London Mayor Boris Johnson is seeking an ‘urgent meeting’with the British Olympics Association to discuss the controversy over local press accreditation for the 2012 Olympic Games.
Yesterday we reported on the campaign to give local newspapers press passes to cover next year’s London Olympics, following a report on Newsquest’s thisislocallondon.co.uk claiming Johnson was in talks with the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG).
Johnson said he was ‘very confident these talks will have a positive result”, but LOCOG has since confirmed that it has nothing to do with how press passes are allocated and said it was not in talks with the Mayor.
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A spokesperson for the Mayor has now confirmed that Johnson is looking to discuss tha matter with the BOA, the body responsible for media accreditation in the UK:
The Mayor’s Office have been in touch with BOA and while he understands the difficulties the Mayor is not satisfied with what has been suggested and is currently seeking an urgent meeting with BOA chairman Colin Moynihan to find a solution.
Meanwhile, the Newspaper Society said it was also in talks with the BOA and was ‘continuing to press for more full accreditation and venue-specific passes for local papers to cover the Games”.
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