Recent Freedom of Information requests have revealed that the Home Office has paid over quarter of a million pounds to the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph in 2014, for sponsored articles, advertorials and digital advertising.
Last year, a number of advertorials were published in the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph which were sponsored by the Home Office to the tune of £279,000. There were five sponsored print advertorials in the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday’s YOU magazine as well as two sponsored articles on the Daily Mail Online website. The Home Office also entered into similar arrangements with the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph.
Home Office spending on such awareness campaigns is obviously not new, the recent controversial ‘Go Home’ vans campaign cost £9,740. And the Home Office (under Labour), paid £400,000 to Steadfast Television,[1] for a behind the scenes programme, UK Border Force, for Sky.