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February 6, 2008

Gilligan questions ‘payments’ to journalists from London Mayor

By Patrick

Journalists have been accused of indirectly accepting money from London Mayor Ken Livingstone and jeapordising their impartiality.

A story by Andrew Gilligan in the Evening Standard yesterday said that the New Nation newspaper, which has been critical of Livingstone’s Conservative rival for the Mayoral elections in May, received £400,000 from City Hall for recruitment adverts. Gilligan asserts that “almost no one has ever been successfully recruited to a City Hall job” from the adverts.

The story also mentions Hugh Muir, a Guardian journalist, who wrote a report on media coverage of Islam commissioned by Livingstone. The report cost at least £28,000 but it is unclear how much Muir was paid.

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