London Irish
Well-known member
I'm stealing the thunder of Gareth and Bwian here and starting a thread critical of the Argus.
Below are two articles from the Press Gazette that have been published in the last couple of weeks. They concern the Argus' policy on covering the activities of far right racist groups like the BNP. Editor Simon Bradshaw bans all mention of them from the Argus, even, controversially, coverage of anti-BNP events by his readers and other anti-racist campaigners - it is the old "oxygen of publicity" argument, the BNP gains strength by ANY publicity, even negative. Other newspapers like the Yorkshire Post take a different view and have active campaigns against fascist groups.
It is a devilishly difficult debate and the arguments are finely balanced, and I have some sympathy for Bradshaw's view. But I feel the Argus have not got this one right. The Argus prides itself as a campaigning newspaper and to maintain silence on this issue flies in the face of that, particularly as the BNP are making a big push in the forthcoming elections. It is right that those groups targeted for abuse by the BNP should be aware that overwhelmingly the people of Sussex reject racism and fascism - and they should be able to read that in the Argus.
Here are the 2 articles:
Brighton Argus ban on BNP ‘misguided’ say anti-racists
By Dominic Ponsford
An evening paper that has banned the far right British National Party from its pages has found a surprising opponent to the policy — anti-BNP group Unite Against Fascism.
The Argus, Brighton, has told UAF that it believes the BNP should be ignored “like hoax bomb scares”. And it refused to act on a press release that revealed Brighton’s three MPs were supporting UAF’s opposition to the BNP.
UAF spokesman Andy Player said: “This policy is formed from the best of intentions but it’s misguided. The BNP are going to get their propaganda out anyway and we think it’s really important they are exposed by people like local MPs and local councillors.”
UAF is supported by more than 50 MPs and the NUJ. It was set up as an alliance of anti-fascist and anti-racist groups to highlight the BNP’s bid to win seats in the European and local elections on 10 June.
Because the BNP is putting up candidates throughout the country, it qualifies under election law for a free leaflet drop to every home.
The regionalised PR system means that a party needs 9.5 per cent of the vote to return an MEP.
Player said: “We want to raise people’s awareness that the BNP are standing on 10 June and that they could sneak in on a low turnout.
“Their message will get out to about 60 million people between now and 10 June through their leaflets. It will say: ‘we are a credible alternative to the mainstream parties’.
“What they don’t say is they stand for the deportation of anyone who can’t trace their ancestors back to the Norman Conquest. Using the media is a major tactic for exposing them for what they are.”
The Argus, Regional Press Awards newspaper of the year, published two articles about a Unite Against Fascism rally in Brighton town centre earlier this month. Its no-BNP policy emerged when Player asked reporter Adam Trimingham why the paper was not acting on a follow-up press release.
Trimingham sent back a message from editor Simon Bradshaw which said: “The story that got in two or three weeks ago shouldn’t have done. The BNP do not deserve the right to publicity and even condemning them in the way the UAF does (quite rightly) only gives the BNP the credence and respectability they crave. Like hoax bomb scares, the best — and my — policy is to ignore them.”
Bradshaw declined to comment to Press Gazette.
In Yorkshire, the Evening Post has a policy that contrasts with that of The Argus. It plans to launch an anti-BNP campaign later this month.
The BNP is particularly active in West Yorkshire and has already won a number of council seats there.
Evening Post editor Neil Hodgkinson said: “We campaign quite vociferously and make sure everybody knows what these far right groups stand for.”
He said the Evening Post also has a policy not to publish any BNP statements or allow it right of reply. “We don’t allow them to spout their lies through our newspaper.”
ENDS
Extreme judgements By Dominic Ponsford
Unlike the national press, local papers are usually scrupulously fair in their coverage of elections.
Strict guidelines are imposed on reporters to ensure candidates receive equal coverage. Some papers have even been known to print quotes from rival party spokesmen in alphabetical order to avoid allegations of bias.
So with the far-right British National Party campaigning throughout the country in the June European and local elections, editors will be faced with some tough choices.
Brighton daily The Argus has already adopted a policy of giving the BNP no coverage at all. Editor Simon Bradshaw believes that, like hoax bomb scares, the party should not be encouraged with publicity.
But, perhaps surprisingly, this stand has been criticised by antiBNP group Unite Against Fascism (Press Gazette, 23 April). It believes that unless people are warned, the BNP could secure European Parliament seats in a low-turnout election aided by the proportional representation voting system.
