BNP row prompts journalists' union to re-publish race reporting guide

The National Union of Journalists has republished its 'Race Reporting Guidelines' after newspapers carried adverts for the British National Party.

Regional publisher Archant has come under fire for its decision to carry advertising for the far-right party ahead of next week's local elections. The company later performed a u-turn, saying it would donate any revenue from the ads to charity.

Now, the NUJ has republished its guidelines, which later may have to include guidance to publishers on advertising too, according to equality officer Lena Calvert. She said: "It's very possible that we will have to take into account adverts. It seems that, if some organisations have thought this is the way to go, then we're going to have to add something in."

She added: "The union always had quite a hard policy on advertorials. We used to have huge debates about them as readers cannot always determine what's advertising and what's editorial. It's quite an ethical problem."

The Race Reporting Guidelines cover a wide variety of topics including immigrants, slang terms, racist organisations and travellers. The decision to republish also comes in the wake of a strongly-worded letter from NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear to Archant chief executive John Fry. In it, he called it an "incredible decision" to accept money from the BNP by some of Archant's local titles.

He added: "The decision to accept money from them is reprehensible enough, to try to argue it is to do with free speech sickening. The NUJ does not have a 'no platform' position. We believe in challenging vigorously all political parties... but advertising is different. The Newspaper Society's legal guidance requires that editorial content, not advertising content, should be fair and balanced. What adverts appear in a title is down to the publisher's decision, with no such restrictions. By accepting such adverts you can only damage the reputation of Archant and the titles the advert appears in."

Download a copy of the Race Reporting Guidelines here.

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