Apparently it’s not really done to criticise your former employers, but as a shareholder in Archant, which owns the East London Advertiser (the shares were acquired under an employee scheme), and as someone who helped lead the paper’s campaign against Tower Hamlets council’s East End Life, I think an exception can be made.
During that campaign, the council consistently hurled back at us the argument that the ELA was in no position to take a moral stand on issues as long as it continued to carry adverts for massage parlours. While I always thought this was tortured logic, pretty much all the journalists in the office were deeply uncomfortable that our salaries were being funded in small part by the pimps who would regularly turn up to pay cash for ad space on Tuesday afternoons.
However, at least those ads were buried on the inside pages.
In 2007, the council passed a motion to try and restrict the growth of lap dancing bars in the borough. As reporters, we were happy to back that line.
So on several levels, it was more than disappointing to walk into my local newsagent’s today to see an upturned copy of the the new ELA with a prominent advert for a “fully nude” lap dancing club on its back page.
Even leaving aside the question of ethics, this decision is poor judgment by a newspaper that will be left around the family home. Given that the paper is trying to win new readers among the large religious community in Tower Hamlets, the decision does not seem to make sense commercially either.
Trial by Jeory 
Isn’t that money laundering? Taking cash off pimps?
I thought Archant personal ads had been full of prostitutes for years.
This chap might be interested in a bit of burlesque
http://www.spittoon.org/archives/10105
Talking of ads, have you seen Lutfur’s one on page 15 of today’s Guardian?
Can’t we get some brasses posting on here to liven it up?
Yes Ted, the East London Advertiser taking advertising revenue from the pimps and the massage parlours is a concern – after all, these “pimps” that you recall, may be involved in sex trafficking etc. The lap-dancing venue display ads whether inside or printed outside of the paper just look sleazy, and regardless of the council’s position on these venues, bring down the credibility of the whole newspaper.
Generally, in having to chase advertising revenue, it could be that a local paper is vulnerable to influence from various powerful groups and organisations who pay – or might pay – for advertisements. How could a reporter write an unflattering article on that organisation, or whatever they are promoting locally, when they provide income via advertising? Even the ‘easy copy’ fodder of press releases from such organisations can determine the content and therefore undermine the impartiality of a newspaper: it’s easier and cheaper to cut and paste PR puff-pieces than to pay reporters to seek out or generate original, local news stories.
On stories – perhaps since you left Ted – the ELA seem to be researching and investigating less; publishing pieces without looking into the sources. How else could a letter from the newly-formed Anti-Extremism Alliance get through? With the names Harry Burns (former “senior member of EDL’s London Division” – Quilliam Foundation press release), Leighton Evans (former “foot soldier for EDL’s London Division” ditto) and Charlie Flowers attached? There was their Open Letter to Tower Hamlets Council and the East London Advertiser and and another letter published in the paper from “Harry Burns, NiceOnes UK Anti-Extremism Group, Redbridge”. Leighton Evans and Harry Burns and Charlie Flowers and their English Defence League connections are explored here by blogger Richard Bartholomew:
http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/the-anti-extremism-alliance/
In the above piece is a link to the ELA’s accompanying article where Harry Burns is given a platform. Here is the East London Advertiser article:
http://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/news/campaigners_hit_out_at_hate_peddling_group_s_east_end_conference_1_938873
The ELA could have at least checked the names Harry Burns, Leighton Evans and Charlie Flowers. It does not inspire confidence in a local paper or give a sense of neutrality, which is what local readers want; they also won’t want to tip off the paper/give them leads/provide confidential information if they perceive the paper as having an agenda (of any kind.) Or one influenced by their advertisers.
Lastly….what happened with the ELA during the riots here last Monday? There was nothing online at the Advertiser, not even on their Twitter page that night. No ELA reporters were on the ground here in Tower Hamlets reporting as events unfolded, despite police intelligence foretelling early on that there would be problems that night. This local newspaper should have had someone reporting eyewitness accounts – many other local newspapers managed to do this, so why not the East London Advertiser who only reported post-riot, on the clean-up, Tuesday? The riots that night in TH were a reporter’s dream opportunity and local readers, potential and existing, deserved reports from local news reporters. The move of the paper to Ilford cannot be blamed for this as the reporters didn’t move did they? So what happened?
You should have read the East London News it was full of coverage.
James, don’t be bashful. We know you work for East London News you did write a piece for them on the riots:
http://www.eastlondonnews.com/the-sack-of-london-2011-ad/
But sorry, your “coverage” did not appear until 10 August.
Also, East London News doesn’t have rolling news, so it was no use that night – 8th August – here in Tower Hamlets. I just looked on the ELN website now and can’t see where and how ELN could do this. So I don’t know what you are saying about your paper, ELN, v. the ELA.
The East London Advertiser has an online news ‘service’ but didn’t use it that night, and that is a shame. Why bother having a facility for rolling news online and then not bother sending anyone out/putting up information/accounts/updates etc. They have Twitter and they didn’t even use that, as quite a few local papers did. (Don’t think your ELN does?)
Since commenting above, I see that Roy Greenslade at the Guardian blogged on this on 9 August (including the ELA, unfortunately) and while not entirely right, it’s interesting to read along with the comments, on the reporting on the riots in local papers in London:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/aug/09/local-newspapers-london-riots
The East London News may be trying to win readers from the ELA. If so, why not research where the ELA didn’t on Harry Burns, Leighton Evans and Charlie Flowers and their ‘Anti-Extremism Alliance’? Your stories for ELN have been interesting:
http://www.eastlondonnews.com/th-labour-set-for-new-leadership/
http://www.eastlondonnews.com/update-mahee-ferdous-abduction-businessman-arrested/
http://www.eastlondonnews.com/bgtc-college-governors-vote-for-academy-status/
…and with your position in local politics, you are well placed to write on such local issues. I see this ‘Alliance’ are organising a separate demonstration on 3rd September here in TH and they did have their first demonstration, again in TH, outside the Waterlily Centre. Over to you, James..
I am not sure what the point of anon is. Is he/she alleging that the ELA supressed the news of the riots when they were all over the world?
“I am not sure what the point of anon is” – I have no point ‘unit 101’, unlike your good self who likes to insult people in the “English” apparently taught to you by the crack commandos of Unit 101 of the Israeli Army. (Don’t know how that entitles you to take their name, though.) I am also NOT “alleging that the ELA suppressed the news of the riots”…. and nor was Roy Greenslade. Obviously.