Proposition:

I love sport. I love the camaraderie of a steamy changing room after a big win with the boys. I love the rush of blood to the head after a good bout of exercise. I love the endless conversation fodder it provides for meals, drinks and long journeys. Sport gives meaning to individual lives, sport unites teams and builds nations. The Olympics are coming to London this summer and I can’t wait.

The Olympics, with its momentous significance, will give meaning to parts of England that are often overlooked in global affairs. When else would you see something as culturally significant in Needham, Chippenham or Leighton Buzzard? The Olympic Torch is blazing through Britain’s banal countryside, placing for one transcendental moment the A420 on the same historical stage as the great wonders of our world. The torch represents more than just the mark of the Olympics, its journey is a cultural crusade of historical significance. It is sport’s most recognisable symbol, uniting place and people in its wake.

The Olympics also focus the gaze of the watching world on one particular event. It is perhaps for this reason that the Olympics have been the scene of hugely significant political moments and indications of widespread social movements, all of which have become indelibly marked on the wider historical script. Jesse Owens’s four medals at Munich in 1936 showed in glorious fashion the ridiculous falsehoods of the Nazi ethos of Aryan supremacy, while in Mexico city in 1968 Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two African American 200 metre sprinters who finished on the podium, gave the black power salute during the American national anthem. At London 2012, at a time of deep rooted social frustration in the capital, will we see similar moments of cultural significance? Perhaps the ‘Occupy’ campaign will move to rowing headquarters at Eton Dorney to set up camp, a floating reminder of the moral bankruptcy of capitalism. Or perhaps Tom Daley will step up his anti-bullying campaign on the diving board, wearing a glittery thong in an attempt to neutralise gender discrimination in sport.

Aside from these significant arguments in favour of the Olympics, there is a myriad of other opportunities the games provide: handing out medals gives work to minor royals, while Elbow’s finances go through the roof every time the BBC use ‘Day Like This’ in a montage. The travel industry booms as Londoners get as far away from events in their home town as possible, while the BBC coverage keeps Sue Barker in work, at least for the summer. Hosting London 2012 may have cost the taxpayer over nine billion pounds, but it’s worth every last penny.

Barney White

Opposition:

It’s taken four years, but our elaborate scheme to trick swathes of foreigners into going to East London is almost complete. The Olympics are coming to UK. It will, argue its proponents, leave a sporting legacy that will outweigh its considerable costs. But, undermining all the games’ lofty ideals is one fatal flaw: sport is rubbish.

We are promised a lasting legacy, that the four week gridlock and monetary loss shall be trivial by comparison. But, most of this legacy will arrive in the form of a surplus of sporting facilities for inner-city youths. The assumption is that training up athletes and inspiring exercise is a good thing. Well, out of a deep dedication to hands-on journalism, I did a peculiar thing last Wednesday: I went for a run. It was horrible. Within minutes my legs had turned to jelly and I was choking on my own sweat. Small children were left in floods of tears, traumatised by the sight of my turquoise short shorts. Everything hurt. Clearly it would be grossly irresponsible to encourage such activity.

In fact, the ‘healthy mind, healthy body’ glorification of exercise is almost as ubiquitous as it is lacking actual empirical evidence. For the sake of science I would like you to conduct an experiment: if you can pull your eyes away from this page for a second please look up and observe those around you. Look at their pale, oily faces, those lank, chubby, sausage limbs – they betray an aversion to exercise that has gotten these people into the best university in the world. If you are alone, consider that the social ineptitude causing this probably results from social exclusion in early childhood due to your own sporting failures. But the hours studying alone in your bedroom, whilst those happier, prettier, sportier children played outside, are what brought you into this wonderful city. Furthermore, the notion that team sport builds character is fatally undermined considering most professional footballers seem to possess the moral fortitude of a particularly dishonest can of special brew.

