Catz students continued to tackle the big issues head on yesterday―in Journalism, the subject under discussion was media regulation, a hot topic in the age of the infamous spectre of “Fake News”. The motion put to the class was as follows: “the press has had free rein for too long.”

Some students were quick to point out the Western bias of this motion: whilst we in the UK and the US live within a culture of information domination, with all kinds of news easily accessible, countries such as China and North Korea experience tight controls on public media (in North Korea, for example, it is illegal to tune into foreign broadcasts). This allowed for a well-balanced debate, as students strove to find the happy medium between oppressive regulation and irresponsible media commercialism.

From difficult truths to difficult manoeuvres, students set out on a punting expedition from Magdalen College, taking the twists and turns of the Cherwell as they came, and managing to leave errant ducks and geese undamaged. Some students took to it like naturals, wielding the quant with ease and sending their boats gliding smoothly along. When passing by on the south side of the Botanic Gardens, students waved to their classmates who were taking a turn amongst the gardens’ herbaceous borders and rock collections. Then, all reconvened in St Catz to watch Arrival, a sci-fi thrilled with a linguistic twist that provoked thought and conversation in the glass classroom.