Because it is putting up candidates throughout the country, the party already qualifies for a leaflet drop to every household, paid for by the Government.
The BNP has negligible presence in Brighton, a largely liberal and middle-class town, and Bradshaw does not want to give them the “credence and respectability they crave”. His view is shared by the Liberal Democrat MP for nearby Lewis, Norman Baker, who writes in a letter to Press Gazette this week, states:” There may be an argument for the Evening Post in Yorkshire to take a different view, given that BNP councillors have been elected there, but none has been elected in Sussex and none is likely to be unless well-meaning, anti-Fascist elements inadvertetly help them.”
But in the economically deprived and racially mixed urban areas of northern England, the BNP is gaining ground and has become impossible for local newspapers to ignore.
In recent years the party has tried to broaden its appeal by avoiding overtly racist rhetoric and encouraging its members to wear suits to avoid the Dr Martens and bomber jacket image often associated with the UK far right.
Its manifesto calls for “a halt to immigration to stop native British people becoming an ethnic minority”, “preference in the job market to native Britons” and says “put pensioners before asylum seekers”.
Critics such as UAF argue that the BNP attracts votes through “racism, Islamophobia, antiSemitism, homophobia and the vilification of refugees and asylum seekers”. They also say that the BNP wants to expel black and Asian people from Britain and destroy trade unions.
BNP leader Nick Griffin is a former member of the National Front and is on the record as describing the holocaust as “the hoax of the 20th century”.
His party is particularly strong in West Yorkshire, which includes the town of Burnley where it won seven council seats last year.
Far from ignoring the BNP, the Yorkshire Evening Post has adopted a policy of attacking it head-on.
Before local elections last year, it launched a campaign called “Don’t Be Fooled”, devoting six pages of editorial to urging readers not to vote for the BNP.
Editor Neil Hodgkinson says: “There’s always the argument that any coverage gives them the oxygen of publicity. It’s my opinion, and that of the paper, that we campaign quite vociferously to make sure everybody knows what these far-right groups stand for. They may wear suits now, but many of them have been members of groups like the National Front and White Nation.”
Not only does the Post attack the BNP, it refuses to carry any statements made by members of the party or give them the usual right of reply.
Hodgkinson adds: “It’s my opinion that freedom of speech has to be earned. We usually give candidates 250 words each but the BNP doesn’t get that. We don’t allow them to spread their lies through our newspaper.
“We address the issue and the issue is people shouldn’t vote for them. They are a menace and a danger to society.”
He argues that every newspaper sets boundaries to free speech — such as taste and decency — and that BNP rhetoric goes outside those boundaries.
Another paper that has a strong BNP presence on its patch is independently owned weekly The Press in Dewsbury.
Editor/proprietor Danny Lockwood has been accused of providing a platform for the party because he treats it in much the same way as any other political group.
The BNP has a Metropolitan councillor in his circulation area and in the last election it came second in three wards.
Lockwood says: “We were castigated by the mainstream parties because we carried a two-part interview with the leader of the local BNP last March. These guys are put up as bogeymen and we thought, let’s have a look at them. I thought it was a good piece of journalism.
“At the end of it I wrote my own take on what I thought of the BNP. Our conclusion was that they are completely unelectable. They don’t have a political creed that bears up to anything at all. They are a one-trick pony and that’s it.
“It was part of a big political debate that we ran over weeks and months. The BNP are part of the political fabric of this area — to ignore them is to give them a rebel credibility that they enjoy.”
Lockwood adds: “Of all the complaints we have ever had about our coverage of the BNP, none has come from Asian or Muslim people or asylum seekers. The only complaints we have had are from the loony left.
“We are a very apolitical newspaper — independent in ownership and political ideas. If we’ve got something like 20 per cent of the electorate voting for the BNP, there’s a reason for that. If we aren’t going out as a newspaper looking at that, we are not doing our job as journalists.”
The last time the UK far right made a bid for political power similar to its current effort was in the GLC elections of May 1977 when the National Front polled 119,063 votes.
Some London papers chose The Argus option back then, ignoring the NF and denying it the “oxygen of publicity” — Margaret Thatcher’s argument for gagging Sinn Fein in the 1980s.
But others adopted a different approach. Local weekly the East Ender carried a huge swastika on its front page along with the headline “Never Again”.
Journalist Phil Mellows, who was working on sister title the Stratford Express at the time, says: “It was controversial but the view of anti-racists was that it marked a turning point in the campaign against the fascists in east London. Local papers have a duty to their local communities to expose the truth of such organisations.”
