ITN and a Channel 4 News reporter have made complaints to the press regulator over Sun columnist Kelvin MacKenzie’s “religious discrimination”.
In his column on Monday, the former editor of the tabloid newspaper questioned whether it was right for correspondent Fatima Manji to appear on screen wearing a hijab to present a report on the Nice massacre.
He has since defended his “reasonable” criticism of Channel 4 News in the column, arguing that the hijab was a “religious statement” and questioned whether a Christian would be able to wear a cross prominently on television.
In response, Ben de Pear, editor of Channel 4 News, said Ms Manji had been the victim of “religious discrimination” and revealed that complaints have been made to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso).
He said: “Yesterday Channel 4 News correspondent Fatima Manji made an official complaint to Ipso following Kelvin MacKenzie’s column published in The Sun on Monday.
“ITN believes the article was in breach of a number of provisions of the Editors’ Code, in particular discrimination, harassment by intimidation and inaccuracy.
“We are not going to simply stand by when an employee is subject to an act of religious discrimination.”
Monday’s column by Mr Mackenzie sparked more than 1,700 complaints to Ipso and drew scorn from MPs in the House of Commons.
In his column he claimed “I could hardly believe my eyes”, and asked: “Was it appropriate for her to be on camera when there had been yet another shocking slaughter by a Muslim?”
At the time Channel 4 described his comments as “offensive, completely unacceptable, and arguably tantamount to inciting religious and even racial hatred”.
But in his latest column published yesterday, Mr MacKenzie wrote: “A reasonable inquiry, you would have thought, with the sensitivities that currently exist. Then the Twerperati got involved and it became a national debate with a record number of complaints.” Mr MacKenzie goes on to ask Ofcom, the television regulator: “Should presenters be allowed to wear artefacts which advertise their religion?”
He added that wearing a hijab was “a matter of choice” for Western women.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here