And let’s not forget: it’s hopelessly dull to watch. The athletics particularly so. It’s just people moving quickly. Why not save the hundreds of millions the UK taxpayer currently spends on athletics training and simply film me and my pals running a hundred metres then play it at double speed? Same result. More bizarre is the gymnastics which is, essentially, just people moving from one place to another in an absurdly inefficient manner. Readers, sport is not virtuous, it is painful and embarrassing. It turns the fans into louts, the participants into sweaty wrecks and puts everyone else to sleep. Why we chose to take on this costly circus is a mystery.

Ben Deaner

What are the Super PACs that have become so important in the US election?

Political Action Committees (PACs) are organisations used to raise money to support the election of particular candidates regulated by the Federal Election Commission. What has changed since 2008 is the emergence of so-called Super PACs, which can now raise unlimited funds from individuals and corporations. Expenditure by PACs has been unlimited since the 1980s, but donations have not. There are now no restrictions on either, provided that PACs do not coordinate with the candidates whose campaigns they support. US electoral laws therefore maintain a tenuous distinction between contributions to individual candidates, which continue to be limited for fear of their potentially corrupting influence, and the right to freedom of expression in advocating the election of those same candidates.

How will these Super PACs affect US politics?

In the words of Zhou Enlai, it is too early to say, though there is a widespread fear of a further redistribution of political power towards the rich and of a further increase in negative campaigning. T he potential influence of such organizations was revealed by the impact of the campaign against John Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (technically not a PAC, but having a similar effect). The recent Republican primaries were also characterised by a high density of negative TV ads. It is hard to see how the Citizens United ruling really enhances freedom of speech, rather than simply allowing rich individuals and corporations (including, of course, labour unions) to shout louder.

How important will the candidates’ ‘war chests’ be in the upcoming Presidential election?

Barack Obama’s fundraising campaign was crucial to his victory in 2008 (and also to his successful primary battle with Hilary Clinton). Once again, however, we don’t yet know what the relative impact of Super PAC expenditure against the candidates’ own expenditure will be. Democrats are concerned about Restore our Future, the Romneysupporting Super PAC founded by former Bush strategist and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove. On the other hand, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson’s $10m donation to a Newt Gingrich-supporting Super PAC didn’t do him that much good! For Barack Obama the ground operation will be crucially important, as it was for George W. Bush in 2004.

Does money count for less in the UK?

I’m not sure whether the relationship between politics and money can ever be entirely ‘clean’: no party funding arrangement is immune from criticism. That said, I have little doubt that money counts for more in US politics than in the UK. Quite apart from the enormous sums required for a presidential run, the electoral prospects of individual congressmen are closely tied to their fund-raising capacity, something that does not apply to MPs. One can understand many of the dynamics within Congress and between Congress and the White House in terms of the influence of money on US politics.

Should UK parties be state-funded?

There is more state funding of political parties in the UK than many people realise, primarily in the form of Policy Development Grants and money to support opposition parties. The problem with state funding, apart from the fact that it would impose new costs on taxpayers at a time when politicians are not universally popular, is that it tends to reinforce the status quo by requiring some degree of electoral success to qualify for funding. If what we are concerned about is party donors being ‘rewarded’ with appointment to the legislature, a simpler solution might be to introduce an elected House of Lords.

Adam Humphreys is a Fellow of Politics at Brasenose College

You may have read recently that Keble’s undergraduate body voted decisively not to spend £193 on a portrait of the Queen to be placed in the JCR, with Daily Mail journalist Ian Garland vented his spleen over the issue earlier in the week. The content of the article was adequately summarised by its headline: ‘Students at top Oxford college refuse to hang picture of the Queen because doing so would promote ELITISM’. It fits into the standard tabloid Oxbridge model: we all belong to a narrow social elite, which means that our opinions on issues of elitism and privilege are invalid.

Comments on Mail Online such as ‘do these dipsticks really have the mental ability to attend such an establishment?’ demonstrate a funny situation in which Oxford as an institution is granted respect and deference by the general public, but the people who inhabit it are not. Oxford students aren’t given much of a chance. Either we are toffs and reactionaries, elitists and traditionalists, or we are whinging left-leaning typical students. If the latter is true, it is only interesting because we are meant to be the former.

