbaraA. Kennedy, ‘Women’s colleges: sanctuaries or relics?’, Oxford Student 9 (1987), pp. 7-8.
The front cover of an issue of Oxford Student, highlighting its focus on OUSU activism.
“encourage[d] intolerance and suspicion of an all-women environment”.12 St Hugh’s, originally a women’s college, had accepted its first male students at the beginning of that academic year.
The magazine even attracted external academics, albeit on just one occasion. In the penultimate edition Bhikhu Parekh, then Professor of Political Theory at the University of Hull, discussed the impact of the Swann Report on multiracial education in Britain in his capacity as Deputy Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality.13 The cluster of nonstudent articles in the final few issues of the magazine suggests an attempt to appear highbrow, possibly in the wake of prior embarrassment.
In the November 1986 edition the editors were forced to apologise to Cherwell for accusations made about the appointment of its editors which were “totally without foundation”.14 They had clearly suggested that the process was not entirely based on merit. As it turned out, Chris McAllister, the editor in Trinity 1986 who had made the accusations, had applied to be editor of Cherwell and was rejected. This limited evidence either suggests that it was common for people even at the highest level of OUSU publications to switch to Cherwell or, more likely, that McAllister was an outlier whose attempted jumping of the Oxford Student ship had not ended well.According to a recruitment advertisement from earlier that year, McAllister and presumably other editors of the magazine were appointed directly by the OUSU President.15
The final issue of Oxford Student was published in March 1987, this time without an ominous portent of impending destruction. It lasted for five terms, the same as OUSNEWS, though its publishing schedule allowed for only ten issues in that time rather than the twelve its predecessor managed. Its leadership was far less stable in comparison, with a new editor being chosen each term, though this might have merely reflected a new management structure instead of significant editorial turnover.
In its final few editions Oxford Student picked up some staff who would go on to make considerable names for themselves Its final co-editor was Paul Waugh, former Executive Political Editor at HuffPost UK and current Labour MP for Rochdale; SamiraAhmed, BBC journalist and winner of the 1989 Philip Geddes Memorial Prize, was a sub-editor; and screenwriter Kate Brooke and former Downing Street Director of Communications Guto Harri were both on staff for the final term. Former Labour MP and Shadow Education Secretary Stephen Twigg was also a frequent contributor.
These short-lived precursors to the modern OxStu clearly differ from it in terms of content and management. They also reflected a sustained, if unsuccessful, interest in OUSU providing an alternative outlet for Oxford’s student journalists OUSNEWS and Oxford Student were never bona fide rivals to Cherwell – for that a modicum of independence from the OUSU leadership would be necessary. Their quick burnouts proved that an OUSU-funded publication could only become a fixture of Oxford’s student media scene if the OUSU
12 St Hugh’s Women’s Group, ‘Fulfilment’, Oxford Student 10 (1987), p. 2.
13 Bhikhu Parekh, ‘Afair start’, Oxford Student 9 (1987), pp. 7-8.
14 Oxford Student 7 (1986), p. 1.
15 Oxford Student 4 (1986), p. 14. The advert for the editorship stated that applicants “need not necessarily be anyone who has been involved with the magazine so far”, suggesting that Oxford Student had little in place to prevent a favouritism problem of its own.
Executive stepped away and allowed independent journalists to oversee things. Unlike those that came before them, The Oxford Student was and is not beholden to the whims of OUSU sabbatical officers. Such a privilege did not come easy though. It took the ambition of both sabbatical officers and OUSU-affiliated journalists for an editorially independent newspaper to emerge
Origins
Ian West, OUSU’s incoming Vice President (Finance), founded The Oxford Student over the long vacation of 1991. At the time OUSU published numerous books aimed at students through their commercial subsidiary, Oxford Student Services Limited. These were typically produced annually over each long vacation, recruiting talented student journalists to oversee them. OSSL’s yearly publications included The Freshers’ Guide; The Oxford Handbook; The Women’s Handbook; The Graduate Handbook; The Oxbridge Careers Handbook (produced in partnership with Cambridge University Students’Union); and The Alternative Prospectus.
Given that Cherwell was the dominant student publication in Oxford at the time, many of their journalists worked on OUSU publications over the years. Possibly in recognition of this dependence on Cherwell talent, a newspaper of their own was one of the few things OSSL did not publish. Upon taking charge of OUSU’s commercial activities, however, Ian West sought to change that. He wanted OSSL to become a proper publishing house that produced more than student handbooks. Using the precedent of student unions up and down the country producing newspapers and the network of journalists who had edited recent OSSL publications and were eager to continue their involvement, he brought the idea to OUSU Council.
The Council approved the production of a fortnightly newspaper in black and white to mitigate the financial risk. West as VP (Finance) was made the newspaper’s publisher, meaning he shouldered legal responsibility for it, and he appointed Stephen Pritchard, editor of The Oxford Handbook, as its first editor. Gavin Rees was brought in to do the paper’s typesetting because, as a Maths student, he was the only one who had the skills for it.Azeem Azhar, another Oxford Handbook alum, overheard an early meeting about the paper and became its first Photo editor. Jennifer Mori, who had edited The Graduate Handbook the summer before, was roped in early on because, in Pritchard’s view, as a DPhil candidate she had more time on her hands to dedicate to the paper. Between them the first edition of the paper, just twelve pages long, was published at the beginning of Michaelmas 1991. Thus, The Oxford Student was born.
Despite its humble first issue, the quality of the OxStu improved rapidly by virtue of its rivalry with Cherwell. The latter paper was accused at the time of being cliquey and mostly attracting private schoolers, causing some budding journalists to join the OxStu in explicit rebellion against Oxford’s established publication. One esteemed individual from those early years who chose the OxStu over Cherwell wasAndy Zaltzman. Now a celebrated comedian and host of The News Quiz on Radio 4, Zaltzman was among the paper’s first Sport editors. In a few years’time he would be counted among the best student journalists in Oxford.
The principal edge that the OxStu had over its competitors which enabled such a rapid evolution was its embracing of technology. From the beginning Pritchard opted to use Quark Xpress, one of the earliest pieces of desktop publishing software, for typesetting on OUSU’s Apple Macs Cherwell and other OSSL publications like The Oxford Handbook were still being physically typeset using plates which was a much more time-consuming and expensive process. The efficiency of digital typesetting meant that the OxStu could send its pages off to the printers in the early hours of the morning and have them ready to distribute by 10am, whereas Cherwell’s printing process spanned multiple days.
By the end of its first year, the OxStu had produced twelve fortnightly editions. Their quality had undoubtedly increased since Michaelmas, but printing costs meant that OUSU was losing money on the paper. Elliot Wallace, West’s successor as VP (Finance), decided to double down on the investment and persuaded the OUSU Council to approve a weekly publication. Such a gamble could only come off the back of strong advertising sales from other OSSL publications, which enabled Wallace to predict that the OxStu could attract enough advertisers of its own to keep it afloat.
His gamble did not pay off entirely: the paper was still making a loss by the end of Wallace’s term, but the deficit was less than the prior cost of advertising OUSU’s activities in Cherwell
The main success of that second year was the recruitment of strong editorial talent who fashioned the paper into a genuine competitor to Cherwell.Azhar, editor in Trinity and Michaelmas 1992, played a key role in this by putting the OxStu online via Gopher, a predecessor to the World Wide Web. In Trinity 1994 the paper made the lofty claim that the OxStu was “the first British newspaper to be available electronically from any point in the world”.16 Lower production costs meant that it became possible to print in colour, though it was a long time before it was printed as such front to back. The loyalty of local advertisers (as opposed to Cherwell, which held a relative monopoly on employer advertising at the time) financed the production of pull-out supplements akin to G2 in the Guardian. These links with Oxford’s entertainment centres also enabled the OxStu to produce a double spread of weekly events and cinema listings in the centre of the paper, a significant asset in a time before Google.
Astudent paper couldn’t make a name for itself in such a short period without attracting controversy. The year prior to succeeding Elliot Wallace as VP (Finance),Alan Beattie wrote the paper’s satire column, named Magpie after the street his girlfriend lived on. The column included the expected jabs at Cherwell and the Oxford political scene, but things suddenly became all too real when Magpie dared to point a mocking finger at the Prime Minister. Years before anybody knew about Edwina Currie, Magpie suggested John Major was having an affair with Downing Street chef Clare Latimer. This came after Latimer had told the press that the Prime Minister often personally thanked her for her work after a big party. The article, beginning “it now seems that our PM has quite a taste for catering girls”, only became more flagrant the further down a reader looked.17
Beattie even acknowledged the danger of taunting Downing Street like this at the end of the article, and his predictions were soon proved correct. In a letter sent from the Prime Minister’s office, the OxStu was accused of parroting libellous claims from the New Statesman and
16 The Oxford Student (henceforth referred to as OxStu) (21April 1994), p. 21.
17 ‘Magpie’, OxStu (4 February 1993), p. 5.
Downing Street legal threats surpass the OxStu’s budget.
Scallywag which Major and Latimer eventually won damages for.18 The editors were warned to publish a full apology or face legal action themselves. The next edition featured said apology where the Magpie column would normally be placed. The editors stated that while Magpie “has never intended to offer serious comment” and the article “aimed to poke fun at the current libel laws”, they “accept that it was a mistake to comment on an issue of such sensitivity”.19 The Independent’s coverage of the dispute in their Diary section began, “Students. Revolting, aren’t they?”.20 Upon its return a week after the apology, Magpie lamented the “condescending tone” of the national press who “exaggerated the whole situation”.21 The Magpie-Major affair was the OxStu’s first encounter with the national papers, commencing a troubled relationship which continues to this day.
Beyond the controversies, the OxStu’s first years were remarkably successful, as a survey of 800 Oxford students conducted by Oxford Reform Club in 1996 illustrates. Five years after its founding six OxStu journalists were named among the best in Oxford, with the paper’s editor Jaime Gill receiving the most nominations. The OxStu had a print run of 8,000 compared to Cherwell’s 7,000 and was read by almost 70% of left-wing students. Clearly the perception of Cherwell as a private school paper had not receded much. This bias was further reflected in the general belief that the Oxford student press’coverage was skewed towards both OUSU (largely seen as the OxStu’s focus) and the Oxford Union (Cherwell’s typical focus). Respondents noted that the OxStu’s biases included ‘green issues’and ‘media trends’ while Cherwell’s were ‘vodka advertisers’and ‘editor’s friend’, implying favouritism in the latter’s coverage. Given that my only source for this survey is the OxStu’s own version of events, it is likely that the editors picked the best-sounding biases for the OxStu and the worst for Cherwell 22 Nonetheless, the fact that the OxStu was a genuine competitor to its much older rival, even beating it by some margins, was significant. Ian West’s vision had been largely achieved: OUSU was home to its own powerhouse publication from which talent could be drawn to edit OSSL’s handbooks. The OxStu was no longer the new kid on the block – it had genuine heft behind it now.
18 Tracy McVeigh and Gabby Hinsliff, ‘I was used as decoy for Major’s affair, claims furious No10 chef’ (https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/sep/29/politics.conservatives1), The Guardian (29 September 2002).
19 ‘Major apology’, OxStu (11 February 1993), p. 5.
20 ‘Oxford’s answer to that Major rumour’, The Independent (9 February 1993), p. 17.
21 ‘Magpie’, OxStu (18 February 1993), p. 5.
22 ‘Editorial’, OxStu (30 May 1996), p. 4.
Design
The design of the OxStu has fluctuated significantly over the years, especially in terms of colour. Having begun in black and white, the paper adopted a green colour scheme after the introduction of colour printing. The shade of green swung from turquoise to deep seaweed depending on editorial preferences and printing hiccups. Originally the paper’s header was a simple title in green front but from late 1994 the name was planted in a block of green akin to a tabloid.
The front cover of an edition from 1994, vomitgreen header and all.
It was in Michaelmas 1998, under the editorial direction ofAlice Wignall, that the paper made a shift to the blue colour scheme it has retained ever since. Readers seemed to appreciate the change, since just a week into Wignall’s tenure a letter compared the OxStu’s image change to the handiwork of a New Labour spin doctor. The move from “vomit green” to “sapphire blue”, according to the author, was welcome in isolation but came at a time when other OSSL publications, namely the OUSU Term Diary and the Freshers’ Guide, were also moving towards blue. This student supposed that the change came directly from the OUSU offices since “at least one OUSU sabbatical officer is ‘allegedly’an undercover Tory” Regardless of whether this sea change was an instance of “colour fascism” on the part of Conservative sympathisers, OxStu blue has long outlived its fellow adopters.23 I would venture that Wignall simply realised that blue is a more attractive colour for a newspaper than green, and her successors have concurred
More minute elements of the paper’s design have changed extremely regularly and in ways that only an extremely invested reader would be likely to spot. The editors of Varsity, one of Cambridge’s student newspapers, were oddly interested in the use of small triangles denoting page numbers on the OxStu front page in 1999. Despite this being a common practice across local and national papers in the UK, Varsity’s editors were convinced that the OxStu knowingly ripped off the design of their Cambridge counterpart. To this end they reproduced the OxStu front page in Varsity and titled their protestation ‘Ox-fraud’. Responding to these accusations in his editorial, Daljit Bhurji called Varsity “Cambridge’s answer to The Sun” and concluded that it was “obviously a lean week for news” if they had resorted to such trifling complaints. He further suggested that Varsity had broken copyright by reproducing the OxStu without permission but neither party seemed to take the matter further.24 Thankfully, this exchange lies on the extreme end of OxStu-Varsity relations
On 2 March 2000 the first full-colour edition of the OxStu was published, heralded by a rainbow header rather than the regular blue. However, this was a one-time end-of-term celebration rather than an adoption of full colour printing, which would not come for over a
23 P. Robertson, ‘Primary Colours’, OxStu (15 October 1998), p. 8.
24 Daljit Bhurji, ‘Editorial’, OxStu (13 May 1999), p. 8.
decade. For most of the paper’s existence around half of any given edition has been printed in colour, and since 1992 the front and back pages have consistently been printed as such A reduction in both circulation and the frequency of publication in recent years has sustained full-colour printing amidst rising costs.
The paper’s design was previously configured using Quark Xpress, with Photoshop being utilised for photo scanning. Editors now make use ofAdobe InDesign, a popular choice in modern print publishing. Though the paper embraced digital typesetting from the outset, the Quark Xpress files initially had to be physically delivered to the printer.Adisc containing the files was brought to a reprographics unit at Oxford University Press, who provided the bromide-based photographic paper necessary for printing. Last-minute advertising space was filled by gluing cutouts into blank spots before the bromides were taken to the printer. The modern-day process is much less hands-on, with the InDesign files simply being exported as PDFs to OUSU who arrange the printing. In its earlier days the paper was handdelivered to colleges and other University buildings by its editors, often with the assistance of friends who had access to cars. In the modern day OUSU pays a distribution company to deliver the papers. This is because they arrive from the printers in the early hours of the morning when the OUSU offices are closed, so it would not be possible for them to be picked up and distributed by the editorial team personally. Printing and distribution costs are partially offset by the sale of advertising in OUSU initiatives like the fresher’s fair.
