When the row blew up over Kelvin MacKenzie’s column in the Sun about Fatima Manji wearing a hijab while presenting Channel 4 News, I said he was wrong.
Wrong because his criticism was hateful and offensive and vulgar. But that’s the price we must pay for freedom of expression (a point made endlessly in the aftermath of the massacre of Charlie Hebdo’s cartoonists).
I didn’t share MacKenzie’s views, but so what? There are precious few things we agree about. It’s just how it is. And I’m sure that Sir Alan Moses, chairman of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso), would have few views in common with MacKenzie.
Indeed, I would doubt if any single member of Ipso’s complaints committee agreed with the Sun columnist’s opinion. I say again, so what?
I am not out of sympathy for Manji. It is distressing to be the butt of an offensive public polemic (I know: I’ve been there, and more than once). Her bosses, notably the editor of Channel 4 News, Ben de Pear, was also enraged.
I am sorry that they didn’t stand back at that point and take stock. It ill behoves journalists and media outlets to complain about other journalists and media outlets for exercising press freedom.
I am given to understand that the Sun, in its lengthy and closely argued submission to Ipso, stood fair square on that point about the freedom to offend.
It dismantled the three-pronged complaint - which cited inaccuracy, harassment and discrimination - by asserting that each one was a matter of opinion. And opinion is protected by the editors’ code of practice (and by the European Convention of Human Rights).
How could a press regulator, which is committed to support and defend freedom of expression, do other than rule in favour of someone freely expressing themselves?
