A campaign urging British companies not to advertise in a number of the country’s tabloids in the run up to Christmas has gathered momentum after a Danish toymaker Lego said it would end “promotional activity” with the Daily Mail .
The ‘Stop Funding Hate’ campaign, which was set up in August in response to the treatment of refugees and asylum-seekers in the press, has rapidly picked up followers, with over 1,80,000 likes for its Facebook page.
While its latest campaign — a powerful video that has been doing the rounds online — asks John Lewis, a department store chain, and supermarkets Waitrose and the Cooperative, to stop advertising in the Daily Mail , The Sun , and The Daily Express , the group plans to extend its campaign over time.
“We’ve been overwhelmed and excited but it mainly proves that there are a lot of people who feel the same we do,” Rosey Ellum, one of the campaign’s founders, told The Hindu . “Our ultimate goal is to stop hate speech and get as many companies to remove their advertising as possible.”
The campaign would listen to the public and followers to decide which companies to target in the future, she added.
While British tabloids have been well known for their use of incendiary language over the years, criticism has increased particularly since the European refugee crisis last year. Back then, in an unusual intervention, the UN Human Rights Chief called for regulatory intervention and sharply criticised the “sustained and anti foreigner abuse, misinformation and distortion” by British tabloids after a columnist in The Sun referred to refugees as “cockroaches.”
Remedial action has often been sought via the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), which in October ruled against The Sun in a case brought by InFacts, a group of journalists working to ensure accuracy in the reporting of EU-Britain related news.
Problematic headlineThe group had complained about a headline in the paper that claimed 4 out of 5 jobs in the U.K. went to foreign workers, which the regulator agreed was inaccurate. The IPSO also held up rulings against the paper earlier this year, one claiming that the Queen backed Brexit, while another that claimed 1 in 5 British Muslims were sympathetic to jihadists.
Following the High Court ruling last month that requires Parliament to have a say over the triggering of Brexit, the Daily Mail ran a headline branding the judges “The Enemies of the People.” The article triggered 1,200 complaints, an IPSO spokesperson told The Hindu .
However, British Prime Minister Theresa May defended the tabloid press following the verdict, telling journalists as she embarked on her trip to India that she valued the “freedom of the press.” Ms. Ellum said it wasn’t a question of getting companies to impact editorial decisions. “We are asking for an ethical judgment — they don’t advertise in fascist publications, they don’t advertise in pornography magazines,” she said, following the response by John Lewis, which said it didn’t make editorial judgments.