ENDS
Below are two articles from the Press Gazette that have been published in the last couple of weeks. They concern the Argus' policy on covering the activities of far right racist groups like the BNP. Editor Simon Bradshaw bans all mention of them from the Argus, even, controversially, coverage of anti-BNP events by his readers and other anti-racist campaigners - it is the old "oxygen of publicity" argument, the BNP gains strength by ANY publicity, even negative. Other newspapers like the Yorkshire Post take a different view and have active campaigns against fascist groups.
It is a devilishly difficult debate and the arguments are finely balanced, and I have some sympathy for Bradshaw's view. But I feel the Argus have not got this one right. The Argus prides itself as a campaigning newspaper and to maintain silence on this issue flies in the face of that, particularly as the BNP are making a big push in the forthcoming elections. It is right that those groups targeted for abuse by the BNP should be aware that overwhelmingly the people of Sussex reject racism and fascism - and they should be able to read that in the Argus.
Here are the 2 articles:
Brighton Argus ban on BNP ‘misguided’ say anti-racists
By Dominic Ponsford
An evening paper that has banned the far right British National Party from its pages has found a surprising opponent to the policy — anti-BNP group Unite Against Fascism.
The Argus, Brighton, has told UAF that it believes the BNP should be ignored “like hoax bomb scares”. And it refused to act on a press release that revealed Brighton’s three MPs were supporting UAF’s opposition to the BNP.
UAF spokesman Andy Player said: “This policy is formed from the best of intentions but it’s misguided. The BNP are going to get their propaganda out anyway and we think it’s really important they are exposed by people like local MPs and local councillors.”
UAF is supported by more than 50 MPs and the NUJ. It was set up as an alliance of anti-fascist and anti-racist groups to highlight the BNP’s bid to win seats in the European and local elections on 10 June.
Because the BNP is putting up candidates throughout the country, it qualifies under election law for a free leaflet drop to every home.
The regionalised PR system means that a party needs 9.5 per cent of the vote to return an MEP.
Player said: “We want to raise people’s awareness that the BNP are standing on 10 June and that they could sneak in on a low turnout.
“Their message will get out to about 60 million people between now and 10 June through their leaflets. It will say: ‘we are a credible alternative to the mainstream parties’.
“What they don’t say is they stand for the deportation of anyone who can’t trace their ancestors back to the Norman Conquest. Using the media is a major tactic for exposing them for what they are.”
The Argus, Regional Press Awards newspaper of the year, published two articles about a Unite Against Fascism rally in Brighton town centre earlier this month. Its no-BNP policy emerged when Player asked reporter Adam Trimingham why the paper was not acting on a follow-up press release.
Trimingham sent back a message from editor Simon Bradshaw which said: “The story that got in two or three weeks ago shouldn’t have done. The BNP do not deserve the right to publicity and even condemning them in the way the UAF does (quite rightly) only gives the BNP the credence and respectability they crave. Like hoax bomb scares, the best — and my — policy is to ignore them.”
Bradshaw declined to comment to Press Gazette.
In Yorkshire, the Evening Post has a policy that contrasts with that of The Argus. It plans to launch an anti-BNP campaign later this month.
The BNP is particularly active in West Yorkshire and has already won a number of council seats there.
Evening Post editor Neil Hodgkinson said: “We campaign quite vociferously and make sure everybody knows what these far right groups stand for.”
He said the Evening Post also has a policy not to publish any BNP statements or allow it right of reply. “We don’t allow them to spout their lies through our newspaper.”
ENDS
Extreme judgements By Dominic Ponsford
Unlike the national press, local papers are usually scrupulously fair in their coverage of elections.
Strict guidelines are imposed on reporters to ensure candidates receive equal coverage. Some papers have even been known to print quotes from rival party spokesmen in alphabetical order to avoid allegations of bias.
So with the far-right British National Party campaigning throughout the country in the June European and local elections, editors will be faced with some tough choices.
Brighton daily The Argus has already adopted a policy of giving the BNP no coverage at all. Editor Simon Bradshaw believes that, like hoax bomb scares, the party should not be encouraged with publicity.
But, perhaps surprisingly, this stand has been criticised by antiBNP group Unite Against Fascism (Press Gazette, 23 April). It believes that unless people are warned, the BNP could secure European Parliament seats in a low-turnout election aided by the proportional representation voting system.
Because it is putting up candidates throughout the country, the party already qualifies for a leaflet drop to every household, paid for by the Government.