The only terms in which no editions were physically produced were Trinity 2020, Michaelmas 2020 and Hilary 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Weekly interactive digital broadsheets were instead produced and distributed on the website, in essence creating a longer front page. Each article snippet on the broadsheet included a link to view the piece in full online.
The most recent redesign of the paper was undertaken by MartinAlfonsin Larsen and Gaspard Rouffin in Trinity 2024. Substantive changes included the incorporation of nonNews articles on the front page; article headlines being made the colour of their section; the reintroduction of puzzles on the back page; and the adoption of greyscale headshots for the authors of editorials and columns. The Food & Drink, Green and Pink sections were also folded, and their content redistributed to other sections. Given the frequency of such
One of the digital broadsheets produced from home in Trinity 2020.
redesigns, however, it would be a mistake to make much fuss of their impact on the content of the paper, even regarding section changes.
None of these changes, or any changes made in previous redesigns, bely a shift in the paper’s focus or mission.As a newspaper, the OxStu’s principal role is to deliver news as it relates to Oxford students.As such, News has always been the leading section of the paper and the swapping out of one News article on the front page does not affect that pride of place. Similarly, Sport is the section that occupies the back pages, as it always has, even if puzzles take up some of that space.
The removal of dedicated sections for cuisine, environmental issues, and the queer community does not mean that such topics have also been removed: they have simply been rehoused in larger sections. No aesthetic augmentations made to the OxStu have changed the fact that its primary mission is to produce articles of interest to Oxford students. Individual editors might make changes that further that mission in their view, but superficial shifts have little effect on the heart of the paper. If somebody wants to write about something that is of interest to the Oxford student body, there will be a place for it regardless of what the paper looks like.
The front page of the most recent OxStu print edition.
Sections
Having concluded the last section on the continuity of content in the OxStu, it makes sense to now examine the development of the sections within which each article is formally categorised.
A recent social media post explaining each OxStu section.
The paper is currently home to nine sections: News, Comment, Profile, Features, Culture, Identity, Science, OxYou and Sport. Unsurprisingly, News, Features and Sport, being mainstays of most newspapers, have existed under those names since the very beginning of the OxStu. Other sections have existed through other monikers, as sub-sections, or as uncategorised segments prior to being included on the contents page.
Interviews have been a key element of the OxStu from the outset. However, for most of the paper’s history they have existed as part of wider sections like Culture and Features rather than as a section of their own. The inclusion of Profile as a separate section thus ensures the presence of at least two interviews in every edition of the paper but also limits the number that can be included overall. An issue in Michaelmas 2003 was labelled the ‘OxStu People Special’for housing a total of six interviews.25 Such a thing could only occur if those interviews were spread out throughout the paper rather than having six back-to-back pages all part of the same section. Several editorial teams included an Interviews Editor long before Profile became a separate section Presumably this individual was tasked with arranging the interviews rather than editing them if they could end up in any section.
Comment, which houses opinion pieces, has also been a consistent part of the OxStu since the beginning without being made its own section. Opinion articles were by and large included in Features until the early 2000s, when several cases can be made for the introduction of a separate Comment section. In Hilary 2000 ‘The Oxford Diary’, a column containing the most raucous photos sent into the paper that week, was the only article in the so-called Comment &Analysis section. However, such insight was clearly more satirical in nature than what modern Comment articles typically offer. Michaelmas 2003 saw the adoption of Comment as a section of its own, though before this it was common for individual articles in a section to be labelled as Comment pieces. For instance, in 2001 former Conservative MP Chris Skidmore wrote a Culture article on the Beatles which was explicitly called an opinion piece.26
Meanwhile, editorial commentary on significant News stories has gone in and out of fashion in the OxStu. Some columns, such as Helen Lewis’‘Hype Behind the Headlines’and Peter
25 In order of their inclusion in the paper, those interviews were with MadeleineAlbright, Attallah Shabazz, Terry Jones, Melvyn Bragg, Roger Knapman andAnthony Lunch.
26 Chris Skidmore, ‘Demystification’, OxStu (7 June 2001), p. 6.
Cardwell’s ‘Between the Sheets’of Hilary 2004 and 2005 respectively, took media commentary as their principal focus. Johannes Riese, Comment Editor in Trinity 2024, recently resurrected the tradition by offering analysis of local stories within the News section itself. In the same term Zaid Magdub produced a column for Comment focusing principally on Oxford stories. In doing so he tied together the two vehicles of unadulterated opinion in the OxStu, though it would be foolish to argue that student journalists don’t express their opinions outside of the Comment section. Ultimately there isn’t much material difference between Comment and other sections in their expression of personal feeling. However, outside of Comment there is a chance that the said opinion was requested by an organisation asking for a review of their work. Comment articles always seem to offer unsolicited advice.
Culture has had a rather unique journey in the OxStu. The section covers books, films, music, television, cuisine, theatre and a lot more besides. Each individual strand of the modern Culture section was once a section of its own in the paper’s pull-out supplement, first called Review and then Ox2. This was the case as far back as Michaelmas 1992, whenArts, Listings, Music, Travel and Food & Drink were all included within the supplement. The sections housed within shifted over the years but the insert’s overall theme of discussing popular culture never shifted.
In Hilary 2003 Culture replaced Life and Travel within Ox2 (renamed as such in Michaelmas 2000) but Music, Drama, Books and Film remained separate, with a dedicated editor for each. It soon became the norm that any articles within the supplement that didn’t fit the preexisting entertainment categories were thrown into Culture: this was most frequently the case with coverage of museum and art gallery exhibitions. When the supplement was removed and these sections were incorporated into the wider paper, the separation remained.As recently as 2019 Music was a section of its own, and my own entry into the OxStu in Michaelmas 2022 was as Section Editor for the sub-section of Music within Entertainment Culture, as it has been known consistently since Trinity 2023, currently contains no sub-sections but has recently absorbed some more specific columns. For instance, Elliot Francolla’s ‘Recipe Corner’of Trinity 2024 ensured that Food & Drink remained a regular element of the paper’s content after its removal as a section.
Science has come in and out of the contents page as an OxStu section frequently but has been a mainstay of the paper for some time. In Michaelmas 1993 it was a single-page section which included a medicinal advice column by ‘Dr Jekyll’, and one term later the column was all that constituted the Science section in some editions. It was clearly not a priority for early editors given that it was often shoved into half-page spots with short-lived sections like Internet and Women. Its contributors were sometimes celebrated beyond the paper though, as
An Ox2 supplement which features the many faces of Terry Jones.
was the case with Katie Mantell who won a national award for science writing sponsored by the Daily Telegraph and National Power in Michaelmas 1995.27
The Science section was also a frequent home to articles discussing more taboo topics (especially sex) with the justification that such a conversation came from a medical perspective. ‘Ruby Perera’s World of Sex’and ‘William Brown’s SexualAgony’were two advice columns housed in Science in the early 2000s. In Trinity 1994 a student going by the name ‘Dr Goodtime’penned a page-long article on various medical maladies related to the penis, with accompanying photographs.28 The paper incurred the wrath of the Mail on Sunday in Michaelmas 1995 when a student using the pseudonym ‘Ebenezer Good’discussed the benefits of taking ecstasy in an article. The outrage provoked a government response when Health Minister John Bowis stated that “there is no such thing as a risk-free drug”. Editor Sophie Dodgeon defended the article, arguing that it was informative and did not encourage the reader to do drugs.29
In more recent years Science was combined with discussion of internet culture and other technological developments, resulting in the Science and Technology section, known as SciTech for short. Despite its wide topical purview, the section was typically only allotted one page in each print edition. Given that most OxStu journalists are not STEM students the section also struggled with recruitment, since few people applied to join the paper with an interest in science journalism. The combination of SciTech and Green into Science in Trinity 2024 alleviated some of those pressures, with the inclusion of the ‘Eco Corner’ensuring that environmentalism remained a substantial focus for content. Green had been introduced in Hilary 2021 by Isabel Fleming and River Macilraith.
Identity is the newest face in the current section lineup, having been introduced in Hilary 2020.As made clear in a Facebook post from the time, the section was initially dedicated to “spotlighting BAME issues, opinions and experiences across the University” 30 This focus made the Identity section central to the paper’s coverage of the Black Lives Matter protests and the continuation of the Rhodes Must Fall movement in Oxford later in the year. In Trinity 2024 the Pink section, dedicated to LGBTQ+ content, merged with Identity, providing the section with a wider scope to cater for the many marginalised communities represented at Oxford. The section also began to regularly spotlight creative writing focused on the broad theme of identity, the paper having sporadically featured an isolated ‘Poetry Corner’ unconnected with any section in the past.
Pink originated as a sub-section of Features in Michaelmas 2016 and became a section of its own in Hilary 2017. The recency of both sections’implementation in the paper obviously did
27 ‘Science award’, OxStu (12 October 1995), p. 3.
28 Dr Goodtime, ‘Acautionary tale’, OxStu (9 June 1994), p. 16.
29 Alison Brace, ‘Shame of Oxford ecstasy students’, The Mail on Sunday (3 December 1995), p. 21.
30 Facebook post by The Oxford Student (8 January 2020) (https://ghostarchive.org/iarchive/facebook/144960142304499/1846567652143731).
not mean that earlier editions did not include discussion of the experience of students from marginalised groups. Women was a section in the early 1990s and the necessity of its inclusion in the OxStu was summarised by its editor, Lizzie Nelson, in Michaelmas 1993: “There are so many ways in which women are still constricted, in which the choices they make are not truly free.Awomen’s page is a useful forum because we needn’t accept ‘second best’.”31 The week after Nelson’s article, the section’s intersectionality was demonstrated through an article about Jewish womanhood.32 These issues were discussed long before the formalisation of an Identity section, but its presence might make those discussions easier to have on the page.
OxYou is the current iteration of OxStu’s satire section, but it has been known by several other names. Magpie was the first, followed by Eye Catcher, The Oxford Diary, The Daily OxStew, The Librarian and others. In earlier editions several satirical columns were featured throughout the paper rather than being concentrated on one page. One notable example was ‘The Hood Letters’from Hilary 2005 which depicted satirical correspondence between Vice Chancellor John Hood and Chancellor Chris Patten. Halfway through the term the editors had to apologise for suggesting in said column that the appointment of Julie Maxton as University Registrar was sexually motivated. Given that Maxton was the first woman to serve in the role, it was not a good look for the paper.33 One frequent feature was a satirical horoscope with an appropriately named host: ‘Mystic Reg’, ‘Tim the Enchanter’, ‘Pessimystic Reg’ and ‘Mystic Maurice’were just some. In Michaelmas 1994 the stars revealed “a good week for Sagittarians, except for those at colleges beginning with ‘St’, who will lose their sense of humour on Friday. Relax, it’ll be back by Monday, it’s just going to London for the weekend.”34
OxYou was introduced in Michaelmas 2020, with Lauren Shirreff running the section while editing the wider paper. The ‘Sunday Roast’, a satirical look at the week’s top stories, is published every Sunday during term time. The supposed author of these roasts is ‘Rordon Gamsay’who by Trinity 2021 was a fully-
31 Lizzie Nelson, ‘Why a Women’s page?’, OxStu (6 October 1993), p. 21.
32 Carol Smith, ‘More than just a name’, OxStu (14 October 1993), p. 21.
33 ‘Editorial’, OxStu (12 May 2005), p. 25.
34 ‘Mystic Reg’, OxStu (6 October 1994), The Mafia Town p. iv.
The most recent iteration of OxStu’s satire section.
The paper realises in 1998 that it might be a good idea to cover women’s sports.
fledged character with his own backstory. It was Shirreff’s goal to make the OxStu the place to go for satire in Oxford student journalism, and her success is evidenced by the fact that numerous subsequent OxYou editors went on to lead the paper. Madeleine Ross,Alex Foster and Milo Dennison are the most recent examples. In 2022 Foster also won the OxStu its most recent national Student PublicationAssociation (SPA)Award for a satirical guide to Oxford’s clubs. With the recent redesign reincarnating OxYou in the form of a classic broadsheet paper, it has become a mainstay in the OxStu in a way past satirical sections seemingly couldn’t.
Other short-lived additions to the section lineup were Style and Gen Z, both in Michaelmas 2021. Fashion had existed as a section before but never for a sustained period, and Style seemed to run into the same issue. It was, however, continued in spirit through Blane Aitchison’s long-running column Blane’s Style Files Articles in Gen Z, meanwhile, focused on internet culture, meaning they frequently performed well online but curried less favour in the print edition.An article byAndrew Wang on a Reddit post about a snail periodically trends on the OxStu website despite being published four years ago, and recently surpassed 100,000 total pageviews.35 Later editors clearly did not see much use in sections that were quite so niche containing content that could quite easily be categorised under a larger banner like Culture or Features. In the same vein, in recent years Columns was also a section of its own rather than having the work of columnists spread out across the paper and attached to various sections. This was changed in Trinity 2024, with columns again assigned to different sections based on their theme
Sport was briefly excised from the paper in Trinity 2020 when there were no local or national fixtures to report on, being replaced by Esports. The section proved so popular that it was retained when Sport was restored as students returned to Oxford in Michaelmas. However, the OxStu had previously experimented with the inclusion of a Gaming section, typically as part of a commercial arrangement with a local retailer who would give reviewers free games in return for regular promotions. This was included under the broad banner of Culture, and the Ox2 supplement before that, whereas Esports, with its competitive focus, was kept separate.
Other sections the paper briefly toyed with, sometimes not even for a whole term, include Welfare, Anti-Racism, Troubleshooting (providing advice on a variety of issues relevant to students), Rants (featuring OxStu editors getting something off their chests), Outside Oxford (covering local and international news) and Keeping Tabs (covering Cambridge news specifically). Though not necessarily a section of
35 Andrew Wang, ‘For the Love of the Immortal Snail’(https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2021/11/03/for-love-ofthe-immortal-snail/), OxStu (3 November 2021).
The OxStu indulges in the nerdy as part of a 1999 call for new recruits.
its own, the publication of letters to the editor was also a constant feature of the OxStu until relatively recently.36 Many of these were complaints about a certain article or editor, with OUSU, the Oxford Union and Cherwell being frequent contributors in this regard. Local councillors and MPs sometimes chimed in to spotlight a political issue to readers. Past editors of the OxStu itself would even write in to mock the incumbents if they had been rocked by a particular scandal. Inside jokes would occasionally develop over several editions, such as the case in 1998 of multiple people sending in song lyrics verbatim, signing off with punny names like ‘Bruce the Boss, Born in the LMH’.
36 Its last manifestation was a special feature called ‘Editor’s Pidge’in Hilary 2021, where Isabel Fleming and River Macilraith answered emails from readers.
Style
There haven’t been major changes in the style of OxStu journalism over the years, but the paper’s editorial approach and the stories it chooses to run have shifted.
For instance, articles in the News section have always been written in brief, informative paragraphs tightly focused on the core elements of the story. However, earlier on when there were more pages in the section to fill and more frequent print editions, the scope of News articles was broader. News related to other universities, especially Cambridge, was a frequent feature. In the modern day the News section exclusively contains local news stories or national stories as they relate to Oxford.
