Political advertising
From the Hon. Terence Prittie Sir: My congratulations to The Spectator and to Philip Kleinman on his article of December 28 on political advertising. Might I add the following comments?
In the Times, Bernard Levin described one of that paper's political advertisements, by the so-called Committee for Justice in the Middle East, as "silly, nasty and dishonest," but insisted that the paper was right to publish it. Now the British Code of Advertising Practice is perfectly specific on this point. Its very first clause reads: "All advertising should be legal, decent, honest and truthful." Quite plainly, therefore, the advertisement should not have been published. The third clause of the Code of Advertising reads: "The Code is to be applied in the spirit as well as the letter." These two clauses place a very clear responsibility on editors, and it is one which cannot be evaded by invoking some vague kind of moral duty to publicise any and every political view in a paper's advertisement columns.
There is a further point to be considered. Is a newspaper justified in publishing an advertisement which is quite plainly not in the national interest? The Times has in the past published North Korean advertisements which have been filled with vicious, and largely untruthful attacks on the United States of America. The US happens to be our friend and ally, and the leader of the Western Alliance. The Code of Advertising makes no specific provision for this kind of case, but this does not absolve an editor from his responsibility.
I suggest that if editors are not prepared to apply the ordinary standards of commonsense then it is high time that a Royal Commission were appointed to carry out the necessary investigations. Terence Prittie 15 Uxbridge Street, London W8
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