The BNP has negligible presence in Brighton, a largely liberal and middle-class town, and Bradshaw does not want to give them the “credence and respectability they crave”. His view is shared by the Liberal Democrat MP for nearby Lewis, Norman Baker, who writes in a letter to Press Gazette this week, states:” There may be an argument for the Evening Post in Yorkshire to take a different view, given that BNP councillors have been elected there, but none has been elected in Sussex and none is likely to be unless well-meaning, anti-Fascist elements inadvertetly help them.”
But in the economically deprived and racially mixed urban areas of northern England, the BNP is gaining ground and has become impossible for local newspapers to ignore.
In recent years the party has tried to broaden its appeal by avoiding overtly racist rhetoric and encouraging its members to wear suits to avoid the Dr Martens and bomber jacket image often associated with the UK far right.
Its manifesto calls for “a halt to immigration to stop native British people becoming an ethnic minority”, “preference in the job market to native Britons” and says “put pensioners before asylum seekers”.
Critics such as UAF argue that the BNP attracts votes through “racism, Islamophobia, antiSemitism, homophobia and the vilification of refugees and asylum seekers”. They also say that the BNP wants to expel black and Asian people from Britain and destroy trade unions.
BNP leader Nick Griffin is a former member of the National Front and is on the record as describing the holocaust as “the hoax of the 20th century”.
His party is particularly strong in West Yorkshire, which includes the town of Burnley where it won seven council seats last year.
Far from ignoring the BNP, the Yorkshire Evening Post has adopted a policy of attacking it head-on.
Before local elections last year, it launched a campaign called “Don’t Be Fooled”, devoting six pages of editorial to urging readers not to vote for the BNP.
Editor Neil Hodgkinson says: “There’s always the argument that any coverage gives them the oxygen of publicity. It’s my opinion, and that of the paper, that we campaign quite vociferously to make sure everybody knows what these far-right groups stand for. They may wear suits now, but many of them have been members of groups like the National Front and White Nation.”
Not only does the Post attack the BNP, it refuses to carry any statements made by members of the party or give them the usual right of reply.
Hodgkinson adds: “It’s my opinion that freedom of speech has to be earned. We usually give candidates 250 words each but the BNP doesn’t get that. We don’t allow them to spread their lies through our newspaper.
“We address the issue and the issue is people shouldn’t vote for them. They are a menace and a danger to society.”
He argues that every newspaper sets boundaries to free speech — such as taste and decency — and that BNP rhetoric goes outside those boundaries.
Another paper that has a strong BNP presence on its patch is independently owned weekly The Press in Dewsbury.
Editor/proprietor Danny Lockwood has been accused of providing a platform for the party because he treats it in much the same way as any other political group.
The BNP has a Metropolitan councillor in his circulation area and in the last election it came second in three wards.
Lockwood says: “We were castigated by the mainstream parties because we carried a two-part interview with the leader of the local BNP last March. These guys are put up as bogeymen and we thought, let’s have a look at them. I thought it was a good piece of journalism.
“At the end of it I wrote my own take on what I thought of the BNP. Our conclusion was that they are completely unelectable. They don’t have a political creed that bears up to anything at all. They are a one-trick pony and that’s it.
“It was part of a big political debate that we ran over weeks and months. The BNP are part of the political fabric of this area — to ignore them is to give them a rebel credibility that they enjoy.”
Lockwood adds: “Of all the complaints we have ever had about our coverage of the BNP, none has come from Asian or Muslim people or asylum seekers. The only complaints we have had are from the loony left.
“We are a very apolitical newspaper — independent in ownership and political ideas. If we’ve got something like 20 per cent of the electorate voting for the BNP, there’s a reason for that. If we aren’t going out as a newspaper looking at that, we are not doing our job as journalists.”
The last time the UK far right made a bid for political power similar to its current effort was in the GLC elections of May 1977 when the National Front polled 119,063 votes.
Some London papers chose The Argus option back then, ignoring the NF and denying it the “oxygen of publicity” — Margaret Thatcher’s argument for gagging Sinn Fein in the 1980s.
But others adopted a different approach. Local weekly the East Ender carried a huge swastika on its front page along with the headline “Never Again”.
Journalist Phil Mellows, who was working on sister title the Stratford Express at the time, says: “It was controversial but the view of anti-racists was that it marked a turning point in the campaign against the fascists in east London. Local papers have a duty to their local communities to expose the truth of such organisations.”
ENDS
