London Indymedia

Anarchists ‘passed off’ Advertiser, claims editor

fuck the corporate media! | 18.09.2005 18:27 | DSEi 2005 | Anti-militarism | London

10,000 copies of an 8 page spoof of a local paper, 'East London Adversaries', covering the DSEi protests were delivered to about 90% of the Canning Town area.

A downloadable pdf of the newspaper is available here:
 http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/09/323198.html

The East London Advertiser has responded to the paper claiming it's own design has been hijacked by anarchists and it's journalistic intergrity has been compromised.

Anarchists ‘passed off’ Advertiser, claims editor

Published: Thursday, September 15, 2005

By Sarah Lagan

East London Advertiser editor Malcolm Starbrook has claimed his paper's design, layout, masthead and even bylines have been "blatantly hijacked"

by a publication produced by an anonymous organisation aiming to sway local opinion against the bi-annual arms fair, which is taking place in London's Docklands.

Starbrook was contacted by a concerned reader who mistook an eight-page free publication, being distributed from an East London bookshop, with the Advertiser and could not believe the Archant title was offering its own opinion on the matter.

Under the masthead East London Adversaries the organisation printed its publication using the same colour and font as the Advertiser.

The sports page on the back of the publication used the same masthead before the Advertiser was relaunched, and uses the byline Jona Smith where the Advertiser's sports editor is called John Smith.

Starbrook believes the publication has mimicked his paper to piggyback its strong reputation in the area.

He said: "They have blatantly hijacked our paper and I find it appalling.

"I am angered that an organisation sets itself up to replicate a reputablenewspaper and uses the respect we have to gain support for what is a call for protests and, even worse, the possibility of violence.

"They have the potential to damage our reputation. We always report on the event, but we never take a view.

"They are taking a partisan view in their coverage and are attempting to make it look as if it's the ELA's reports.

It's all spun against the organisers of the event, but we have never tried to side with the protesters."

Contact details in the paper are false.

Starbrook added: "If we could stop them we would, but the whole thing about anarchy is that you can't find those in charge."

fuck the corporate media!
- Homepage: http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/article/150905/anarchists_passed_off

Comments

Display the following 6 comments

  1. Hamsters to bring libel charges? — hamsters
  2. Bloody cheek! — Papergirl
  3. we are all hamsters now! — hamster solid-arity
  4. Brilliant — naeb'dy
  5. East London Newspapers — local
  6. Excellent — GW Bush

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