Now that it's not OK to hate Black and Asian Londoners, I guess the Evening Standard needs another target... Step forward the Eastern Europeans. Their right-wing reporting made me so mad I wrote a letter... (But complaining is one of my favorite things to do.)

Press Complaints Commission
1 Salisbury Square
London
EC4Y 8JB

21 April 2005


Dear sir or madam,

Breach of 12i and 12ii of the Code of Practice

I am writing to complain about a front-page article in the April 20 edition of the Evening Standard. The paper published a story with the headline Au Pair shook Baby to Death. The subheading is 10-month-old dies while in care of Polish teenager. This is discriminatory and racist: the relevant detail is that a child died in the care of an au pair, not that the au pair was Polish. I believe this is designed to incite racial hatred and animosity. As part of London's long established and growing Polish community, I found this headline highly offensive. Would the paper be allowed to print a subhead stating '10-month-old dies while in care of Asian teenager'? No, and with reason.

This case seems ironic given that the Evening Standard was so recently embroiled in a dispute with the Mayor of London over his alleged anti-Semitic remarks to an Evening Standard journalist. I await a reply.