Royal British Legion cuts ties with News of the World 1

Fundraising | Vibeka Mair | 7 Jul 2011

The Royal British Legion has dropped the News of the World as its campaigning partner in light of reports that bereaved relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan may have had their phones hacked by a private investigator working for the News of the World.

A Royal British Legion spokeswoman said the charity was “repulsed” with the claims:

"We can't with any conscience campaign alongside the News of the World on behalf of armed forces families while it stands accused of preying on these same families in the lowest depths of their misery. The hacking allegations have shocked us to the core."

The Legion has suspended all relations with the newspaper pending a resolution of the allegations.

Previously, the Legion had partnered with the News of the World in campaigning on military covenant issues, and was preparing to join forces in another campaign to save the Chief Coroner's Office from being abolished.

"Clearly, it would make a mockery of that campaign to go hand-in-hand with the News of the World," the spokesman added. "We think we'll do better without them."

The charity also said its advertising budget with News International is under review. It takes advertising space in The Sun and on The Sun's Forces Channel online to promote its welfare services offered to armed forces personnel past and present and their families.

Elsewhere, Japanese manufacturer Mitsubishi, which has decided to withdraw its advertising from the News of the World, will donate its ad budget for the newspaper to ChildLine. It declined to comment on the size of the donation.

Directory: Royal British Legion

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John Thompson
Director
Changing Business
7 Jul 2011

It's since been announced that News of the World will close this Sunday, with the proceeds of the last edition set to be donated to good causes.

In addition, James Murdoch has said:

"We will run no commercial advertisements this weekend. Any advertising space in this last edition will be donated to causes and charities that wish to expose their good works to our millions of readers."

Well, I'm not sure there were going to be any commercial advertisers to be honest!

Anyway, NMA stats show that the NOTW's latest circulation figure was 2,606,397 meaning that the "guilt pot" could approach £3m.

How should the sector respond to these last minute gestures?

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