A tribute to the Oxford Media Society’s Founding Senior Member
We were energetic third years with a good idea; Paddy Coulter was already a wise media elder who liked what he saw but didn’t want to end up tidying up after us when we graduated and skipped off into the sunset, forgetting about the bar tabs and room hire receipts.
“I was worried it was yet another student society with some briefly enthusiastic undergraduates who would then head out into the world and leave me carrying the can and explaining your unpaid bills to the university,” Paddy told us last year, channelling both his trademark wit and honesty. “But then I came to your first event [at Modern Art Oxford with Nick Pollard from Sky News] and it was brilliant and professional and I was completely sold.”
Paddy Coulter, the founding senior member of the Oxford Media Society, died suddenly in November, only ten days after attending – enthusiastically as ever – the Society’s US Election convention, an event that also celebrated a deepening partnership, of which Paddy was a key architect, between the Media Society and the Geddes Trust.
Paddy played a critical role in the creation and expansion of the 20-year-old Media Society, as well as in advancing the study of media at Oxford and championing the careers of many young journalists, especially from non-traditional backgrounds. In a remarkable career that also spanned aid work and advocacy around press freedom, he was influential in changing the way in which international media framed and reported on humanitarian crises, notably in global majority countries.
When we first met in 2004, Paddy was Director of the Reuters Journalism Programme, the precursor of the prestigious Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, of which Paddy was the founding Director of Studies. As we nervously attended a meeting in his Norham Gardens office to ask him to come on board as our senior member – a role required to set up a new university society – we were quickly put at ease by his infectious good humour and passion for journalism.
Despite any doubts he may have harboured about our plans, he never came across as anything but – realistically – encouraging. He would, however, tease us many years later about the Society’s original and rather pretentious topline name ‘Talaris’, after the winged sandals of Mercury.
We understood quickly that Paddy was a formidable force – but perhaps only later fully realised what an asset we had on our side. As we built up the Society, as well as its current affairs magazine The Oxford Forum, Paddy was a font of wisdom, advice, and contacts –and always willing to bring his incisive reflections and pertinent stories to events and dinners.
In the Society’s later iterations, Paddy was just as quick to offer his creative thinking and support to subsequent generations of undergraduates. From the beginning, he made all of us feel that we had something of value to give and created the space for us to do just that. It will always be a joyful memory that he attended the Society’s 20th anniversary celebration last year at Hertford College, where we were able to thank him for his longstanding contributions.
As the Media Society’s co-founders, we are so grateful to Paddy for being such a positive, enabling force – and good friend – right from the start. We feel very fortunate to have known him and send our deepest condolences to his family.
Zoe Flood, Rachel O’Brien, Vishesh Srivastava
Co-founders of the Oxford Media Society
The thing people need to remember about Paddy is that he didn’t need us — we needed him. He could have done far, far less than he did, but in his typical style he embraced the Media Society with great gusto and gave sage advice and frequent praise, helping us negotiate the minefield of the University and its politics and helping in so many ways, mucking in on many occasions. This was in addition to so many other commitments. He was my friend and mentor for 20 years and I will miss him not only personally, but also because of his huge and enduring commitment to young journalists, both through the Media Society and indeed through his trusteeship of the Philip Geddes Memorial Awards.
Oxford Media Society 
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