One stark change in editorial approach has been the treatment of staff and student deaths in the University. In the paper’s earlier years, it was not uncommon for such stories to pepper the News section. These were sometimes reported in uncomfortably graphic detail if the death occurred in a public space Near-death experiences occasionally generated enough excitement to be front page news, as was the case in Trinity 1997 when the paper led with the headline ‘Bus hits finalist’. It is now the paper’s editorial policy that student and staff deaths should not be discussed in articles as it is not seen to be the OxStu’s place to discuss such matters.
Another major change enacted over the years was the function of the editorial, meaning the short roundup of recent local and national news by the Editors-in-Chief close to the start of the paper. Modern-day editorials often contain inside jokes with the OxStu staff and copious thanks being heaped on anybody who even slightly helped to produce the paper. Earlier iterations, however, were much more openly political and the editorial was often the place where the OxStu’s stance on a particular issue was revealed.An assessment of British student newspapers in the Independent picked up on this in 2005, highlighting the OxStu’s “campaigning feel”. They made specific reference to campaigns in support of an asylum-seeking Afghan student being threatened with deportation and against the introduction of teaching via classes rather than tutorials 37
Sustained demands for reform of University donation rules led the paper to claim ‘it was the OxStu wot won it’when John Hood announced said reforms in Trinity 2008.38 The paper has also played a notable role in the formulation and promotion of OUSU campaigns over the years.Arecent history of OUSU, published for the OxStu’s 30th anniversary, stated that OUSU and the paper “have often worked together to highlight injustices and develop campaigns”, and individual editors have frequently sat on campaign committees 39
37 Oliver Duff, ‘Grant cheque journalism pays off’, The Independent (28 March 2005), p. 26.
38 ‘Editorial’, OxStu (17April 2008), p. 8.
39 Ben Farmer, ‘Your Student Union: a history’, OxStu (14 June 2021), p. 3.
A 1999 front page in explicit support of an anti-tuition fees protest in Examination Schools.
However, by far the most significant difference between an OxStu page in the 1990s and the 2020s is the handling of headlines. Earlier editions made use of as many puns and witticisms as they could dream up. This was especially true in the Sport section, where coverage of intercollegiate competitions became a battleground for creative wordplay and innuendo. Two self-indulgent highlights for me over the years are ‘Exeter crucifies Jesus’and ‘Jesus breaks Nose’. Some editors like James Coatsworth became famed for their punning talents and competed with their colleagues to come up with the best quips of each edition.
Don’t name your college after a saint if you want to avoid the OxStu making a joke out of it during cuppers.
The modern paper features the occasional punny headline, but they are not a fixture of the OxStu as they once were. This is particularly true about interviews, where editors often sought to make a mockery of their subject before the reader saw the text itself. Unsurprisingly they took particular delight in this when speaking to politicians. Memorable examples of this include ‘Model of the charmless man’(Iain Duncan Smith); ‘Hurd it all before’(Douglas Hurd); ‘Making a good fist of it’(Norman Lamont)40; and ‘Teddy bare’(Edward Heath). Headlines in the modern Profile section are far tamer.
The use of entertaining turns of phrase in headlines and coverage of shocking events in Oxford led to the tabloid label being attached to the paper. Some earlier editors contend that of the two main Oxford papers, Cherwell was forced to act more like a tabloid by virtue of its need to feature copious amounts of advertising to stay afloat. However, others argue that its low brow editorial approach set the OxStu apart from its competition in its early years. The tenure of Rodrigo Davies in Michaelmas 2002 saw a shift towards a broadsheet style, but his successors Charles Hotham and Natalie Toms reverted to a tabloid-esque feel for the paper. This pun-heavy approach was the norm until fairly recently.
The OxStu is no longer identified with the tabloid label much and maintains a similar editorial approach to Cherwell and other rival papers. However, without those early years of courting controversy and copious coverage of scandalous stories, the paper probably wouldn’t still exist today. Its modern iteration might be much more cautious in its editorial direction, but it can only afford to do so because earlier editors ensured that OxStu headlines caught everybody’s eye.
40 Areference to an infamous joke about Lamont made by comedian Julian Clary in 1993.
Roles
There have always been three principal positions in the OxStu journalistic hierarchy – writers for sections, editors of sections and editors of the entire paper – but many auxiliary and complementary roles have been recruited for the paper over the years.
The three main journalistic roles are currently known as Section Editors, Deputy Editors and Editors-in-Chief respectively. The former and latter have remained largely consistent, but Deputy Editor previously referred to a small second rung of editorial leadership, the ‘deputies’to the Editors-in-Chief. They often oversaw broad elements of the paper such as its supplements or a group of its sections and were frequently the natural successors to the incumbent Editors-in-Chief. The deputising role is fulfilled in the modern day by Associate Editors, a name once given to an entirely different group on the paper. In the OxStu’s early days the editors of each section were simply known by their section title, for instance ‘Features Editor’, and in some cases there were deputy editors of these sections too. This only makes the modern distinction between Deputy Editor and Section Editor more confusing, especially when the latter typically writes more than they edit.
The modern-day Director of Strategy role has been cultivated over time. Despite its corporate ring, the position is given to former Editors-in-Chief, most frequently the ones from the term prior, who assist and advise the incumbents from a position of experience. This role was previously named Associate Editor and could be awarded to as many as six former editors at once, though the modern incarnation is typically limited to one or two appointees. Beyond their advisory role they chiefly act as a failsafe in the case of an Editor-in-Chief being unable to fulfil their duties, though this has only occurred on one occasion. The sixth edition produced in Michaelmas 2002 was overseen by Miriam Quick as the OxStu’s first and onlyActing Editor. This was likely because Rodrigo Davies, the term’s Editor, was running to be OUSU’s next VP (Finance) as an electoral advertisement in this issue made clear. Quick, who edited the paper the term before and remained asAssociate Editor for Davies, thus stepped in on this brief occasion. Davies’campaign was eventually successful, and he became the OxStu’s publisher for the 2003/04 academic year
Asemblance of a creative team has been present at the paper since 1991, but it has taken on a variety of forms. Editors responsible for photography were appointed consistently in the OxStu’s early years, but the popularisation of smartphones somewhat limited the need for dedicated photographers in recent years. Illustrators for comic strips and accompaniments to articles have also been a frequent feature alongside crossword setters and others involved in the creation of puzzles. From the mid-2010s a group of individuals known as the Creative Team were regularly appointed, typically overseen by a Creative Director. This group was not completely remote from the rest of the OxStu staff, and some made the jump from a creative role to a journalistic one or held positions in both areas simultaneously. In Michaelmas 2024
Piers Morgan was a regular presence in OxStu long before he was interviewed.
Cameron Samuel Keys led the News section having provided photography for the paper in the previous year. Shifting editorial priorities have made the Creative Team a fluctuating presence over the past few years, but they have often been essential to making the OxStu a high-quality paper and have been part of the staff consistently for the past few terms
Other roles have cycled in and out of relevance as the OxStu itself has changed. From 1998 Online Editors were regularly appointed to manage the website but this has become less common of late simply because the website has become more integral to other roles on the paper.Amodern-day Deputy Editor probably spends more time in a term uploading and promoting articles online than they do laying them in for the print edition. Sub Editors were another consistent presence on the paper until recently, their vital role in reviewing copy instead being shouldered by theAssociate Editors and Editors-in-Chief, with varying results given their many other responsibilities. Loss of external advertising meant that the role of Business Manager on the paper became defunct when OSSL did.Awelcome addition to the Strategy team in Trinity 2024, especially given the size of the modern OxStu staff, was a Welfare Officer.
Reporters and correspondents for various sections, especially News and Sport, have also fallen in and out of fashion. From 2005 the News team consisted of separate groups of Reporters and Section Editors, successfully distinguishing the writing and editing aspects of such a fast-paced section. In Hilary 1998 the paper advertised for college correspondents who would look out for any potential stories emerging in their collegiate community. Correspondents for specific sports, especially rowing and football, were frequently appointed, some of whom were former senior editors looking for a less intensive way to stay on. In Michaelmas 1995, a whole two years after his editorial tenure, Rob Hands was the OxStu’s official rugby correspondent Gaspard Rouffin was the paper’s Formula 1 correspondent in Michaelmas 2024 having edited the paper the term prior. Correspondents typically focused on University events for their sports coverage.
The editorial independence that OUSU affords the OxStu means that the Editors-in-Chief can add and remove roles as they wish. This is also true because, unlike some other student papers in the UK, none of the roles on the OxStu team are paid. The only mandatory position is that of Editor-in-Chief itself so that somebody is accountable for the paper’s decisions. This is enshrined in OUSU’s bye-laws.41
41 Oxford University Student Union Bye-Laws HT24 (https://www.oxfordsu.org/pageassets/about-us/how-wererun/governing-documents/Bye-Laws-HT24-Updated.pdf), p. 12.
Ownership
OUSU owning the OxStu grants the paper several important privileges. The owner funds the printing and distribution of the paper; the hosting of its website; and any other miscellaneous expenses such as providing media law training for editors. The paper can use the OUSU’s facilities for meetings, interviews and producing content. For instance, another OUSU-owned enterprise, Oxide Radio, provided recording facilities for the paper’s short-lived venture into podcasting in Michaelmas 2023 and Hilary 2024. While nowhere near the level of a mainstream publication, the paper also has access to funding for legal services in serious circumstances. Finally, and crucially for any editor in Michaelmas term, the paper gets a stall at freshers’fair without having to pay for it.
Another great boon in the paper’s earlier years was access to the advertising partners of OSSL which kept the paper financially secure. Building up an independent base of clients in direct competition with Cherwell would have been immensely difficult given the rival paper’s popularity. While in time the OxStu cultivated its own sponsors and partners separate from those who had previously worked with OSSL, the business experience of its parent company undoubtedly helped the paper get over its early financial hurdles. OSSL is no more and the paper no longer relies on external advertising, but for much of its history OUSU’s extensive advertising connections were a positive aspect of the ownership arrangement.
On the other hand, being a student union-run paper does limit the OxStu in some regards. It cannot control its own budget.Any major financial decisions, such as a change in the company handling distribution, must go through OUSU. Editorial appointments require OUSU’s approval, although they have never rejected any candidate put forward for the editorship.
43
42 The OxStu’s activities are the ultimate responsibility of a person unlikely to have much direct contact with the paper.
The financial stability that OUSU’s ownership of the OxStu affords it is clearly its greatest strength. Rival publications like The Word have crashed and burned due to significant monetary loss and Cherwell has been on the brink of financial collapse many times, as multiple gleeful OxStu front pages illustrate over the years. Unlike them, the OxStu enters any academic year confident that they have enough funding allocated from OUSU to produce the print edition, keep the website running and pay for training and legal advice where necessary.
While that stability has been a foregone conclusion for much of the paper’s history, there have been moments where OUSU’s funding of the paper has been called into question. It could very well have folded after the first or second year when it was making a loss had successive Vice Presidents (Finance) not campaigned to take the risk of supporting the paper. Rising printing costs in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic first cut the number of termly print editions in half and then led to serious discussion of withdrawing all funding for print
42 The appointment of an Editor-in-Chief in the modern day technically hinges upon OUSU offering them a nonlegally binding Memorandum of Understanding, and the appointment only becomes reality upon the signing of the document. If that is the case, however, then I for one never actually served as Editor-in-Chief because I was never approached to sign a document with OUSU Whether this technicality is actually put into practice depends on the priorities of OUSU at the time.
43 OUSU’s Chief Executive Officer is legally accountable for the paper’s output as per the current Bye-Laws. The Memorandum of Understanding is an agreement between the Editors-in-Chief and the CEO. Excepting the current transformation period in which OUSU and the OxStu’s relationship were redefined, the CEO does not typically check in on the day-to-day management of the paper.
editions in Hilary 2022. The Editors-in-Chief fought to retain OUSU funding on that occasion, but a bigger challenge arose in the 2024 Easter vacation.
On 20 March 2024, amid “increasing concerns about the SU’s ability to operate and represent the student body effectively”, it was announced that OUSU would undergo a transformation period to review its policies, structures and governance.At the time there was no indication, publicly or privately, how The Oxford Student would figure into this transformation period. The paper was not listed amongst the “essential activities” that OUSU would continue to support.44 This was justified to an extent – after all, OUSU’s funding of a student newspaper cannot be counted as essential next to the funding of welfare services or campaigns supporting marginalised students. However, the prospect of all funding being cut off from a bastion of Oxford student journalism, one that had notably broken several recent stories about OUSU, was not acceptable.Agroup of past Editors-in-Chief supported incumbents Martin Alfonsin Larsen and Gaspard Rouffin in campaigning for clarity on the paper’s funding. They also readied the paper for its worst-case scenario, preparing to ask for alumni investment to keep the print edition running. Such planning was thankfully not necessary as OUSU’s Trustee Board were successfully convinced to keep funding the paper for the foreseeable future.
This flashpoint in the paper’s recent history opened a more regular dialogue between OUSU’s leadership and the editorial team than it had previously enjoyed. The official responsibilities of the Editors-in-Chief were reconfigured to reflect the paper’s standing post-pandemic and OUSU’s own capacity for oversight. This process of transformation is still ongoing and is likely to affect OUSU’s other initiatives more so than the OxStu now that future funding has been tentatively secured. However, this episode makes clear that OUSU’s continued bankrolling of the print edition is not a guaranteed privilege and future editorial dealings with OUSU leaders will likely reflect this.
44 ‘AStatement from Oxford SU’, Oxford University Students’Union (https://web.archive.org/web/20240429115452/https://www.oxfordsu.org/about-us/transformation/plan/).
Governance
The authority of the OxStu Editors-in-Chief over their own paper is not absolute. In addition to the vetting of the appointment process by OUSU, higher-ups in the organisation play a key role when complaints are brought against the paper.
Recruitment advertisements for early Editors-in-Chief note that applications had to be sent into the VP (Finance), who presumably made the ultimate decision on who to appoint to lead the paper. This made sense given that this role held legal responsibility for the OxStu’s output, while today the decision technically rests on the OUSU CEO who shoulders that legal burden. However, in the modern day the outgoing Editors-in-Chief hold interviews and make the final appointments. Since the CEO was typically not involved in the day-to-day activities of the paper prior to the transformation period, it was suitable that the decision was instead vested in the people who know the capabilities of each team member best. The Editors-inChief might request the advice of OUSU staff to ensure the decision being made is agreeable and justifiable beyond the bubble of the editorial team, but it is not necessary.
Around 2019, however, the appointment process was in the hands of the OUSU Media Board, the organisation that now handles complaints related to the OxStu. The Media Board consists of internal and external OUSU trustees as well as up to three representatives of OUSU’s ‘Media Services’, a collective term for the OxStu and Oxide Radio. Those representatives must have previously served as Editor-in-Chief or Oxide Station Manager themselves. In its current iteration the Media Board is chaired by a sabbatical trustee, but when it controlled OxStu editorial appointments it was chaired by an external volunteer.
The Media Board is the final board of appeal for any complaints made against The Oxford Student. When a complaint is initially made it is dealt with by the Editors-in-Chief. If the complainant is unsatisfied, or if the initial complaint was made against the Editors-in-Chief themselves, the matter is taken to the paper’s ManagingAdvisers. These are a group of the most recent former Editors-in-Chief of the paper from the previous four terms, consisting of a maximum of eight. Only three ManagingAdvisers need to meet to decide whether a complaint should be upheld or not. If the complainant is again not satisfied, they can appeal one last time to the Media Board. However, the board meets with irregularity throughout the academic year and thus it can take a considerable amount of time before complaints are finally put to bed. The overall editorial policy of the paper is scrutinised by the OUSU Trustee Board.
