| Guide for journalists | The BNP and the media | Dealing with the Media Monitoring Unit |
Dealing with the Media Monitoring Unit
In its attempts to present itself in a more respectable image, the British National Party has established the Media Monitoring Unit to monitor how the press reports its activities. Members from around the country are encouraged to scan papers, news reports and radio shows for any reporting of the BNP and other race issues. When reporting is negative, the MMU swings into action, firing off letters of protest, phoning up the journalists involved and threatening to take newspapers to the Press Complaints Commission and TV stations to the Broadcasting Standards Commission. In this way, the Media Monitoring Unit tries to bully, intimidate and harass journalists and news editors, especially in the local press, into dropping negative reporting of the BNP.
- Members are encouraged to write in and complain, while the MMU dispatches its own letters of disapproval. On other occasions, the MMU instructs supporters to take part in radio discussions and flood online polls. Mr and Mrs Angry from Nowhere might not quite be who they claim.
- In 1998 the BNP forced a retraction from a radio station in Scotland for describing the party as fascist, while HTV was threatened with being taken to the BSC over claims that the BNP was linked to football hooligans.
- In March 2001, the BNP reacted furiously when the Mirror reported that the BNP had held a rally in a Conservative Club in Oldham. The paper was inundated with dozens of phone calls and emails from angry members of the public complaining about the BNP being described as "neo-Nazis", "race-hate extremists" and "criminals". In an obvious attempt to intimidate and bully the journalist, they sought to extract an apology and retraction from the paper. The convicted bomber and violent thug, Tony Lecomber, the number two in the BNP, even had the audacity to write to the Mirror complaining about being called a nazi. The paper courageously stood firm against this onslaught.
Whom you might encounter from the BNP & MMU
The MMU organiser, Stuart Russell, also doubles up as the BNP Press Officer. His keenness for the truth obviously does not extend to his own name as he calls himself Phil Edwards when speaking to the press. Despite claiming that the BNP is not racist, he complained to the 2001 BNP rally of the presence of too many "niggers" on British TV adverts.
Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, is no friend of the media. He once said that those in control of the mass media (who he claims are the Jews) would pay the "ultimate penalty" for multiracialism. (Wales on Sunday 11.8.96). He believes the press deliberately distorts the news to condition British people to accept multiculturalism.
What to do if the BNP gives you a call
Contact Searchlight Information Services immediately and we will provide background detail on every aspect of BNP policy, its racism and criminality, and profiles of its leadership.
