The co-editors of Oxford University’s student newspaper, Cherwell, resigned this week because of a spoof issue that joked about paedophilia and the Holocaust. Lecher was distributed last November and included a story in which two students talked about molesting and killing babies, and another about a street musician in Oxford playing the bagpipes and joking that it was used for torture by the Nazis.
A picture showed a former editor of the publication covered in a white sheet, impersonating the Ku Klux Klan. Sian Cox-Brooker and Michael Bennett, who were elected as editors for the new term, were held responsible by Oxford Student Publications Ltd., despite insisting in a statement that they were “not responsible for the compilation of that edition.” Cox-Brooker and Bennett further noted that they “understand that satire can be misconstrued”, and “as this term’s editors we apologise for any offence which might have been caused and have now resigned”.