An established but unused element of the OxStu’s governance is theAdvisory Board. Set up in Michaelmas 2022 by Jason Chau and Dominic Enright, the board consists of professional journalists and media experts who provide advice to the Editors-in-Chief – at least in theory. However, membership of the board has not changed since its establishment and there has been little to no contact between Editors-in-Chief and its members beyond the invitation to join the board in the first place. Lauren Shirreff is the only OxStu alum on the board.
Editorial independence
The OxStu has attracted criticism over the years for being a supposed mouthpiece of OUSU owing to its ownership arrangement. This is certainly the case with some student union-owned papers at other UK universities which cannot publish material without the approval of their owners. However, The Oxford Student’s editorial independence from OUSU has been enshrined since its establishment 45 Rare occasions of challenge to that independence have been consistently surmounted. In the modern day the only control OUSU has over the paper’s content is its advertisements, as four of the 32 pages in current print editions are dedicated to promoting OUSU campaigns, elections and initiatives.
The first time the paper aroused considerable concern for its future independence was in Michaelmas 1994. The front page of the final edition of term, labelled as a third birthday special, prominently displayed a nude photo of German model Claudia Schiffer. Though she was covering her chest in the image, it was clearly meant to be provocative, as the photo advertised the first in a series of OxStu sex surveys in the 1990s.46 The survey was covered in several national papers47 but generated controversy for its use of lewd advertising. The next term OUSU’s Complaints Board responded to the front cover, stating that an open meeting would be held to “discuss the possible introduction of a Code of Practice for the paper”.48 Such a move did not impede the editorial independence of the paper and there is no further discussion of the meeting, suggesting that any code of practice implemented there was reasonable. However, it did make clear at an early stage that the OxStu was not immune from being reprimanded for poor editorial decision-making.
The OxStu, and specifically its editor Liz Disley, attracted criticism in Trinity 2000 for interviewing Holocaust denier David Irving.49 The paper had described Irving as a “notorious racist” in the same edition in which the interview was featured, raising obvious questions as to why the OxStu felt it was justifiable to platform such a figure.50 Two weeks later Disley and her co-editor Philip Walford took issue with an OUSU Executive motion to no-platform people likely to incite violence against marginalised groups. In their editorial they argued that “racists with ‘intellectual’justification”, such as Irving, “need to be defeated on their own terms”. Disley and Walford concluded that the OxStu refusing to publish its interview with
45 The current Bye-Laws highlight this by explicitly including the OxStu in a list of OUSU-owned bodies that do not need to observe OUSU policy. Oxford University Student Union Bye-Laws HT24, p. 12.
46 OUSNEWS had previously featured a similarly scandalous photo of Fiona Richmond in a Trinity 1979 edition.
47 Tanith Carey, ‘Wild oats? Glad to stay’, Daily Mirror (30 November 1994), p. 10; ‘Sex life of the Oxford student’, The Sunday Times (4 December 1994).
48 ‘Letters’, OxStu (17 January 1995), p. 5.
49 Liz Disley, ‘Denying the undeniable’, OxStu (27April 2000), p. 5.
50 Chris Loughan and Marianne Blamire, ‘Dumb Bell: I did not invite Irving’, OxStu (27April 2000), p. 1.
An OxStu advertisement for future Oxfordi East MP Anneliese Dodds’ successfuli OUSU presidency bid.
him would deny its readers the chance to “hear the views of anachronistic racists and to see the inherent flaws therein”.51
Regardless of any justification they felt they possessed, Disley and Walford’s actions sparked significant debate within OUSU which played out in successive OxStu letters sections. OUSU’sAnti-Racism Committee put forward a motion to remove the OxStu’s editorial independence after the Irving interview The presidents of various societies, including the Oxford University Jewish Society, contested the view that the no-platform motion threatened the OxStu’s editorial independence. They wrote that, contrary to how the editors presented it, the interview merely gave Irving “an apparently legitimising platform to once more air these discredited but still potentially damaging views”. The group concluded by stating that the noplatform motion “merely represents a necessary and responsible moral position” rather than a stifling of journalistic freedom.52 In any case the recommendations of theAnti-Racism Committee did not spur an actual attempt to remove the paper’s editorial independence, and the issue seems to have been put to bed by the end of that term.
Amore direct threat to the OxStu’s editorial independence came from OUSU themselves in Hilary 2005. The dispute began with a letter complaining of the paper’s supposed favourable treatment towards Tom Littler’s productions in the Drama section.53 Littler, who had edited the section for three terms, was accused of giving his own play Quartet the longest and most positive review in the previous print edition with a large accompanying picture. It cannot be known if there was any genuine favouritism at play, but it is worth noting that Littler did not write the review, he was not the only Drama Editor at the time, and complaints of this kind had not been made against him in previous terms. It is also not particularly surprising that somebody who agreed to write and edit reviews of the Oxford drama scene for an entire year was involved in that scene himself. Many reviews of student productions over the years have been written by friends of people involved. If such things were disallowed there wouldn’t be many reviewers available.
For some reason the OUSU leadership, including the VP (Finance) Daniel Finlay, took this complaint extremely seriously and approached the OxStu editors,Anna Maybank and Tom Rayner, asking them to remove Littler from his role. They refused as they did not believe he had done anything wrong and even if he did, the OxStu could not be forced to remove a staff member by their owners. Finlay claimed that Littler had modified the review of his play to make it more positive but had little to no evidence. OSSL removed Littler regardless. Two days later, when Maybank and Rayner stated their intention to publish articles about Littler’s unfair dismissal, Finlay removed them. Maybank and Rayner stated that they “could not comply with a demand which would have effectively violated the editorial independence which is guaranteed to the newspaper in the student union constitution”.54 They are the only OxStu editors to have ever been forced to vacate their position. This had little impact on the term’s print editions, however, as there was only one left to go, further signifying OUSU’s unreasonable approach to the non-issue of Littler’s review
51 ‘Editorial’, OxStu (11 May 2000), p. 12.
52 ‘Letters’, OxStu (18 May 2000), p. 11.
53 Oliver Morrison, ‘Over dramatic’, OxStu (24 February 2005), p. 11.
54 Paul Sims, ‘Walkout at Oxford student paper’, The Evening Standard (3 March 2005), p. 11.
OUSU then arranged a meeting with the rest of the editorial team and informed them of the dismissal of Maybank and Rayner. They attempted to impose a relief editor to supervise the final print edition. However, they did not count on the fact that Maybank and Rayner had good relationships with the editorial team, who did not want to work for a paper which had ousted their friends. The entire OxStu staff walked out in solidarity with the editors, and reporters who had already contributed copy to the last print edition told OUSU that it could not be used anymore. Recounting events after the fact in the Independent, Littler wrote of his gladness that the entire paper was “united in adversity”.55 OSSL’s agreements with advertisers meant that a print edition had to be produced. Without editorial staff, the sabbatical officers took on the challenge themselves, creating a genuinely lifeless issue in comparison with what had come before.
So many contributors pulled their content from the final edition of term that the paper was eight pages shorter than usual, the sabbatical officers being unable to replace everything. Most articles lacked a byline, with only external contributors who were not part of the walkout being credited. No columns were included, though OUSU attempted to shoddily replace some of them – for instance, their recreation of Peter Cardwell’s ‘Between the Sheets’ column was creatively titled ‘Around the World This Week’. The paper was clearly only produced to fulfil outstanding advertising deals. It also proved to OUSU that the OxStu could not be treated as some corporate structure where the head could be removed and the body kept the same.
Those who were there at the time assert that concerns over editorial independence had been bubbling for several years due to the increasing commercialisation of OSSL. The OxStu was a business from the outset, but it was first and foremost a newspaper whose editors cultivated genuine loyalty among their staff. OUSU had become too trigger-happy in their discontent towards the editors which had clear consequences for the paper as a commercial product. The advertising contracts had been fulfilled but OUSU’s reputation as a supporter of student media took a significant hit. It took a lot of coaxing and a reconsideration of OUSU’s ability to appoint and dismiss OxStu staff for any editors to return in Trinity.
Roger Waite took up the editorship and Rayner stuck around asAssociate Editor to assist his friend.ANews article in the first edition of the new term announced that negotiations between OUSU and the OxStu had proved fruitful, resulting in the creation of a staff grievance procedure and a new editorial contract.
56 Waite’s editorial confirmed the reason for Maybank and Rayner’s refusal to dismiss Littler: had they done so, the paper’s editorial independence would have been “fundamentally and irrevocably compromised”. However, he stated that he believed relations with OUSU to have been sufficiently rebuilt to enable a positive working relationship.57
It is notable that the VP (Finance) was no longer included as the OxStu’s publisher in its list of contributors. Whether this was part of the negotiations and constituted a withdrawal of editorial oversight on OUSU’s part is unknown. It may simply be that Finlay didn’t want to provoke further arguments over his role at the paper and opted to have his position
55 Tom Littler, ‘My Week: Tom Littler, former drama critic for The Oxford Student, whose dismissal provoked a storm of controversy’, The Independent (5 March 2005), p. 40.
56 ‘OxStu staff return’, OxStu (21April 2005), p. 6.
57 Roger Waite, ‘Back to work’, OxStu (21April 2005), p. 11.
disregarded, even though he was still its publisher. There were several letters over the next few weeks discussing the dispute but both OUSU and the OxStu seemed to have put it behind them.Ayear on from the incident, Hilary 2006 editorsAnna Mikhailova and Kiran Stacey reflected that the walkout was a “much-needed outcry against intimidation and external pressures, which relied on the leadership and initiative of a few to put themselves on the line and motivate others for a greater cause”.58
The paper has never again come so close to being in active dispute with its owners over its journalistic freedom, though warning shots have been fired since. In June 2021 the national press reported that OUSU, after a successful Student Council motion, was planning to implement a ‘Student Consultancy of Sensitivity Readers’who would review articles for problematic content ahead of publication. This was in response to controversial pieces which, according to the motion, were “implicitly racist and sexist”. The motion did not explicitly point the finger at any publication but did make mention of an article defending the music of Richard Wagner “in spite of his antisemitism”, which Cherwell published and took down after it attracted controversy.59 However, any OUSU regulation of student press would be sure to affect the OxStu too.60
Indeed, Toby Young, the General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, was much more concerned with how this consultancy would affect the OxStu than Cherwell, the subject of the bulk of the story’s coverage. In a letter to the OUSU President, Young argued that the motion was “not an appropriate action by a newspaper owner” and put the OxStu in “an invidious position” The sensitivity readers, which, OUSU insisted in a clarification, would be a voluntary service, could not be used by the OxStu without drawing accusations of “bowing to the edict of their over-powerful owner”.
Young went on to compare OUSU to the principal media magnate of the day, stating that the move was “exactly the kind of proprietorial over-reach and erosion of the ‘Chinese wall’ separating a newspaper owner from a newspaper editor that Rupert Murdoch has been criticised for in the past”. He urged the President to preserve the OxStu’s editorial independence, suggesting the appointment of an independent editorial board akin to the one Margaret Thatcher advocated for upon Murdoch’s purchase of the Times It was Young’s opinion, however, that the most sensible option was to reverse the motion entirely, concluding: “There can be no excuse for enforced blandness.”61
In any case, the plan ultimately never went ahead, and the backlash from prominent figures in the media likely played a part in it. But this phantom consultancy plan did highlight a potentially problematic element of OUSU’s regulation of the OxStu.As Young pointed out in his letter, the OUSU Bye-Laws state that among the responsibilities of the Media Board is “to
58 Anna Mikhailova and Kiran Stacey, ‘Lest we forget’, OxStu (2 March 2006), p. 11.
59 Student Council Minutes, 5th Week Trinity Term 2021 (25 May 2021), p. 15. The Cherwell article was removed from the website but an empty Richard Wagner tag (https://cherwell.org/tag/richard-wagner/) remains as proof that it once existed.
60 Ewan Somerville, ‘Oxford’s oldest student newspaper could be vetted by sensitivity readers to remove ‘problematic’articles’(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/20/oxfords-oldest-student-newspaper-couldvetted-sensitivity-readers/), The Telegraph (20 June 2021).
61 Toby Young, ‘Letter concerning the OUSU project to set up a “Student Consultancy of Sensitivity Readers”’ (https://freespeechunion.org/letter-concerning-the-ousu-project-to-set-up-a-student-consultancy-of-sensitivityreaders/), Free Speech Union (25 June 2021).
set out the principles of editorial independence as they apply to the Media Services”.62 While there have been no serious challenges to the OxStu’s editorial independence for almost two decades, it is seemingly not for the paper to decide the extent of that independence. The OxStu has representation on the Media Board, but not enough to prevent future threats coming from the leadership itself.All it could theoretically take is one vindictive sabbatical officer, having garnered enough support from the rest of the board, to limit the paper’s independence for years to come.
62 Oxford University Student Union Bye-Laws HT24, p. 21.
Relationship with the University
Relations between the OxStu editors and the University’s press officials have typically been positive. This is reflected in the frequency of interviews being granted with the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor. Roy Jenkins spoke to the paper in 1996 and Chris Patten was interviewed upon his installation and retirement, and several times in between. This working relationship is maintained by a careful balance of reporting, guided in essence by the principle that the University’s innovations should be covered as much as its scandals. Though the OxStu is far from the University’s most consequential press relationship, they have occasionally recognised its power to shift opinion by coming down hard on what they perceive to be irresponsible reporting. Of course, in so doing the University does little to improve the opinions of the OxStu’s readership.
In 2004 a dramatic dispute occurred between the University and two OxStu journalists, Patrick Foster and Roger Waite. On 27 May an article by the duo titled ‘University IT network wide open to hackers’was published on the front page of the OxStu AComputer Science student had contacted the paper to say that the University’s IT network was not properly encrypted and thus anybody could gain access to it using hacking software freely downloadable on the internet. Foster and Waite tested this theory for themselves and found that the student was correct: CCTV footage, email passwords and student conversations on MSN were all viewable using the software.
The initial article concluded with a statement that all of Foster and Waite’s findings had been turned over to the University and the police, but they had yet to receive a response. They got one which was made public in the final edition of the academic year: Foster and Waite had been referred to the Court of Summary Jurisdiction by the Senior Proctor for breaking the University’s computing statutes. The University had reportedly attempted to make the issue a police matter, but Thames Valley Police told them to deal with it internally since only students were involved
The Court of Summary Jurisdiction no longer exists It was composed of members of the University’s Congregation who had some form of legal experience. It had the power to issue fines of up to £500, restrict access to University buildings and impose rustication for up to a year. In 2004 the court was chaired by Peter Clarke, Fellow in Law at Jesus College.63
The disciplinary decisions made by the court were principally based on the investigations of the Proctors. In this case such investigations involved Foster and Waite being interrogated for an hour each, dressed in cap and gown, in a “virtual cell”.64 After questioning the students, the Proctors recommended that the court issue them with a fine as both Foster and Waite admitted to breaking the statutes in question. When the court met to decide the case in Michaelmas 2004, when Foster had become OxStu Editor-in-Chief, they instead decided that rustication was a more suitable punishment. Foster, seen to be the ringleader of the operation, was ordered to be suspended for two terms and Waite for one.
