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Daily's front page used for scoring political points

A front page of a North East daily newspaper has been used for political point scoring without the editor’s permission.

The Labour Party has taken part of The Northern Echo’s front page from 24 April, left, to use on postcards promoting the campaign of Jenny Chapman, its candidate in the Darlington constituency.

The story was originally published in the wake of an interview David Cameron did with Jeremy Paxman for Newsnight about public sector cuts and was even featured on the show in the round-up of the next day’s papers.

But Echo editor Peter Barron said permission for use of that front page was not sought by the Labour Party in its promotional material.

Writing on his blog, he said: “I wish to make it clear that The Northern Echo was not consulted about the use of the front page on a postcard supporting Jenny Chapman as the Labour candidate for Darlington.

“Had I been asked for permission to use it as part of the campaign, I would, of course, have said no.

“The Northern Echo, unlike national papers like The Sun and Daily Mirror, is politically independent and has worked hard to be fair to all parties throughout the campaign.

“I don’t suppose more recent front pages from The Northern Echo – one headlined ‘Gordon’s gaffe’ and the other headlined ‘Cameron heaps misery on Brown’ – will be making it onto a Labour Party postcard.”

The front page caused such a ruckus among the Tories that a senior party official rang the paper shortly after being held aloft by Mr Paxman to request that it is changed, something rejected by Peter.

Jenny Chapman’s office had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

Comments

Confused.com (06/05/2010 11:13:33)
Surely it’s good publicity for the Northern Echo?

Snatcher (06/05/2010 11:50:38)
Whaaa? Hands up any newspaper who never snatched a picture off facebook et al, or reproduced countless documents – most of which, you will find, if you enquire – are copyrighted. In other words, get over it you silly man.

Len Sman (06/05/2010 12:57:55)
Have the Northern Echo never used a rag-out themselves without getting permission?