PressEthic

In his blog earlier this year, Helping the BNP?, Paul Brannan, deputy editor of the BBC News website, wrote about reader complaints regarding the BBC News website linking to that of the British National Party (an extreme right-wing political party).

In doing so are we driving traffic to the party's "ignorant, hateful and cowardly" content, as one complainant insists?

I remember a similar ethical issue arising while I was an undergrad at Cambridge University. In December 2002, the university's debating society, The Union, was forced to cancel a debate it had organised involving the then leader of the British National Party, Nick Griffin and Lembit Opik, the spokesman for the Liberal Democrat party.

The decision to cancel came in the wake of extensive criticism, not only from the media, but also from student organisations and other political parties. There were even calls on the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Charles Taylor, to take action against his own colleague, Mr Opik, for sharing a platform with an intolerant and disrespectful political personality.

Similar reactions occurred the following year when The Union decided to invite the famous anti-semetic, Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the French right-wing extremist party, the National Front. This time organisers of the debate managed to resist cancellation, and Le Pen spoke (almost) uninterrupted (although his suit jacket was somewhat tarnished by flour and eggs).

It seems to me that allowing forums for extreme views is part of the democratic process, as long as these views are balanced by those of their opposing counterparts.

The BBC's links to the BNP website are nearly all made in the context of articles highly critical of the party's racist activities and policies or in general discussions of UK political parties.

By providing a direct link to the site, it seems to me that the BBC is merely acknowledging one of its information sources, and encouraging people to be informed on the claims and beliefs of a political party that has a significant influence in certain parts of the country.

True, the internet creates new implications in this ethical debate, as one reader comments on the blog:

There is one minor consequence of linking to any site - its Google "PageRank" will be increased. Links from popular, respected sites such as the BBC are worth a lot of "PageRank".

But increasing Google "page-ranking" or "driving traffic" to an internet site does not necessarily popularise its content any more than allowing someone to speak publically would. Moreover, if this "driving" is done by a critical article, it is more likely to do the opposite.