Protest against the Spectator, 14th May

From the Traveller Movement

The Traveller Movement and the Travellers’ Times have spent the last six months negotiating through the Press Complaints Commission in an attempt to resolve our concern over the “What do we call Travellers who no longer travel” Spectator article. We argued that the article broke the Editor’s Code on two accuracy points (clause 1) and was discriminatory (clause 12).

Initial attempts at a resolution with the Spectator’s editor; Frazer Nelson, failed and the complaint went to adjudication.

The adjudication panel, made up of editors of national and local newspapers, decided to uphold only one minor accuracy point. The statement in the article that the Roma couple initially charged with abducting Maria had claimed to have “paid £850” for her to a “passing Bulgarian”, was found to break clause 1 (accuracy) of the Editor’s Code and a correction was ordered.

However, the PCC also decided that the inaccurate assumption explicit in the article that Maria was not a Roma child did not break the accuracy code. The inaccuracy clause was not intended for this type of inaccurate reporting, they said. So in short; the wrong type of inaccuracy.

The discrimination element of our complaint was also thrown out by the editors who said that we had failed to engage clause 12 because the complaint did not come directly from an individual identified within the article. They also said that the article may have been intended to be ‘ironic’.
So there you have it. The current Press regulator basically says that it is OK for newspapers and magazines to use derogatory racist terms. It appears that the only thing stopping this is the culture of news desks and possibly the fear of losing readers by being openly racist.

So where does this leave us?

We believe that naming members of the Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities ‘pikey’ and ‘gyppo’ is abusive and racist – whether the intent of the author is serious, funny – or the grey area in-between. We do not hold out much hope for the culture of news desks to change by itself, or the press to fear the loss of readers by being openly racist to minorities that have been described as victims of “the last acceptable racism”. The current system of press regulation does not seem to hold out much hope either.

So please join us as we attempt to change the culture of news room’s one editor at a time. We will be handing in this petition to the Spectator Office in Westminster on 14th May, 4.30pm:

The Spectator offices, 22 Old Queen St, London, SWIH 9HP
Nearest tube: St James Park or Westminster – 5 minutes’ walk from each.

All are welcome.

Please contact mike@travellermovement.org.uk for more details

Download a flyer for the event here