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CPBF launches complaint against Express
7/8/05: The CPBF has launched a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission about the front page story of the Express 27 July 2005, in which an item about the recent London bombings was headlined "Bombers are all spongeing asylum seekers". A copy of the complaint from Julian Petley, CPBF Co Chair, Barry White, National Organiser, and Granville Williams, Editor of Free Press, is reproduced below.
2 August 2005.
The Secretary
Press Complaints Commission
1 Salisbury Square
London
EC4Y 8JB.Dear Sir/Madam,
We wish to complain about the front page story of the Express, 27 July 2005. There is a great deal that is unacceptable about this story, but our specific complaint is brought against only one aspect of it. This concerns the matter of inaccuracy, and so falls under Section 1 of the PCC Code of Practice. Put briefly, the headline 'Bombers are all spongeing (sic) asylum seekers' is clearly inaccurate as, at the time that this was written, the identity of two of the suspected bombers was unknown. Furthermore, the headline is inaccurate even if it is taken to apply only to the two bombers who had been identified at the time of writing, since neither was an asylum seeker; both came here as young boys and grew up in Britain. These inaccuracies are then repeated in the first line of the article. A third inaccuracy concerns the repeated failure to put the words 'alleged' or 'suspected' before each and every use of the words 'bomber' and 'killer' throughout the text - the Express, like nearly every other newspaper in Britain, is committing a gross inaccuracy by simply ignoring the plain fact that, under British law, suspects are innocent until proven guilty.
This is not a third party complaint. Racist, hate-filled and inflammatory articles such as this endanger the lives of all of us by helping to convince a tiny but dangerous minority of British Muslims that the majority population loathe them, thus, in their eyes, helping to justify their attacks on that population. We are complaining as three of those thus endangered.
Yours faithfully
Julian Petley, Co Chair CPBF
Barry White, National Organiser
Granville Williams,Editor Free PressText of follow-up letter, sent on 30 September, 2005, to ife.akinbolaji@pcc.org.uk concerning the PCC's letter of 4 August:
Dear Mr Akinbolaji,
I wrote to you on 2 August in my capacity as Co-Chair of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom with a complaint about an article in the Express of 27 July. You acknowledged my letter on August 4 (your reference 052142), but I am extremely disappointed not to have received any further communication from you. This hardly squares with the PCC's much vaunted undertaking to be 'fast'.
I am also concerned that your letter states that: 'We are already in the process of investigating a complaint which will focus upon the accuracy of the headline and article. We will endeavour to inform you of the outcome of this investigation as soon as it is concluded'.
However, if the PCC is intending to adopt a 'one size fits all' response to the complaints which it has received about this article then I have to tell you that this is entirely unacceptable to us - we really must insist that you deal directly with our complaint, and that includes dealing directly with us as complainants. We have not the slightest idea if the other complaint which you are investigating is exactly the same as ours, and, furthermore, what may be acceptable to one complainant as a 'resolution' may well be entirely unacceptable to another.
As we have mentioned this complaint on our website, we are also putting this letter there, as well as passing it on to MediaWise and other interested parties.
I look forward to hearing from you in the very near future.
Yours sincerely, Julian Petley.
School of Arts,
Gaskell Building,
Brunel University,
Uxbridge,
UB8 3PH.
Last modified: Thursday, February 15, 2007
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