FOREIGN ACCENTS: HOW SHOULD YOU APPROACH THEM?

Following on from the post about the BBC and its inability/ refusal to use diacritics (accents/ special characters) in news stories on its website, I have decided to investigate the matter further in order to see what the position of other major means of communication is regarding the use of "foreign" accents in the reporting of news.

After looking at the official style guides of The Times, The Guardian, The Economist and the European Commission Directorate-General for Translation - English Style Guide, it is quite apparent that the BBC is alone in its refusal to use accents. Below, you can read excerpts from the style guides.

The Times Online style guide states that:

Accents: give French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian and Ancient Greek words their proper accents and diacritical marks; omit in other languages unless you are sure of them. Accents should be used in headlines and on capital letters. With Anglicised words, no need for accents in foreign words that have taken English nationality (hotel, depot, debacle, elite, regime etc), but keep the accent when it makes a crucial difference to pronunciation - café, communiqué, fête, fiancée, mêlée, émigré, pâté, protégé; also note vis-à-vis, façade.
The Times Online Style Guide

Here is The Guardian's advice:

Accents: use on French, German, Spanish and Irish Gaelic words (but not anglicised French words such as cafe, apart from exposé)
The Guardian Style Guide

The European Union Commission Directorate-General for Translation has this to say:

Foreign words and phrases used in an English text should be italicised (no inverted commas) and should have the appropriate accents, e.g. inter alia, raison d’être. (Exceptions: words and phrases now in common use and/or considered part of the English language, e.g. role, ad hoc, per capita, per se, etc.)
Personal names should retain their original accents, e.g. Grybauskaitė, Potočnik, Wallström.
Quotations. Place verbatim quotations in foreign languages in quotation marks without italicising the text.
Latin. Avoid obscure Latin phrases if writing for a broad readership. When faced with such phrases as a translator, check whether they have the same currency and meaning when used in English.
The expression “per diem” (“daily allowance”) and many others have English equivalents, which should be preferred e.g. “a year” or “/year” rather than “per annum”.
European Commission Directorate-General for Translation - English Style Guide

Here is the advice of The Economist Style Guide regarding use of accents:

On words now accepted as English, use accents only when they make a crucial difference to pronunciation: cliché, soupçon, façade, café, communiqué, exposé (but chateau, decor, elite, feted, naive).
If you use one accent (except the tilde [strictly a diacritical sign]), use all: émigré, mêlée, protégé, résumé.
Put the accents and cedillas on French names and words, umlauts on German ones, accents and tildes on Spanish ones, and accents, cedillas and tildes on Portuguese ones: Françoise de Panafieu, Wolfgang Schäuble, Federico Peña. Leave the accents off other foreign names.
Any foreign word in italics should, however, be given its proper accents.
Remember to put appropriate accents and diacritical marks on all foreign words in italics (and give initial capital letters to German nouns when in italics, but not if not). Make sure that the meaning of any foreign word you use is clear.
The Economist Style Guide

It remains to be seen whether The Times, The Guardian and The Economist practice what they preach. I would like to think that they do. My own view is that accents should be used wherever possible, especially when reporting people's names. It doesn't take much effort.