63 Oxford University Gazette 134/4672 (16 October 2003), p. 140.
64 Lee Glendinning, ‘Oxford students in trouble after IT exposé: Police alerted after pair reveal how easy it is to hack into students’personal details’, The Guardian (15 July 2004), p. 13.
The paper reels against the University’s ruling.
The student body was enraged at the treatment of these journalists OUSU President John Blake condemned the University for their “vindictiveness” and Cherwell editor Robert Crowe branded the ruling a “sham”. The National Union of Journalists published a statement of support for the pair, arguing that “hacking an IT system to demonstrate its weak security is in a great tradition of positive and respectable journalism… the use of surreptitious means to get a story can only be justified if the story is in the public interest, and at Oxford University this clearly is”.65 Many JCRs passed motions of support for the duo and several Oxford alumni volunteered to financially support their cases.
The rustication order was stayed pending appeal, but Foster and Waite were forced to move out of their student accommodation during the appeal process. Alumni money was not necessary as a barrister volunteered to represent the duo pro bono. The case was taken to the Disciplinary Court, chaired at the time by Judge Peter Clark who coincidentally has almost the exact same name as the chair of the other part of Oxford’s disciplinary machinery. The appeal case was successful: Foster and Waite’s punishments were commuted to fines of £150 and £120 respectively, which OUSU paid.66
After the event the whole thing must have seemed overblown and laughable. Speaking to the Times Higher Education Supplement, Foster, then a finalist, said: “the only bad thing to come out of this is that I no longer have an excuse not to do any work”.67 Waite went on to edit the paper in Trinity 2005 after another dispute with a University body.
It wouldn’t be long before legal trouble with the University loomed again. Every copy of the third edition published in Michaelmas 2005 had to be taken back from colleges and shredded after the University threatened to take out a legal injunction against the OxStu It was believed to have been the first instance of a British university threatening to secure an injunction against its own student newspaper.
The offending article that incited the pulping was related to a college’s disciplinary case against an undergraduate. The editors had informed the Proctors of their intention to publish the story the morning before the paper was delivered. They even spoke with the Senior Proctor on the phone that afternoon, who did not mention anything about a potential legal case. It was only in the evening of the next day, when many editions had been delivered
65 Anna Maybank, ‘Rusticated for telling the truth’, OxStu (4 November 2004), pp. 1-2.
66 Oxford University Gazette 135/4728 (23 March 2005), p. 780.
67 Phil Baty, ‘Oxford eases penalty on student hackers’, The Times Higher Education Supplement (10 December 2004), p. 5.
across the University, that they were informed of the injunction threat, something the Vice-Chancellor John Hood apparently personally signed off on.
The editors contacted a media law firm who told them that the University’s case was dubious and could be challenged in court, but such an action would cost OSSL over £10,000. The OxStu agreed with their publisher that the sounder financial decision was to accede to the University’s request and pulp the issue, in doing so losing out on thousands of pounds of advertising revenue.Any evidence of the edition’s existence, either physical or online, had to be destroyed, meaning pages of articles unrelated to the offending story had to go too, though some would be recycled the next week.68
The satirical OxStew section was at least able to make light of the situation with a heavily embellished retelling of that fateful Thursday night:
The OxStu’s version of events the week after the pulping.
Wearing capes and wielding a variety of racquets and sports bats, a bearded team of a hundred administrators forced their way into the newspaper’s office, knocking over cups and hiding mousemats until a printed list of demands was met. The article in question, the details of which cannot be revealed, detailed allegations of an illegal betting ring amongst fellows ofAll Souls. The claims came to light last week through the OxStew’s photo-evidence of a drunken and bloodied Chris Patten staggering outside the esteemed graduates-only college, having been forced to forage for berries 69
The legal threats on the University’s part end there and relations have been consistently positive in recent years. The University’s press office typically invites each new set of Editors-in-Chief to discuss lines of communication and upcoming events. These frequent check-ins with the ever-shifting leadership of the paper ensure that the kind of miscommunications that enabled these earlier situations to escalate into legal disputes do not occur.
68 ‘University forces Oxford Student to pulp entire edition after injunction threat’, OxStu (26 October 2005), p. 1. 69 Nick Bowling and Will Lander, ‘Self-important student journalism “too vital” to be published’, OxStu (3 November 2005), p. 35.
Relationship with the Oxford Union
As the younger of Oxford’s student newspapers, the OxStu’s rocky history with the Oxford Union makes sense given the society’s historic friendliness with the older Cherwell This manifests itself in the modern day with Cherwell frequently being given exclusive access to term card information and interviews with prominent guests. However, it would be unfair to say that the OxStu is consistently on poorer terms with the Union than its rival paper. It mostly depends on the outlook and personal feelings of the Editors-in-Chief, who might (or might not) have friends involved in the Union or have been involved themselves previously.
In its earlier days the OxStu was often explicitly opposed to what they perceived as Oxford’s elitist establishment, including Cherwell and the Union. Refusal to cover Union events was an ideological choice but also a practical one, because at the time the OxStu was not a concern of the Union at all. Reporters would frequently not be allowed into the debating chamber to witness events. The fact that Cherwell’s offices were in the basement of the Union at the time did little to help this. However, the paper’s rapid ascendance as a commercial force enabled a pivot in the relationship to the point that by Michaelmas 1997, Union events were being advertised on the OxStu front page every week. Successive terms in the early 2000s had Union events advertised on the second page regardless of shifting personal connections between OxStu staff and the Union committee.
Asustained relationship with the Union will always be important for the OxStu simply because many of the paper’s biggest interviews have been with guests of the Union. No other Oxford society has as powerful a pull to attract figures of note from across the world, and the Profile section’s dependence on such speaking to figures will probably never abate. That is not to say that other societies, especially political ones, cannot draw interesting guests, but the Union’s consistency in enticing such people is clear. However, the rise of competitors like OxfordSpeaks, whom the OxStu partnered with in Trinity 2024 to release their term card in direct competition with Cherwell and the Union, might change things in the future. There have also been terms where the Union utterly refused to grant any OxStu interviews and the Profile section has still produced interesting content.
In the 1990s and 2000s it was common for OxStu photographers who attended Union events to ask to take a photo of the night’s guest holding a copy of the paper. This has resulted in memorable images of the likes of the Chuckle Brothers, David Dickinson, William Hague, Terry Jones, Katie Price and Louis
Katie Price, then known as Jordan, picks a side in the Oxford newspaper wars.
The Union once paid handsomely to make splashy announcements.
Theroux endorsing the paper However, the early editors’ penchant for visual jokes also meant that OxStu copies were sometimes edited into celebrity photos. This was the case in Hilary 1998 with the recurring competition ‘Where’s Des?’, which invited readers to guess which part of Oxford broadcaster Des Lynam had been PhotoShopped into, latest edition in hand.
The easiest way to maintain positive relations between the OxStu and the Union has been to have OxStu people inside the Union itself. In the early 2000s, this was commonly achieved through successive Editors-in-Chief becoming Union press officers. Nowadays it is less likely for somebody with such an explicit affiliation with a student newspaper to become a leading committee member. People typically jump ship from the OxStu to the Union, or vice versa, depending on where they are most successful. Some OxStu Editors-in-Chief go into the role with a wish to publish less Union-focused content but it is very difficult to escape Union politics as an Oxford student publication. Despite a deliberately rocky early relationship and a general favouritism towards Cherwell for exclusives, the Union and the OxStu have a solid working connection. Each can recognise the value of the other: for instance, many a disgruntled Union officer has published a hit piece aimed at the committee of the day in the OxStu because it is viewed as the ‘anti-Union’ paper. Union Presidents attempting to set themselves apart from their predecessors, most recently Hannah Edwards in Hilary 2024, might deign to give the paper a few exclusive guests to announce. It would, however, take some serious shifts in student politics for an entire Union term card to feature in the OxStu ahead of anywhere else.
Des Lynam, patron of Oxford pubs thati no longer exist.
Relationship with other publications
The OxStu and Cherwell have certainly had a rocky relationship over the years. This is perhaps epitomised in the half-glance the paper receives in the history of Cherwell: “In 1992 [it was not 1992], OUSU had a go at displacing Cherwell and founded The Oxford Student – rubbing salt in the wound of independent publications in Oxford which were already struggling to be commercially viable.”70
It is true that many early OxStu editions, including the earliest one preserved in the Bodleian, contained articles outright mocking Cherwell for their financial situation. The paper always made space in the News section whenever a JCR unsubscribed from Cherwell for one controversy or another. In 2004 Cherwell blamed a series of motions threatening unsubscribing on “journalistic rivalry” with their “pro-OUSU” competitor, since the motions originated from a perceived bias against OUSU.71
Cherwell expressed glee of their own whenever the OxStu was in hot water, except in truly serious cases like Foster and Waite’s rustication threat. Editors of the two papers were always willing to support each other if they felt genuinely affronted by an outside organisation. In Trinity 2005 the OxStu and its “esteemed rival” stood together against claims from Oxford City Council that neither paper printing safety warnings against bridge jumping on May Day led directly to serious injuries.72 In Michaelmas 2001, with their publisher Oxford Student Publications Ltd standing (as it often has) on the brink of financial ruin, Cherwell’s continued existence was vigorously justified in a statement by OxStu editor Julia Buckley:
Everyone involved in journalism in Oxford agrees that we are virtually unique here in having two quality newspapers, each spurring the other on. If Cherwell were no more it would be a disaster, not just for those involved, but also for the readership, as the remaining paper runs the risk of growing lazy when not facing any opposition.73
Any bickering or elated reporting of the other’s struggles is predicated on the fact that the OxStu and Cherwell have an active interest in ensuring each other’s position. Bad blood between individual editors has not prevented the maintenance of friendly official relations. In
70 Robert Walmsley, ‘Cherwell history part 5 – office space’(https://www.cherwell.org/2016/09/28/cherwellhistory-pt-5-office-space/), Cherwell (28 September 2016).
71 Phil Baty, ‘Orwell’s Oxford paper accused of political bias’, The Times Higher Education Supplement (5 March 2004), p. 52.
72 Roger Waite, ‘In our defence’, OxStu (19 May 2005), p. 11.
73 Julia Buckley, ‘Editorial’, OxStu (3 October 2001), p. 26.
A particularly forceful OxStu (or rather antiCherwell) recruitment advert.
recent years this has been exemplified in the joint sponsorship, with The Oxford Blue, of an Oxford Media Society event and the joint hosting of a ‘Hot Off the Press’party for student journalists. This competitive camaraderie was showcased more directly in the early 2000s when annual OxStu-Cherwell football matches were held in Trinity term, with the OxStu seemingly always losing.
Less established student newspapers have not been enduring rivals with the OxStu in the way that Cherwell has been, but they have still left their mark. The Word began in 1990 as an arts paper with some news mixed in. Much like the early OxStu it was diametrically opposed to the perceived snobbishness of Cherwell but was funded entirely independently and was thus prone to threats of collapse. It folded in 1999 but its intense competition with both the OxStu and Cherwell is made clear in an episode of the BBC Radio 4 series Bus Stop focused on the ‘Oxford newspaper wars’.AzeemAzhar represented the OxStu in a debate between the three papers The Oxford Blue emerged in 2020 as the most recent challenger to the dominance of the OxStu and Cherwell, though as an online-only paper it occupies a slightly different space in student media. Since its foundation there has been little direct interaction between the papers excluding the typical exchange of editorial staff. Time will tell if the Blue, another independently funded paper, will be able to survive longer than The Word did.
Student publications with a different remit, such as The Isis, have been linked less directly with the OxStu but have maintained broadly positive relations over the years. It was common for journalists to move between the two publications, and on one occasion the OxStu top brass were lured over to the OSPL-owned magazine. Successive OxStu editorsAzeemAzhar and James Thompson were invited to take over leadership of The Isis from none other than George Osborne in Michaelmas 1992 because the magazine was in dire financial straits. Osborne essentially wantedAzhar and Thompson to translate the OxStu’s early financial success to another publication. Specialist publications like The Oxford Scientist and The Oxymoron frequently trade editorial staff with individual OxStu sections, in these cases Science and OxYou, but they are too niche to have had much of an impact on the OxStu’s broader development.
The paper’s relationship with the national press, where students are so often the butt of a joke, has been distinctly more volatile. OxStu journalism has typically been weaponised by national papers to depict Oxford students as Bullingdon Club caricatures rather than focusing on any positive stories. Humiliations of local buskers, accusations of drink spiking at crew dates, and Nazi songs being chanted at OUCAevents are the order of the day when a national paper deigns to cover Oxford news.74
In Trinity 2006 Editor-in-Chief SimonAkam complained of the national bias towards “scandal, trivia and gossip” in their Oxford coverage. He listed as an example a throwaway
74 David Charter and Lewis Smith, ‘Oxford students humiliate busker at college party’, The Times (30 October 2000), p. 10; Rosa Silverman and Tom Ough, ‘Oxford rugby team’s sex challenge penalty’, The Telegraph (5 November 2013), p. 7; Gordon Rayner and RichardAlleyne, ‘Oxford Tories’nights of port and Nazi songs’, The Telegraph (5 November 2011), p. 3.
The kind of News stories that piqued national interest in the mid-2000s.
story of Oxford student Sam Brown being arrested for calling a police horse gay, which was subsequently covered by the Sun, the Telegraph, the Mail and the BBC. The “heavyweight stories” discussing genuine issues, meanwhile, get no coverage outside of Oxford.Akam insightfully inferred that part of this is because so many journalists at these publications are Oxford alumni and in taking these melodramatic stories up, they can indulge in the memory of their student days.75
OxStu journalists have occasionally felt the personal wrath of their national counterparts. In 2004 News editorAnjool Maldé was humiliated by Guardian education writer Polly Curtis when Curtis accidentally sent a vicious email about Maldé to him instead of to her boss. The email read, “Anjool may be a wanker but I think it justifies ruthlessly exploiting him by stealing his stories”.76 Incidentally, OxStu journalists are now more likely to approach the Times or the Telegraph than the Guardian in the hope of a byline.
The personal attacks became most dramatic when the OxStu was involved in a dispute with Times columnist Giles Coren in 2000. This was over the paper’s treatment of Laura Spence, a state school student who made national headlines after being rejected to study Medicine at Magdalen College despite achieving topA-level grades Figures like Gordon Brown blamed Spence’s rejection on Oxford elitism OxStu editors Philip Walford and Liz Disley responded by claiming that the media storm surrounding Spence reflected “the most cynical and obvious gesture politics imaginable” on the part of the Labour Party.77 This was a derisive yet civil beginning, merely claiming that Brown’s claims of elitism were unfounded and there were simply better candidates than Spence that year according to Magdalen’s standards. However, things soon devolved into a genuinely cruel editorial approach to Spence’s story that spanned over two terms.
