Subject: RE: Inaccurate Sunday Telegraph Article
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 12:01:36 +0100
From: Tim Gopsill <TimG@nuj.org.uk>
To: portia.campaign@virgin.net

Hello Thanx for the message. I am the editor of the Journalist that happily ran Ken's appeal as he is a veteran NUJ member. I have written a little statement which I would be very happy for you to put on the website or otherwise publicise as you wish, if it helps. Here it is:

As the editor who published Ken Norman's appeal for a successor to run the Portia Campaign, I was very unhappy to see that the Sunday Telegraph has apparently picked it up and twisted the story to fit its own agenda. At a time when the sections of the popular press are cynically stirring up violent hysteria against demons real and imagined, it is distressing to hear the more sober voice of the Sunday Telegraph maligning an organisation trying to do positive work in this highly sensitive area. I have also followed and reported on the story of the Police Federation bullying Portia's website provider to take down its site. The tactics of the Federation in censoring publications by threatening actions for defamation are well-known and have even raised concerns in the legal profession; these are known in the trade as "garage actions" because the police officers concerned in the cases (sometimes not even named in the offending articles) get to build themselves new garages on the proceeds of the settlements that usually follow. So it is extraordinary that the Sunday Telegraph can cite the Federation as an authority against the campaign. (It is worth noting that in the Portia case, the material has been posted on other sites, including that of the 1990 Trust, which decided to defy a similar threat from the Federation, and no action has been taken against it.)

I hope this is helpful.

 

Tim Gopsill

 

 

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