By Jonathan Warren

[On 30 August] as my colleague Marc Vallée and I were leaving Climate Camp we found a group of people arguing around the SWP stall that was selling newspapers and leaflets outside the entrance to the camp.

As we went in to take photographs the group arguing with the SWP quickly turned their attention to us, shouting loudly that we had not asked their permission before photographing them. They were immediately aggressive and threatening, I managed to calm the ones around me and walk away, however, one young man was persistently threatening towards Marc.

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The Centre for Social Cohesion is unlikely to be the first place we look to seek to make common cause.

But a report published recently by the right of centre think tank provides a forensic analysis of the online activities of BNP members and supporters that not only pulls back the BNP’s mask of ‘respectability’, it shatters it into millions of pieces.

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by Chris Youett

The NUJ has updated its policy on reporting the far right following the election of two BNP candidates to the European parliament.

Speaking at a conference held at the historic Mechanics Institute in Manchester, NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear said now the BNP has two Euro MPs, the need for quality journalism and ethical reporting to expose wrongdoing by the BNP and other far right organisation was more vital than ever.

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Apparently London mayor Boris Johnson thinks getting £250,000 a year for being a part-time journalist isn’t an obscenely massive salary and he defends it by saying he makes a “substantial donation” to charity.

If he’s looking for worthy causes to assuage his conscience, as a fellow journalist he could do worse than sling a few of his hard-earned quids this way. Or this way if members go out on strike. Or, similarly, this way etc.

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Three big stories that in recent months have dominated the news, and will continue to do so for some time to come, bolster the union’s case that there is no substitute for well-resourced quality journalism.

When in April Ian Tomlinson died after being hit by a police officer during the G20 protests, it was professional journalism that turned a citizen’s shaky video footage into an investigation that is still turning up stories.

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“We will not be used by the BNP to spread their propaganda,” says Eileen Short, a former Tower Hamlets council PR officer who helped organise a campaign to expose and isolate the BNP’s first elected councillor Derek Beackon.

As part of that campaign, Eileen compiled a list of 10 questions every journalist should ask themselves before reporting on the BNP or other racist and fascist parties.

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She died how she lived for the last seven years – in the full glare of the media spotlight, or to use its cosy pseudonym, ‘the public eye’.

Cosy because this suggests the lustful operations of the mass circulation media in illuminating the private lives of public figures are always on behalf of the public.

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