The week after the first editorial, a photo of Spence in the OxStu was captioned “Laura Spence. Often gets mistaken for Liz Hurley on dark nights. By blind people.”78 At this point Spence had said nothing to the press. It was Gordon Brown who incited the elitism accusations and yet the OxStu was taking their frustrations out via acerbic remarks on a teenager’s looks. From then on Spence became a running gag in the OxStu, her name popping up in random stories entirely unrelated to her rejection from Magdalen. In an editorial discussing the theft of Somerville College’s Womble mascot by students from Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, Disley and Walford queried: “How are the Laura Spences of the world going to be induced to apply to our great University if wanton cruelty to stuffed toys is being engaged in, and worse, condoned by the student body as a whole?”79
75 Riazat Butt, ‘Hold the front page! The students have a story: when a university paper has a scoop, the national media descend on campus’, The Guardian (20 June 2006), p. 12.
76 James Steen and Dominic Midgley, ‘The Scurra’, The Daily Mirror (16 January 2004), p. 14.
77 ‘Editorial’, OxStu (1 June 2000), p. 7.
78 OxStu (8 June 2000), p. 20.
79 ‘Editorial’, OxStu (15 June 2000), p. 7.
Things took an especially harsh turn in Michaelmas under the editorship of Peter Brown and Jerome Glass. In a first for the paper, the first edition of term featured a children’s comic-style ‘cut out and keep’picture of Spence’s face on the third page.Among the editors’suggestions for how to use the image were sticking it to your door “to scare away unwanted visitors” and using it “as a dartboard”. They also emphatically stated that the picture should not be shown to the reader’s state school friends, therein hinting at the intended audience for this immature low blow. Spence had spoken to the press about her experience over the summer, and her lack of a wholly positive opinion of the University had clearly rubbed the OxStu editors the wrong way. The article spitefully concluded: “feel free to reject her altogether – she’s bound to get over it, with the help of a bit of publicity.” 80
In the editorial from that same issue, Brown and Glass justified their mockery by arguing melodramatically that the Spence affair had ruined the image of Oxford for the foreseeable future. While they claimed to not care what Spence got atA-level, they did apparently care that “one girl’s self-publicising has set back for years the timeless work of the OxfordAccess Scheme and OUSU’s Target Schools initiative”. They recognised the role of “unscrupulous politicians” in pushing the issue into the national consciousness. However, they concluded that it was both their and Spence’s criticism of the University that was an “insult to all those who have worked so hard and given up so much to get here”.
For them, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and a bright teenage girl had equal pull with the national press and thus were equally to blame. It would be an understatement to call this treatment hyperbolic.
It was at this point that Giles Coren got involved. With the kind of moral integrity that would be sorely missed in his later career, Coren took issue with the OxStu’s approach to the Spence affair. He called for “a bit of noblesse oblige” among Oxford students rather than relentless mockery of state schoolers. According to Coren, a reader of the OxStu could not be blamed for coming away with the impression that “Oxford is full of posh kids who… think common people are funny”.81
80 ‘How low can Laura go?’, OxStu (4 October 2000), p. 3.
81 Giles Coren, ‘Laura laughs?’, The Times (12 October 2000), p. 22.
The OxStu tries to declare war on an unbothered Giles Coren.
When Laura Spence goes low, the OxStu goes far lower.
Brown and Glass took this accusation and ran with it in their next edition, printing Coren’s entire column on the front page and hilariously calling for the “prejudice about Oxford” to end immediately. The article was attributed to ‘The Voice of the Student’, both making clear the stance of the paper as a whole and weakly identifying their cause with that of the whole student body. The editors now included Coren in the list of people to blame for the “damage done to the University” in the wake of the Spence affair. The best they could do to counter Coren’s reasonable request was attack him for his nepotism, since his fatherAlan and sister Victoria also wrote for the Times in 2000.82 Coren did not respond immediately but put the matter decisively to bed in his end-of-year roundup column, in which he called the OxStu editors “snivelling public school losers”.83 Their behaviour towards Spence certainly fit that bill.
Over the years the editors of the paper have certainly had their disagreements with the staff of other publications, but these partnerships remain fruitful because of a shared mission to deliver news to readers. Whether that be a local connection to Cherwell or links with national papers, the destination is ultimately positive even if the road there was not always stable. Indeed, it is important to remember that the fact that OxStu journalists get bylines in national papers fairly frequently is a marvel when compared to the attention other UK student papers get. The paper might occasionally get on the wrong side of a prominent journalist at these nationals, but at least there is a side for them to get on in the first place.
82 ‘“Oxford’s full of posh kids that laugh at poor people”’, OxStu (19 October 2000), p. 1.
83 Giles Coren, ‘Ayear in brief’, The Times (29 December 2000), p. 24.
Satellite projects
Various, frequently short-lived, attempts have been made over the years to supplement the newspaper and its website with additional outlets for content. By far the most consistent of these has been the creation of a freshers’guide at the beginning of Michaelmas. In earlier years this took the form of an insert within the main paper but morphed into a publication separate from print editions more recently. This change was also facilitated by OSSL no longer producing a comprehensive freshers’guide of their own. Modern OxStu freshers’ guides are uploaded online as their own distinct entities, unable to be printed due to the predetermined OUSU budget for print editions, but with as much work going into them as a regular issue.
Undeniably the most significant one-time themed supplement the paper ever produced was the ‘Election Review 2005’. It provided an OxStu poll of 791 students’voting intentions and articles from leading members of the major political parties on why they deserved readers’ support at the ballot box. These esteemed contributors included Conservative Party deputy chairman Charles Henry, Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy and, astonishingly, Prime Minister Tony Blair writing in the name of the Labour Party.84 Other coverage included analysis by the Times’chief political commentator Peter Riddell and profiles of the candidates for the Oxford East constituency on the campaign trail. The supplement was edited by Tom Rayner mere weeks after his dismissal by OUSU the term before, while Peter Cardwell directed the polling. No election before or since has received such ambitious OxStu coverage, though this legacy was continued by GeorgieAllan andAmelia Gibbins with the paper’s 2024 general election poll.
The OxStu YouTube channel was created on 26 January 2011 and amassed over 80,000 views in three years of activity, though over a third of these came from a single video interview with Made in Chelsea star Francis Boulle. Bitesize interviews were the bread and butter of the channel content-wise, whether it was a sit-down with Michael Howard or the enlightening series ‘Kebab Van Dialogues’which ran for a single episode. Most of the videos were published in Hilary 2013 and featured Abbas Kazmi as interviewer. The channel’s last upload was a recruitment call for Hilary 2014. That video, published at the end of November 2013, was the only one released in Michaelmas. The sporadic upload schedule indicates that the OxStu found it difficult to maintain a consistent YouTube presence while keeping the print edition and website afloat. This would be the fate of many of the paper’s satellite projects, where practicalities could not match editorial enthusiasm.
Such an example can be seen in the floating of an idea for an OxStu app in 2019. This came after the Oxford Union produced their own app, but editors soon realised that the problems of a lack of budget and expertise were too significant to overlook. The idea was dead in the water before anything was produced, and many other potential projects have likely been discussed and dismissed over the years. One that did bear fruit in Michaelmas 2023 was the OxStu becoming one of the first student publications to partner with news rating platform Beehive News, alongside the University of Bath’s Bath Time Magazine and the University of Warwick’s Perspectives. Other partners includeAl Jazeera, the BBC, the Guardian and Sky News.
84 Tony Blair, ‘Aquestion of what you value’, OxStu (28April 2005), Election Review 2005 p. 3.
An OxStu podcast ran for two terms in Michaelmas 2023 and Hilary 2024. It was produced in partnership with Oxide Radio, with episodes being recorded in their studio and played on the station on Friday afternoons during term time. Management of the podcast was delegated to one of theAssociate Editors, who soon found the task difficult to keep up with alongside their other responsibilities. Episodes were initially envisioned to feature a range of segments, including commentary on recent news stories, guest interviews and entertainment recommendations. However, the fluctuating interests and attendance of the hosts during recording sessions prevented this vision from being fulfilled. One Michaelmas episode, focused on the OxYou section and satire more generally, was a one-on-one conversation between a host and the term’s OxYou Editor because the other two hosts could not make it and the planned external guest had cancelled last minute. Eight episodes were produced in Michaelmas, but things became sporadic in Hilary as enthusiasm for the project petered out on all sides.Apodcast team was appointed for Trinity 2024 but by the end of term they had nothing to show for their roles.
The OxStu’s one ongoing satellite project is its weekly newsletter distributed via email. Set up in Trinity 2023 as the brainchild of Editor-in-ChiefAyomilekanAdegunwa, the newsletter initially contained little more than highlights of Oxford news before being expanded in subsequent terms. Now the newsletter contains recent non-News articles picked by the editors; listings for society and University events; debates and polls on hot topics; creative writing pieces; answers to the puzzles featured in the previous print edition; and entertainment recommendations. The newsletter has become a staple focus of OxStu recruitment drives, with editors aiming to pique the interest of potential contributors by showing them everything that goes on at the paper in a weekly email. Despite on the surface appearing to be a simple collation of links to other pieces of OxStu content, the newsletter’s success in bolstering awareness of the paper’s activities has earned it national recognition. The OxStu newsletter was shortlisted for Best Project or Initiative at the 2024 Student PublicationAssociation NationalAwards and undoubtedly played a part in the paper’s shortlisting for Best Overall Digital Media
Another set of projects came about through ambitious OxStu editors who applied their experience on the paper to new journalistic enterprises while still at the University. In 2004 Helen Lewis used the money from winning the Philip Geddes Memorial Prize to found her own magazine, Oxide (unrelated to the later radio station). The same year, having each taken a turn at editing the OxStu, Zoe Flood, Rachel O’Brien and Vishesh Srivastava founded the Oxford Media Society. Flood was also founding editor of the society’s magazine, The Oxford Forum, which was the University’s first student-run current affairs publication. It ran for ten issues with a readership of 5,000 and was briefly revived in 2024 to celebrate the society’s 20th anniversary.85 The OxStu maintains a strong presence on the Media Society committee to this day: its President in Trinity 2024, Haochen Wang, was Associate Editor of the OxStu the term prior.
It clearly takes sustained editorial effort and attention to keep side projects afloat while producing a biweekly newspaper and the stability of such projects cannot be guaranteed. New Editors-in-Chief arrive with a vested interest in maintaining the core elements of the OxStu
85 Zoe Flood, Rachel O’Brien and Vishesh Srivastava, ‘Founders’ piece’, Oxford Forum: Resurgence (2024), pp. 1-4.
and not necessarily its paraphernalia. The OxStu pivoted to digital formats like every other newspaper through an increased focus on its website, and such a pivot was only successful because it was focused. Additional digital efforts have been undermined by continued editorial and material investment in the print edition and the website. The attention of editors and readers can only be divided so many times.
Notable interviews
Interviews have been a signifier of the OxStu’s success and relevance to the student body over the years. This has often been tied, especially in its earlier days, to the Oxford Union’s willingness to grant access to their guests. However, in recent years it has become more common for OxStu interviews to be produced independent of celebrities who speak at the Union. For example, the first edition of every term has for some time included an interview with the incoming Editors-in-Chief. Securing interviews with prominent people was instrumental to the establishment of the OxStu in its first decade but over time have become less significant to proving the paper’s worth.
By sheer numbers alone British politicians are clearly the paper’s favourite interview subjects. The OxStu has sat down with four Prime Ministers, though none of them were in office when they were interviewed: Tony Blair (1993), Gordon Brown (1998), Edward Heath (1998) and Boris Johnson (2005 and 2007) Avariety of party leaders have also spoken to the paper: Labour’s Neil Kinnock (1993), Harriet Harman (2018) and Jeremy Corbyn (2021); the Conservatives’William Hague (1998 and 2000) and Iain Duncan Smith (2005); the Liberal Democrats’PaddyAshdown (1993, 1998 and 1999), Vince Cable (2004), Menzies Campbell (2006) and Nick Clegg (2008 and 2018); and Green’s Caroline Lucas (2009), Natalie Bennett (2015) and Siân Berry (2021).
Senior cabinet ministers who have been interviewed by the paper include Tony Benn (1993, 1996 and 2003), Norman Tebbit (1993 and 2005), David Blunkett (1994), Norman Lamont (1999 and 2003), Ed Balls (2000), Jack Straw (2001 and 2004), Douglas Hurd (2003), Nigel Lawson (2008),Anneliese Dodds (2018) and Peter Mandelson (2023). Two of the three men to have served as Mayor of London have spoken to the OxStu, as Ken Livingstone did so in 2009. David Trimble was interviewed in 1999 a year into his tenure as First Minister of Northern Ireland, making him the highest-ranking British elected official to be questioned by OxStu journalists while in office.
Politicians classed as mavericks or plain disgraces have been keen to return for second and third interviews.
Ann Widdecombe, JonathanAitken and George Galloway each made their first appearances in the paper between 2000 and 2003. Widdecombe’s face was also splashed on the front page of the edition featuring her inaugural interview, as she had been the victim of a custard pie incident during her Oxford visit.86 By 2008
86 Helen Massy-Beresford, ‘Widdecombe gets her just desserts?’, OxStu (4 May 2000), p. 1.
Ann Widdecombe captured by an OxStu photographer moments after the prank ensued.
Boris Johnson appears every bit the party boy long before he ever reached Downing Street
Aitken and Widdecombe had been interviewed thrice and Galloway twice. All three of Aitken’s interviews took place after his public disgrace, as did that of Neil Hamilton with his wife Christine in 2000, just a year after a photo of Christine kissing OUCApresidential candidate Will Goodhand made the OxStu front page. More respectable political names also came back for more in the cases of fellow three-timers PaddyAshdown and Tony Benn: the latter had also been interviewed by Oxford Student in 1986, making him the single most interviewed person by any OUSU publication.
International politicians have also received attention from ambitious OxStu interviewers. Included among those who have spoken to the paper are three US congressmen (Senators Ted Kennedy in 2001 and John McCain in 2012, and Shadow Senator Jesse Jackson in 2014); two PalestinianAmbassadors to the United Kingdom (Manuel Hassassian in 2016 and Husam Zomlot in 2022); a Prime Minister of Pakistan (Imran Khan in 2003 and 2024); a State President of SouthAfrica (F. W. de Klerk in 2014); a President of Iceland (Guðni Th. Jóhannesson in 2020)87; a US Secretary of State (MadeleineAlbright in 2003); a Deputy Prime Minister of Israel (Natan Sharansky in 2003); a Director of the CIA(David Petraeus in 2021 and 2023); and a Mayor of Kyiv (Vitaly Klitschko in 2016).
Among the literary figures profiled by the paper, novelists MartinAmis and Will Self have been the most enthusiastic, being interviewed three times apiece between 1992 and 2012. Other notables include Barbara Cartland (1996), Salman Rushdie (1999), Donna Tartt (2002), Marina Warner (2003), Ian McEwan (2004), Neil Gaiman (2006), Philip Pullman (2008 and 2023), Jung Chang (2008),Alan Moore (2012) and Julie Bindel (2015). The Bindel interview provoked intense controversy as it was felt that the author, who praised her “admirable integrity”, did not push back against Bindel’s controversial views on trans rights.88 The Editors-in-Chief, curiously joined halfway through term by a third member from that issue onward, apologised for losing the confidence of their readers.
Several screenwriters have been interviewed multiple times:Armando Iannucci in 1999 and 2009; Mark Gatiss in 2001 and 2017; and Mike Leigh in 2002 and 2008, while Julian Fellowes spoke to the OxStu once in 2004. Stephen Frears (2008), Trevor Nunn (2009), AmmaAsante (2015), Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (2016) and Susanna White (2017) comprise the paper’s most notable filmmaker interviewees.
