A report into Oxford’s underage drinking culture was released yesterday by OUSU, following a month-long investigation into Oxford’s social scene. The investigation was conducted in light of the recent underage drinking scandal at OULC, where a 17 year old was found to have consumed several alcoholic beverages at one of their drinks events.
The report highlights the many places where ID-checking needs to be introduced, and discusses the impact of Oxford’s underage drinking culture on wider society. It ends by recommending that ID checks are performed in all college bars, even if the bar staff think they ‘know’ the people they’re serving, and for all underage students to be made to wear brightly coloured bibs at society events.
The report further recommends that underage students be breathalysed nightly by porters, just to be on the safe side, and be paired with an older student on trips after dark to ensure they’re not going anywhere near alcohol. When questioned as to whether these measures match up to how significant the problem is, OUSU officer Martin Goring, who was in charge of the report, argued, “Although there are in fact only seven students at Oxford that are under 18, we think we are more than justified in calling this an underage drinking culture. This insidious culture is poisoning Oxford life and destroying its prized reputation for sobriety.”
The national media was quick to agree with the report, and to condemn the underage drinking epidemic at Oxford. The OxStew contacted Guardian editor Paul Elder, who said, “We were going to do a double page spread with new information on the threat to the UK from militant Islamists, but decided that there was a far greater public interest in a 17 year old Oxford student consuming too many alcoholic drinks. The public has a right to know that the leaders of tomorrow are consuming alcohol before their 18th birthday, which we can all agree suggests a tendency to disregard the law that they will one day be required to uphold.”
Buzzfeed editor Stacey Lister agreed, adding, “Everyone has an interest in how Oxford students behave, and it’s simply unacceptable for them to be drinking underage. Oxford is now number one of our ‘Top Ten Unis To Drink At When You’re 17’, and frankly it’s pretty disgraceful.”
It has been noted by several think tanks that media interest in Oxford stories has increased lately, with several Oxford stories such as the underage drinking scandal making it into national newspapers. Aside from covering Oxford’s teen drinking crisis, papers have also included articles on various subjects such as the Law Society’s elections; inequality in punting abilities; an argument at a college bop over inappropriate outfits; and one drunk student smashing two glasses at dinner.
When asked why this might be, Derek Cox of The Media Observatory suggested that it was to do with matters of national importance, “From interviewing several editors of national publications,” he said, “we have ascertained that the media disproportionately features Oxford stories because of the overwhelming public interest in them. It is certainly nothing to do with needing to fill space, or it being easier to write stories that compound stereotypes rather than contradict them, or that the underage drinking problem in the rest of the country being frankly too large and obvious to bother reporting on. Oxford is a national treasure that everyone loves to hear about – especially when it’s good news. By chance, it just so happens that it hasn’t been recently”