Many of the issues regarding tabloid articles about Oxbridge in general were elegantly pointed out this week by a lengthy response in Cherwell’s rival newspaper. That answered the question ‘why was the article bad?’ However, we must also ask the question ‘why was the article written?’ Journalism is in essence comprised of two roles which can sometimes pull against each other; finding the news, and reporting it. A lot of the time, there simply isn’t very much news. Oxford is a small place. Britain isn’t, nor is the world, but the things which people want to read about are rarely the same as the things which are important to our lives, or the things that are valuable for us to know about.

The same phenomenon is apparent in student newspapers, although suggesting you flick through this copy of Cherwell to verify that claim would be disloyal. Sometimes there is no story to be found, so there is no story to report. The Keble JCR motion is clearly not a national news story, but people want to read about it because it reinforces existing prejudices and gives a platform to anti-Oxford sentiment. For better or for worse, as Oxford students, people are interested in us and what we do.

Similarly, those on the Oxford student press’ trawl list are encouraged to exaggerate stories about minor JCR incidents into full blown press stories. Sometimes, it’s hard to know the limits as to what constitutes ‘news’. What if people are interested in it? How about news stories which severely jeopardise people’s future prospects? When there is no news, should we create it? Maybe we should just print something telling the truth: ‘Sorry, there isn’t any news today.’

Facts of the matter

The Queen has now been on the throne for longer than most of her subjects have been alive, has outlasted countless governments, and has presided with a probably admirable calm over the slump towards relative insignificance of both the UK in general and the monarchy in particular.

The UK has pulled out all the stops to mark what may well be the last major royal-centred event before we get stuck with King Charles, ordering the nation to picnic en masse and fly flags, and to cap it off called in pop stars, dignitaries and a giant flotilla of boats (we’re a marine power, remember) to give the blandly pleasant old gal her due: misplaced, and somewhat outdated pomp. Important royal events are always tough to cover – most editors demand a positive spin, which isn’t really what the British press is designed for.

And so you get the same obsession with the details of dress without any of the bitchy meanness that gets papers like The Mail off the shelves. The result is a more or less endless stream of praise of the emotional and ‘often witty’ speeches, the glitz and the music. After four days of it, you almost miss the shrieky finger-pointing that makes Britain’s papers what they are.

Laugh-a-minute

One of the few monarchists at the Guardian turns effusive on us, recounting the times he was personally charmed by the Queen (‘my’ Queen, apparently), dwelling as her admirers invariably do on her outfits: ‘and was that not a yellow flower clasped within the band of her green hat?’, he gasps, swooning over his keyboard, one imagines.

He fills out the rest of the blank page space with an odd defence of monarchic privilege: boring lefties who argue that all the pageantry is just a disguise for grossly unjust privilege are wrong: ‘ there is only one thing worse than being poor and that’s being rich but without the opportunity to choose what to spend it on’. That this kind of logical gymnastics can get published in a leading newspaper speaks volumes of the very defensive affection felt in the UK for the Queen, probably more than we admit.

Voice(s) of reason

Also in the Guardian, Alexis Petridis reminds us that the Royals are have had years of training at enduring events far more tedious than anything Cheryl Cole and Robbie Williams can throw at them – think of the decades spent smiling and waving politely at Royal variety shows. The same paper also managed to dig up an Alterative Jubilee, billed as a gathering of ‘old queens’ on a hill somewhere in Scotland, adding that the late Queen Mother was apparently a ‘notorious fag hag’.

And, that’s about it as far as interesting coverage goes. Every major royal event tends to reduce the British press to doe-eyed fawning, with the occasional bitter rant about it’s all wrong and we should never have let Charles II back in the first place. I can only recommend enjoying or at least tolerating the quiet pageantry while it lasts – Charles III will be harder to ignore.

Glover has all the hallmarks of a British media heavyweight. His semi-detached Victorian town-house in leafy North Oxford is but a short trip away from Chipping Norton, where David Cameron, Rebekah Brooks and other political and media elites hobnob and ride horses. A mess of the day’s broadsheets and tabloids is the only clutter in his spotless drawing room, where I am invited to conduct our interview.