Discussions with notable comedians have been surprisingly uncommon compared to other entertainers, but some big names have still spoken to the paper over the years: Eddie Izzard (1993 and 1997), Victoria Wood (1993), Rory Bremner (1996 and 2005), Terry Jones (2003), Michael Palin (2008 and 2015), Russell Brand (2011), John Cleese (2017) and Tez Ilyas (2021).
Musicians were a particular strength of the OxStu’s interview portfolio in its earlier years. Among those who spoke to the paper about their work were Phil Collins (1993), Björk (1995), Oasis (1995), Radiohead (1995), The Strokes (2001), Yoko Ono (2002), Mark Owen (2003), Tim Rice (2003), Maroon 5 (2004), PJ Harvey (2004), Kings of Leon (2004), Calvin Harris (2009) and Tinie Tempah (2010).
87 Jóhannesson is the only world leader to be interviewed by the OxStu while in office.
88 Marcus Li, ‘Julie Bindel on pornos and platforms’(https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2015/01/29/julie-bindelon-pornos-and-platforms/), OxStu (29 January 2015).
However, acting is perhaps where the paper has attracted the most prestigious voices among the arts: Richard Attenborough (1993), Simon Callow (1993), Colin Firth (1993), Sinéad Cusack (1994), Jeremy Irons (1994 and 1995), Richard E. Grant (1996), Hugh Laurie (1996), Peter Ustinov (1999), Joanna Lumley (2000), Judi Dench (2002), Matthew Perry (2003), Clint Eastwood (2003), Richard Dreyfuss (2004), GillianAnderson (2005), Derek Jacobi (2005), Gene Wilder (2005), Kim Cattrall (2008), Stephen Fry (2014) and J. Smith-Cameron (2023).
Unsurprisingly numerous journalists have also been invited to sit down with the paper, some of them particularly wellknown: Ian Hislop (1993), Trevor McDonald (1996 and 2008), Piers Morgan (1997 and 2005), Will Hutton (2000 and 2018), KateAdie (2000), Jeremy Paxman (2003), Charles Glass (2003), John Pilger (2004), Jon Snow (2004), David Frost (2005), Andrew Neil (2009), Alexandra Shulman (2009),Andrew Marr (2012), Anna Wintour (2015),Alan Rusbridger (2015), Simon Kuper (2023) and George Monbiot (2023).
Another journalist, Tawakkol Karman, is one of several Nobel Prize winners who have spoken to the paper, having done so in 2018. Other Nobel laureates include economists Joseph Stiglitz (2004) and Thomas Schelling (2009) and writers Seamus Heaney (2000) and Kazuo Ishiguro (2009) Numbered among the OxStu’s prominent academic interviewees are anthropologist Stella Nyanzi (2023), economist Ngaire Woods (2018), human geographer Patricia Daley (2020), neuroscientist Susan Greenfield (2003 and 2004), political scientist Joseph Nye (2005), vaccinologistAdrian Hill (2015), and many historians: Simon Schama (2005), David Starkey (2008), Dominic Sandbrook (2011),Antony Beevor (2013), Janina Ramirez (2020) and Sudhir Hazareesingh (2022).
Another frequently populated field of interviewees is sportspeople. Footballers are by far the most common members of this group, likely reflecting the preferences of the Sport section’s editors over the years. Of these the most prominent are TonyAdams (2003), RonAtkinson (2003), Sven-Göran Eriksson (2003), Jimmy Greaves (2003), Teddy Sheringham (2004), Bobby Robson (2005), Trevor Brooking (2008) and Rio Ferdinand (2015). In a distant joint second place are boxers, racing drivers and rugby players, with two prominent participants in each sport having been interviewed over the years: boxers Naseem Hamed (2000) and Chris Eubank (2003); racers Eddie Irvine (2005) and David Coulthard (2010); and rugby players Clive Woodward (2003) and Will Greenwood (2015). Others to have spoken to the paper include sprinter Linford Christie (1996), hurdler David Hemery (2008), long jumper Greg Rutherford (2017) and rower Erin Kennedy (2021), all of whom are Olympic or Paralympic gold medallists. Finally, in a category of notability all his own is Jackie Chan, who was profiled by the OxStu in 2008.
To round out the list is a series of notable interviewees whose professions have not been as widely featured in OxStu profiles: talk show host Jerry Springer (1998 and 1999), businessman Richard Branson (2002), broadcaster Melvyn Bragg (2003), painter Lucian Freud (2004), radio DJ Scott Mills (2005 and 2009), lawyer Cherie Blair (2009) and television presenter Richard Osman (2018).
Gillian Anderson gets an Ox2 front page to herself.
In addition to interviews, various notable non-Oxford students have contributed the paper in some form. One of the most prominent instances of this was in February 2003, when Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon wrote an article justifying the imminent Iraq War.89 This was a morally confusing decision on the part of the editors given the significant anti-war sentiment among students but was nevertheless a major recognition of the paper’s status within the University. Another politician sought to defend his party in 2006: Evan Harris, MP for Oxford West and Abingdon and Liberal Democrat science and human rights spokesperson, attempted to convince readers that the Lib Dems were not in turmoil.90 George Galloway, having already sat down to be interviewed, wrote an OxStu article of his own focused on the aftermath of his time in the Celebrity Big Brother house.91 Tessa Jowell, former Labour Minister for Women, considered the impact of gender equality in the modern world in 2009.92 Adecade prior Joan Ruddock, a predecessor of Jowell’s in the Women and Equality Unit, discussed women’s employment prospects in a supplement called ‘Jobs for the Girls’.93
As with its predecessors the OxStu occasionally featured contributions from academics, such as when Richard Lofthouse, Dean of Corpus Christi, wrote on proposed restrictions on postexam celebrations in Oxford.94 The same year James Driscoll, a Philosophy tutor at Balliol, supplied a more controversial piece on the ethics of unlawful HIV/AIDS research.95 Canadian law professor and former UN war crimes prosecutor PayamAkhavan explored human rights in Iran in a 2008 submission.96 English lecturer Stuart Lee provided a more unorthodox contribution about the experience of putting on his play The Ghosts May Laugh at the Burton Taylor Studio.97 Some dons saw the paper as a vehicle to put radical University reforms to the student body, as Trinity President Michael Beloff did in 2004 when he imagined an Oxford completely independent from the government.98 Martin Stephen, High Master of St Paul’s School in London, followed this up with an article disparaging new university admissions policies in 2008.99
Professional journalists sometimes weighed in to provide analysis on stories requiring additional expertise. Edward Lucas, education correspondent for the Economist, examined the practicalities of Beloff’s vision of independence becoming reality.100 Harry Mount of the Telegraph, billed in the article as a “former Bullingdon Club member”, contributed a piece on the drinking society when it was mired in one of its many controversies.101 During a local animal rights dispute David Randall of the Independent discussed the media’s role in the popularisation of animal rights extremism.102 World News Today presenter and St Hilda’s
89 Geoff Hoon, ‘From the horse’s mouth…’, OxStu (27 February 2003), p. 6.
90 Evan Harris, ‘Lib Dems not really in turmoil’, OxStu (26 January 2006), p. 10. In 2007 he wrote another piece calling for the protection of free speech.
91 George Galloway, ‘Paying respect to Big Brother’, OxStu (2 February 2006), p. 8.
92 Tessa Jowell, ‘Viewpoint’, OxStu (23April 2009), p. 17.
93 Joan Ruddock, ‘Women on top’, OxStu (26 February 1998), Jobs for the Girls p. 4.
94 Richard Lofthouse, ‘Egg throwing not celebration enough’, OxStu (29April 2004), p. 6.
95 James Driscoll, ‘The ethics of unlawful HIV/AIDS research’, OxStu (3 June 2004), p. 6.
96 PayamAkhavan, ‘Iran: towards a policy of principled engagement’, OxStu (21 February 2008), p. 11.
97 Stuart Lee, ‘Dulce et decorum est…’, OxStu (27 November 2003), Ox2 p. 5.
98 Michael Beloff, ‘Why should tutors admit anyone but the best?’, OxStu (10 October 2004), p. 10.
99 Martin Stephen, ‘New admissions policies will do positive harm’, OxStu (23 October 2008), p. 11.
100 Edward Lucas, ‘Independence for Oxford’, OxStu (26 May 2005), p. 10.
101 Harry Mount, ‘Ritual is the word’, OxStu (13 January 2005), p. 8.
102 David Randall, ‘The media incentive’, OxStu (5 October 2005), p. 12.
alumna Zeinab Badawi contributed a piece when it was announced that the college would become coeducational.103
Amidst the local councillors, Cherwell editors and OUSU and Union officers who wrote letters to the OxStu editors were two prominent entertainment figures: comedian Phill Jupitus and Thom Yorke of Radiohead. Both wrote in to support local causes. Jupitus, then a DJ for BBC Radio 6, contributed a letter supporting Oxide Radio which was at risk of losing its OUSU funding.104 Yorke, an Oxford resident, endorsed the Green Party candidate Sushila Dhall in a local by-election. He wittily concluded his letter, “that’s just my opinion which you can take with a pinch of salt, or if you like, a whiff of carbon monoxide”, and was awarded letter of the week for his trouble.105 He surely appreciated the two return tickets from Oxford to London on the Oxford Espress, as it was then called, the paper gave him.
103 Zeinab Badawi, ‘The extinction of the Hildabeast’, OxStu (16 February 2006), p. 10.
104 Phill Jupitus, ‘Phill Jupitus writes’, OxStu (26 January 2006), p. 11.
105 Thom Yorke, ‘Rock the vote’, OxStu (21 October 2004), p. 15.
Career prospects
With editors having come and gone for the past three decades, it is unsurprising that some among the OxStu staff have made considerable names for themselves in a variety of industries since graduating.
By far the most popular career path for OxStu alumni is, unsurprisingly, journalism, with the OxStu being represented on the staff of many popular publications. These include the Atlantic (Helen Lewis); the Economist (Jason Chau and Matthew Holehouse); the Financial Times (ChrisAllnutt,Alan Beattie, Hannah Kuchler, Nicholas Megaw and Georgina Quach); the Guardian (AzeemAzhar, Claire Phipps and Kiran Stacey); the Mail (Miles Dilworth and PoppyAtkinson Gibson); the New Statesman (Anoosh Chakelian); the Observer (Jonathan Wilson); Private Eye (Alex Foster); the Spectator (Emma Byrne); the Telegraph (Janet Eastham, Madeleine Ross, James Rothwell and Lauren Shirreff); the Times (Rob Hands, Mark Henderson, Will Pavia and James Restall); and the Wall Street Journal (James Mackintosh)
Many OxStu alumni have also ventured into broadcast journalism. Some present news on television via the BBC (Adam Fleming), Channel 4 (Cathy Newman), Sky News (Tamara Cohen, Tom Rayner and Sophy Ridge) or Talk (Peter Cardwell); others produce internet news content on Bloomberg (Tara Mulholland), CBS Sports (James Benge) or Global Media (Lewis Goodall). Still more work behind the scenes to research and produce television and radio programmes for companies likeAgence France-Presse (Rachel O’Brien), Channel 4 (Sachin Croker) and the BBC (James Coatsworth, Joseph McAuley, Luke Mintz and Mary Morgan).
The second most popular career for OxStu alumni is the civil service, with former staff spread across numerous government departments. Peter Cardwell is the most notable of these, having served as a special adviser across four departments during the premierships of Theresa May and Boris Johnson. These government roles are not limited to the UK, with alumni working as far afield as the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.
One OxStu editor, James Murray, has entered parliament itself, becoming Labour MP for Ealing North in 2019 and the Starmer government’s Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury in 2024. Chris Skidmore, former Conservative MP for Kingswood, and Laura Trott, current Conservative MP for Sevenoaks, both contributed one-off articles to the paper. By far the most powerful political figure to have written for the OxStu in their university days, however, is former Prime Minister Liz Truss. In her first term at Oxford, she wrote an article on her experience campaigning for the Liberal Democrats in the 1993 Millwall Council by-election, which was the first ever electoral victory for the British National Party.106 Aterm later she made the OxStu
Liz Truss recounts her first political campaign for the OxStu.
106 Elizabeth Truss, ‘Where black and white leave no grey areas’, OxStu (21 October 1993), p. 8.
front page for muscling in on a Balliol JCR debate, arguing that the presence of Women’s Officers on JCR committees was “patronising and sexist”.107 The flagrant dislike for identity politics which would come to characterise her ministerial career can be observed in both articles Alater article reporting on an OUSU motion to officially censure Truss’views was intended to be titled ‘Truss bound and gagged’but was renamed to something blander for fear of offending the BDSM community.
Outside of politics and the media, the most popular sectors for OxStu alumni are law and academia. In the latter, former editors of the paper can be found on the faculty of the University of Bristol; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Edinburgh; the University of Toronto; and indeed, the University of Oxford itself. The paper’s most prestigious academic alum is Marion Turner, the incumbent J. R. R. Tolkien Professor of English Language and Literature at Lady Margaret Hall, who reviewed productions for the Drama section in Trinity 1995 and received a personal thanks from the editors for her contributions.
Many other alumni are involved in a diverse web of sectors, including banking, consulting, diplomacy, real estate, social enterprise, start-ups, sustainability, and teaching. Many have also become freelance editors, journalists, policy advisers, and producers, with a significant number focused onAI and other forms of technological innovation. There is clearly no set career path post-OxStu, but it is notable how many were enthused enough from their days in student journalism to enter the field professionally.
Some have made real names for themselves, reflected in honours being bestowed by their alma mater: Peter Cardwell chaired the Geddes Trust until 2023 and Sophy Ridge was the interviewer for the 2024 Geddes Lecture. In the same year Zoe Flood presented a documentary she produced to the Oxford Media Society and contributed an article to the alumni newsletter of Keble College Tamara Cohen and James Murray also returned to their old college, Wadham, for an interview with the Warden; the year before Cathy Newman did the same with the Principal of Lady Margaret Hall. 2023 also sawAzeemAzhar appointed a Visiting Fellow of the Oxford Martin School.
107 Mark Fisher and Mark Henderson, ‘Balliol challenges Women’s Officer’, OxStu (13 January 1994), p. 1.
Recognition
The OxStu has been recognised at both the regional and national level for its journalism. Until 2015 the Guardian Student Media Awards were the most prestigious honour in British student journalism. The OxStu won four awards, one for Student Newspaper of the Year in 2001 and three for Student Reporter of the Year in 2005, 2008 and 2013. The latter were awarded to Roger Waite, Hannah Kuchler and Lizzie Porter respectively. The paper additionally came second in a further four categories, including for Student Newspaper of the Year in 2007, and was shortlisted a total of 22 times between 1993 and 2014. This meant that on average the paper received one nomination per year. It was up for the most prestigious award, Student Newspaper of the Year, six times.
