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Wanted: Neo Nazi with typing skills. Why is the Guardian advertising BNP jobs?

  2. LindseyIndigo
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"Fancy a career as a neo-fascist? Want to boast Nick Griffin as a friend of a friend? Think fellow traveller would look good on your CV? Then I hope you are reading the Guardian," says Daniel Finkelstein, a Times newspaper blogger, on hearing that the Guardian's jobs pages are carrying advertisements for positions at the BNP, a notoriously hateful British political party which describes itself as "the foremost patriotic political party in Great Britain".

Ok, so its a rival newspaper slating the Guardian, and quite why the BNP would target Guardian readers for its recruitment campaign I don't know, but is the Times blogger wrong to be so incensed?

Should anyone - hateful, racist, fascist or not - be able to advertise a job anywhere? Did the Guardian do the right thing in running these ads? Free speech is one thing, but by publishing this job advert the newspaper presumably had to make sure it passed their editorial standards, and as a publisher it has control over content, and doesn't have to publish just anything...?
LindseyIndigo

8 responses // Wanted: Neo Nazi with typing skills. Why is the Guardian advertising BNP jobs?

  • Free speech as well as tolerance work as long as they are not used to promote or condone institutions or ideas that oppose free speech and tolerance.

    I believe that the Guardian is definitely wrong in publishing these ads and is making a mockery of its own reputation.
    JanaPokana
    1 response to this
  • Well put JanaPokana. I can't imagine that this was just something that slipped through the cracks. I don't think a publisher HAS to publish anything. Maybe the Guardian was trying to play the tolerance card... but surely they knew their readers would notice. If it were a story about the BNP, that's one thing... but an advert? But I guess Free Speech covers recruitment ads, so long as the ad itself doesn't violate or harm others.
    abbym0308
  • Blimey, this is a strange one. I wonder who at The Guardian actually gets to approve adverts. I'm guessing that the editorial team probably have little say in the matter.
    As much as I'd have liked a paper as cool as The Guardian to have snubbed the BNP and refused to take their money, in financial terms it wouldn't make sense to start turning away advertising revenue...
    kristianbrodie
  • you'd think that someone has to check the ads are ok, incase someone is doing something illegal. However, despite being politically despicable, the BNP are not operating illegal.

    However editorial wise it isn't really their demographic and you'd think the Guardian wouldn't advertise for the BNP on those grounds. Surely it's not even in the BNPs interests to advertise in the Guardian?
    Ben_Traffic_UK
  • http://kkk.bz/
    Worse than this? 'To join/donate to the KKK, please use you visa ormastercard, AS A THANK YOU' And the whole site is obsurd. Also, I've never heard of the 'Squib' they seem to talk about on the main page!

    We are indeed in a corrupt society...
    steadward
  • This is either a really dumb, or a really clever move from The Guardian.

    The clever reason is that your traditional guardian reader would see this an be 'outraged' at it's presence in one of the UK's leading liberal papers and therefore promote debate / opposition to the BNP....or infact the dumb reason is that they have just printed it as a regular job without any though.....hmmmm...strange!
    khanrob
  • Obviously I disagree with BNP, but the whole point with freedom of speech is that they are allowed to do it. But how many people do you think really believe the same as them in Britain?
    thekingbeyond

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