DARLINGTON TRAIN SMASH.

Press, Volume XLIV, Issue 19400, 28 August 1928, Page 8

DARLINGTON TRAIN SMASH.

- ——♦— — NEWSPAPER INSURANCE. QUESTIONABLE ADVERTISING. (TOOK OUR OW« COBBESPOKDENT.) LONDON, July 13. A question of taste is involved in the wholesale advertising of certain London -newspapers following the de-. plorable train accident at Darlington last week. The advertising took the form of glaring full-page advertisements setting . forth the vast sums ..which had been paid out in insurance to relatives of those who lost their lives in the accident. A certain popular daily which works an insurance scheme very strenuously for the purpose of increasing its circulation, paid out £50,000 to the relatives of tour women who were killed in the smash. To investigate the cases and hasten the payment of claims, the journal urranged that a special aeroplane, carry-' ing an official of the insurance company, should fly to Newcastle, and within a few hours of the accident the investigations were completed and four registered readers were admitted to compensation. Such facts as these are given prominence in the advertisement, and the wisdom of registering as a regular subscriber to the journal m question is pointed out. The names of the unfortunate* women who were killed are given in large type, with thenaddresses. Not only did the journal responsible for the insurance have this advertisement, . but other > reputable dailies seem to have been induced to accept the advertisement, no doubt with very adequate remuneration! The unfortunate next-of-kin were interviewed and asked to state what they intended to do with the money they received. Journalists' Protest. A sequel to this ghoulish conduct was a resolution unanimously carried at a meeting of the Executive' Council of the National Union of Journalists in Manchester. The resolution protested against "the attitude of certain newspapers in endeavouring to make advertising capital from the payments of insurance to readers who were killed in the train accident at Darlington." The resolution stated that a protest had been received from the Northern District Council of the Union, which represents 1200 working journalists in the North of England, and declared that the treatment of the news of the disaster by a certain section of the Press "subordinates the best traditions of journalism to the aims of circulation advertisement. The Executive Committee fully appreciates the desirability of all legitimate' methods of advertisement, *ut regards the means employed by certain papers on this occasion as being both derogatory to the profession of journalism and repugnant to a sense of common decency."