Before I can ask a question, Stephen, who is excited by my iPhone’s voice memo app – “It’s very cool, that!”- can’t resist telling me a trick of the trade: always test your equipment. He recounts the tale of his first interview as a young journalist for the Telegraph: “I got home and realised none of it was on the tape! A miserable experience”. I check my iPhone’s recording then, and twice more during the interview. Any aspiring hack could do worse than take advice from Stephen Glover.

Glover has now been a journalist for forty years. He began his career at Oxford, where he was co-editor of that bulwark of student journalism, The Isis, in 1974. His contemporaries include a whole host of media success stories and household names. Sir Peter Stothard, who later became Editor of the Times for ten years, was editing Cherwell at that time, whilst Tina Brown, who went on to edit Tatler, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, was a fellow Isis contributor.

Glover’s co-editor at The Isis was none other than Chris Huhne, a former Lib Dem cabinet minister who became embroiled in a scandal over driving licence penalty points last year. When the allegations against Huhne came out, Glover did what any good journalist would do. He invited his old friend to a champagne lunch before proceeding to write a scathing article in the Daily Mail.

Indeed, Glover has a ruthless streak that helps explain his rise up the greasy pole of British journalism. Despite struggling to find a permanent job after graduating, he readily quit his first employment at the Telegraph in order to create the Independent with Andreas Smith and Matthew Symonds in 1986. At a time when the print unions were striking and the broadsheet market was saturated with long-established brands, this was a high-risk gamble. Glover visibly lights up as he remembers the venture. “We had the idea that by using new technology to create a lower cost base, we could exploit a gap in the market for a new quality newspaper, and so that’s what we did!…I was quite young, I was prepared to take the risk.”

At its inception, The Independent certainly shook up a rather stale British newspaper industry, sparking a price war and a spurt of innovation in layout design. Capitalizing on its freedom from proprietary influence, a key selling point, it attacked The Times and The Daily Telegraph in an advertising campaign that featured spoofs of those papers mastheads with the words ‘The Rupert Murdoch’ and ‘The Conrad Black’. By 1989, the paper’s circulation of over 400,000 rivalled that of its competitors.

But all good things must come to an end, and in the 1990s news readers shifted their attention to the internet, quickly followed by advertisers. As circulation and revenue plummeted, Glover et al. were forced to sell the paper to Mirror Group Newspapers and the media company of Tony O’Reilly, an Irish billionaire. “The original dream of three journalists owning the paper was destroyed” laments Glover.

The paper is now owned by Alexander Lebedev, who bought it for a £1 fee in 2010 following the bankruptcy of O’Reilly’s media group during the financial crisis. The Russian oligarch has been able to absorb the paper’s losses but under his ownership, the paper’s proud banner, ‘free from party political bias, free from proprietary influence’ has had to be dropped from the front page. “Because, I suppose, it was nonsense”.

Despite the Independent’s recent trials and tribulations, Glover remains cautiously optimistic about the future of the newspaper industry. “Ailing, but not dying,” he insists. I ask him to defend that statement, given falling circulations and the rise of citizen journalism, not to mention the blow to the credibility of the profession delivered by the recent phone-hacking scandal. “Look, journalism has a role and there’s a demand for it,” he counters. “People want newspapers, whether they read them online or in traditional form. They want expert analysis and explanation as well as information. I see no reason why this appetite should decrease”.

The problem, as Glover sees it, is simply one of getting revenue out of the internet. According to the Economist newspaper, the web overtook newspapers as the under-30s most popular source of news in 2010. Social media and mobile apps are also beginning to steal readers. Yet, online advertising generates less than 20% of a newspaper’s advertising revenue, and online rates are falling. With so many billions of websites, the value of a single online page is far less than a printed page. And now that advertisers can measure the number of hits their advertisements receive, they know exactly when they are paying too much.

But this is only a hiccup. “There’s already innovation to get around this problem” says Glover. He references targeted advertising used by the Daily Mail, that matches up advertisements to consumers based on their internet history. This makes online advertising more attractive, and therefore more lucrative to newspapers. He’s confident there will be more of these devices. His advice to aspiring journalists? “Do it! Its really not all doom and gloom”.