The Student PublicationAssociation (SPA) has since replaced the Guardian as the principal awarding body for British student journalists. Their NationalAwards have, however, been running since at least 2014, when the OxStu was shortlisted for the first time. The paper has won two SPANationalAwards to date, one in 2019 for Best Interview and one in 2022 for Best Entertainment Piece. These awards went to Jay Staker andAlex Foster respectively. The OxStu has been shortlisted 18 times in 11 years, including for Best Publication in 2019, and received five nominations in 2024 alone In addition to the NationalAwards, the SPAholds RegionalAwards for student journalism across the UK, with the OxStu frequently being recognised in the South EastAwards. In 2019 it won Best Publication and in 2019 and 2024 it won Best Journalist; this being awarded first to Grace Davis and second jointly to Milo Dennison and Rose Henderson.
Locally OxStu journalists have frequently been honoured by theAnjool Maldé Memorial TrustAwards. The trust, founded in 2010 in memory of an OxStu editor who died tragically at the age of 24, seeks to reward and inspire young talent. Part of this mission is fulfilled by the awarding of prizes and scholarships in various fields, and the OxStu has been a frequent honouree of the JournalismAward. Between 2010 and 2013 five OxStu journalists –Alis Lewis, Lizzie Porter, Tara Mulholland,Anna Rawlings and James Restall – were recipients of the award. While the JournalismAward is not explicitly local (indeed, only theAnjool Maldé Scholarship for academic excellence and citizenship is restricted to students at the University of Oxford), the OxStu and Cherwell did co-host the award for several years and most nominees came from those two papers.
The prizes awarded by the Philip Geddes Memorial Trust are by far the most prestigious local journalism awards available to OxStu journalists. Several alumni have received them: David Milliken, Helen Lewis and Peter Cardwell received the Philip Geddes Prize in 2001, 2004 and 2005 respectively; Mary Morgan won the Trust’s prize specifically for St Edmund Hall
The OxStu celebrates its big victory at the 2001 ceremony.
student journalists in 2004; and Tim Wigmore won the Clive Taylor Prize for Sports Journalism in 2012. Other prize winners over the years include Claudia Parsons (1996), Laura Barton (1999), Rodrigo Davies (2003), Natalie Toms (2003), Charles Boss (2006), Jack Shenker (2006),Andy Heath (2007),Alys Key (2016) and Lauren Shirreff (2021). Most recently Rose Henderson received a Special Commendation from the prizes’judges in 2024, the first time an additional prize was awarded beyond the main three.
Previous OxStu histories
This project is not by any stretch of the imagination the first examination of the OxStu’s history. The first major one came in 2004 in honour of 300 OxStu editions being published. It was authored by Zoe Flood, who spoke to Rob Hands, Mark Henderson, James Mackintosh and Karl Smith to get a sense of the paper’s earlier years. Her magisterial feature opens memorably:
From its first days as a struggling fortnightly, The Oxford Student has swayed from serious broadsheet to lurid tabloid and back, has endured threats of legal action and countless long nights, and has broken in the innumerable enthusiasts, who have thrown degree and sleep aside, united only by the desire to establish Oxford's 'other' paper as its best. The OxStu, as it is more fondly known, cannot boast the heritage of the long-established Cherwell, but it has enjoyed a turbulent history in its successful quest to provide Oxford students with an alternative weekly newspaper.108
The print edition version featured a timeline of notable OxStu front pages but erroneously stated (as many have) that the paper was founded in 1992. The OxStu’s tagline below its header in Michaelmas 2010 was even ‘Oxford’s newspaper since 1992’. It is not clear where this confusion originated from but could be linked to a lack of the first term’s editions surviving in easily accessible archives like the Bodleian. The paper’s website and social media bios now correctly state that the paper was founded in 1991.
Isabel Fleming and River Macilraith also had the date right when they produced the second major look at the OxStu’s history in celebration of its 30th anniversary in 2021. Their editorial, like Flood’s, made mention of the many scandals that have appeared in its pages, with the John Major affair receiving top billing. However, in the wake of the Pink and Identity sections being introduced, they focused more on the OxStu’s inclusiveness and diversity being its primary advantage:
Things have changed a lot since 1991. OxStu is no longer the new kid on the block. What we have shown consistently though is our willingness to go above and beyond to bring the content that Oxford students want, whether that be in our News coverage, our Features pieces, our Comment debates or our dedicated spaces in Pink and Identity. The OxStu remains the paper for Oxford students of all backgrounds.109
This special edition was produced with a glossier and smaller-sized paper than usual, giving the publication more of a magazine feel. In recognition of its historical importance for the paper it was deposited in the Bodleian separately from the rest of the print editions that year.
Both of those prior historical investigations proved immensely helpful in constructing my own examination of the OxStu’s past. Without stumbling across the online edition of Zoe Flood’s 2004 article on the Wayback Machine, I might have never contacted her and benefited from the copious information she possessed on the paper beyond what she wrote down 20 years ago. The 30th anniversary edition provided me with concrete information on when more recent sections were introduced to the paper.
108 Zoe Flood, ‘300 issues of The Oxford Student’, OxStu (6 October 2004), p. 22.
109 Isabel Fleming and River Macilraith, ‘1991-20: The Oxford Student celebrates 30 years in print’, OxStu (14 June 2021), p. 3.
Above all though, it was by following Flood’s lead in seeking out and interviewing people who wrote for the paper long before I was ever aware of it that gave me the material to produce this history. It was exciting to look over old editions in the Bodleian and track down national coverage on newspaper databases, but by far the most thrilling moments of this long research process have stemmed from real conversations with real people who once made this paper from a pipe dream into a reality.
Appendix
A:
List of Editors and General Managers of Oxford Student
Term Editor(s)
Michaelmas 1985 Jo Collinge
Hilary 1986 Andy Baker
Trinity 1986 Chris McAllister
Michaelmas 1986 JohnAuthers
Hilary 1987 Suhail Rahuja and Paul Waugh
General Manager
Carolyn Morgan
Catherine Wilson
Catherine Wilson
Judy Wilson
Emily Morris
Appendix B: List of Editors-in-Chief of The Oxford Student
Michaelmas 1991 Stephen Pritchard
Hilary 1992 Jennifer Mori
Trinity 1992 Azeem Azhar and Gavin Rees
Michaelmas 1992 Azeem Azhar and Gavin Rees
Hilary 1993 Richard Cumbley, Ronit Ghose and James Thompson
Trinity 1993 Liz Harnden, Nicholas Lovell and Ralph Parfect
Michaelmas 1993 Jess Connors, Rob Hands and Will Stenhouse
Hilary 1994 Helen Clement, Jess Connors and James Goss
Trinity 1994 Ed Donner, Briony Pope, Karl Smith and Rick Wray
Michaelmas 1994 Mark Henderson, James Mackintosh and Ciaran Martin
Hilary 1995 Caroline Barton, Lydia Hislop and Nic Smith
Trinity 1995 Paul Clark and Chris Taylor
Michaelmas 1995 Rory Fisher, Simon Smith and Katy Weitz
Hilary 1996 TimAldrich, Sophie Dodgeon and Joe Wilkinson
Trinity 1996 Jaime Gill, Claudia Parsons and Dan Taylor
Michaelmas 1996 Matt Green, Will Hardie, Jennie Morris and Dan Taylor
Hilary 1997 Katy Darby, Will Hardie and Jez Humble
Trinity 1997 Jennie Morris, Stuart Chevalier and Dan Taylor
Michaelmas 1997 Stuart Chevalier, Stephen Hall and John Guess
Hilary 1998 Claire Phipps
Trinity 1998 Kate Kelly
Michaelmas 1998 Alice Wignall
Hilary 1999 Laura Barton
Trinity 1999 Daljit Bhurji
Michaelmas 1999 Barney Jones and Jonathan Tseng
Hilary 2000 Will Pavia
Trinity 2000 Liz Disley and Philip Walford
Michaelmas 2000 Peter Brown and Jerome Glass
Hilary 2001 Jake Ellwood and Mark Moulding
Trinity 2001 David Milliken and Martin Sainsbury
Michaelmas 2001 Julia Buckley
Hilary 2002 Joseph McAuley and Christina Stokes
Trinity 2002 Ria Hopkinson and Miriam Quick
Michaelmas 2002 Rodrigo Davies
Hilary 2003 Charles Hotham and Natalie Toms
Trinity 2003 Tamara Cohen and James Murray
Michaelmas 2003 James Coatsworth and Zoe Flood
Hilary 2004 Rachel O’Brien and Vishesh Srivastava
Trinity 2004 Mary Morgan
Michaelmas 2004 Peter Cardwell and Patrick Foster
Hilary 2005 Anna Maybank and Tom Rayner
Trinity 2005 Roger Waite
Michaelmas 2005 Rob Lewis
Hilary 2006 Anna Mikhailova and Kiran Stacey
Trinity 2006 SimonAkam
Michaelmas 2006 Robert Cookson
Hilary 2007 CatherineArmitage
Trinity 2007 CatherineArmitage
Michaelmas 2007 Andy Heath and Samira Shackle
Hilary 2008 Cal Flyn and Matthew Holehouse
Trinity 2008 Hannah Kuchler
Michaelmas 2008 Rosie Macaulay and Rebecca Molyneux
Hilary 2009 Alexandra Baxter and Sonia Krylova
Trinity 2009 Emma Mockford and Helena See
Michaelmas 2009 Jeremy Kelly and Tom Rowley
Hilary 2010 Louis Barclay and Alistair Walker
Trinity 2010 Anoosh Chakelian
Michaelmas 2010 Winston Featherly-Bean and Tara Mulholland
Hilary 2011 James Benge and Ellen Newberry
Trinity 2011 Emily Belton and Stephanie Vizard
Michaelmas 2011 Josh Davis and Lizzie Porter
Hilary 2012 Nick Megaw and Laura Simmons
Trinity 2012 Abbas Panjwani and James Rothwell
Michaelmas 2012 Isaac Delestre andAyesha Jhunjhunwala
Hilary 2013 James Restall and Jonathan Tomlin
Trinity 2013 Alis Lewis and Charles Walmsley
Michaelmas 2013 Tom Ough and Sarah Poulten
Hilary 2014 Miles Dilworth and Ruth Maclean
Trinity 2014 Rosalind Brody and Nick Toner
Michaelmas 2014 Jack Myers
Hilary 2015 Alys Key and Sachin Croker
Trinity 2015 NasimAsl and Luke Mintz
Michaelmas 2015 David Barker and Laura Whetherly
Hilary 2016 Ariane Laurent-Smith and Naomi Southwell
Trinity 2016 Scott Harker and Sam Sykes
Michaelmas 2016 James Chater and Beth Kirkbride
Hilary 2017 ChrisAllnutt and Laura Holden
Trinity 2017 Lizzie Shelmerdine and Claire Sims
Michaelmas 2017 Alex Oscroft and Rosie Shakerchi
Hilary 2018 Anya Gill and Penny Young
Trinity 2018 Anisha Faruk andArya Tandon
Michaelmas 2018 JamesAshworth and Charlie Willis
Hilary 2019 Tom Gould and Jonathan Sands
Trinity 2019 Nathaniel Rachman and Jay Staker
Michaelmas 2019 Grace Davis and Maria Kostylew
Hilary 2020 Alexander Haveron-Jones and Bethan Roberts
Trinity 2020 Emily Charley and Matthew Kayanja
Michaelmas 2020 Joshua Boddington and Lauren Shirreff
Hilary 2021 Isabel Fleming and River Macilraith
Trinity 2021 Isaac Healey and Natasha Tan
Michaelmas 2021 PoppyAtkinson Gibson and Madeleine Ross
Hilary 2022 Alex Foster andAndrew Wang
Trinity 2022 Dania KamalAryf and Elias Formaggia
Michaelmas 2022 Jason Chau and Dominic Enright
Hilary 2023 Anna Davidson and Milo Dennison
Trinity 2023
AyomilekanAdegunwa and Rose Henderson
Michaelmas 2023 Charlie Bowden and Emily Hudson
Hilary 2024 Tara Earley and Daisy Outram
Trinity 2024 MartinAlfonsin Larsen and Gaspard Rouffin
Michaelmas 2024 GeorgieAllan andAmelia Gibbins
Appendix C: List of awards and nominations received by The Oxford Student
The Guardian Student MediaAwards
Year Category
Nominee
Result
2014 Student Reporter of the Year Tom Ough Shortlisted
2013 Student Reporter of the Year James Restall Shortlisted
2012 Student Reporter of the Year Lizzie Porter Winner
2011 Reporter of the Year Lizzie Porter Runner-up
2009 Reporter of the Year Tom Rowley Shortlisted
2008 Reporter of the Year Hannah Kuchler Winner
2007 Newspaper of the Year The Oxford Student Runner-up
2007 Reporter of the Year Andy Heath Runner-up
2006 Reporter of the Year Jessica Goodman Shortlisted
2006 Student Sports Writer of the Year Charles Boss Shortlisted
2005 Newspaper of the Year The Oxford Student Shortlisted
2005 Student Reporter of the Year Roger Waite Winner
2005 Student Columnist of the Year Peter Cardwell Shortlisted
2005 Student Sports Writer of the Year Laura Godwin Shortlisted
2004 Student Newspaper of the Year The Oxford Student Shortlisted
2003 Student Feature Writer of the Year Clare Bevis110 Runner-up
2002 Student Newspaper of the Year The Oxford Student Shortlisted
2001 Student Newspaper of the Year The Oxford Student Winner
1998 Student Feature Writer of the Year Andrew Thomas Shortlisted
1996 Student Newspaper of the Year The Oxford Student Shortlisted
1996 Journalist of the Year Jaime Gill Shortlisted
1993 Student Journalist Carlos Grande Shortlisted
Student PublicationAssociation NationalAwards
Year Category
Nominee
Result
2024 Best Overall Digital Media The Oxford Student Shortlisted
2024 Best Project or Initiative The Oxford Student Newsletter Shortlisted
2024 Best Reporter Rose Henderson Shortlisted
2024 Rising Star Daisy Outram Highly Commended
2024 Best Investigation Milo Dennison & Rose Henderson Shortlisted
2023 Best Creative Piece Alex Foster Shortlisted
2022 Best Entertainment Piece Alex Foster Winner
2022 Best Comment Piece Raef Murphy Shortlisted
2022 Best Interview Alex Foster Shortlisted
2021 Best Feature Jade Calder Shortlisted
2019 Best Publication The Oxford Student Shortlisted
2019 Best Interview Jay Staker Winner
2017 Best Interview James Chater Shortlisted
2016 Best News Story Luke Mintz Shortlisted
110 Shortlisted for her work in both The Isis and The Oxford Student.
2016 Best Interview Clayton Stone Shortlisted
2016 Best Interview Naomi Southwell Shortlisted
2015 Best of Student Media Luke Mintz Shortlisted
2014 Best Live Commentary The Oxford Student Highly Commended
Student PublicationAssociation RegionalAwards (The South East)
Year Category
Nominee Result
2024 Best Journalist Milo Dennison & Rose Henderson Winners
2019 Best Publication The Oxford Student Winner
2019 Best Journalist Grace Davis Winner
Anjool Maldé Memorial TrustAwards Year
2013 JournalismAward Alis Lewis Winner
2013 JournalismAward James Restall Winner
2011 JournalismAward Lizzie Porter Winner
2011 JournalismAward James Restall Runnerup
2010 JournalismAward Tara Mulholland Winner
2010 JournalismAward Anna Rawlings Winner
2010 JournalismAward Adam Bouyamourn Runnerup