Press Not Bigoted? Pull The Other One

In one of the worst and indeed unforced own goals from our free and fearless press, the Society of Editors responded to Oprah Winfrey’s Haz and Megs interview, and the suggestion that the press was racist, by scoffing “The UK media is not bigoted and will not be swayed from its vital role holding the rich and powerful to account following the attack on the press by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the Society of Editors has commented”.

Ian Murray - smug and out of touch

And who is the inhabitant of Fantasy Island responsible for this weapons grade bullpucky? “Ian Murray, executive director of the Society of Editors, said it was untrue that sections of the UK press were bigoted”. Murray, an appallingly immodest man with much to be modest about, then appeared before the inquisition of Victoria Derbyshire and became exceedingly righteous when it was suggested that the press was very obviously bigoted.

He had already claimed “It is not acceptable for the Duke and Duchess to make such claims without providing any supporting evidence. If it is simply the case the Sussexes feel that the press by questioning their actions and commenting on their roles when working as Royals funded by the taxpayer were being racist then they are mistaken”. Evidence, eh?

How long do we have? All those Express, Sun and Mail front pages howling about asylum seekers, “Migrants” and even “Ethnics”? The blatantly racist cartoons of Stanley McMurtry, aka Mac, published by the Mail? The Times and the blatantly untrue Muslim Fostering story? All the Halal scares? Claims that Muslims were “banning our culture”? Claims that 1 in 5 Muslims in the UK supported ISIS? Lies about a Muslim convert beheading someone?

Claims that “British Muslims are killing our troops”? That there are Muslim-only “no-go areas” in parts of London and other cities? Claims that “Muslims get their own laws”? That fasting at Ramadan caused a train crash? That Christianity was under attack? That “Migrants” were getting OUR JOBS? And OUR BENEFITS? That “Migrants” were getting OUR PENSIONS? That workers were being “fired for being British”?

One incendiary, bigoted, racist, hyperbolic, paranoid, negative, hateful, prejudice generating pack of lies after another. Day in, day out. Added to the screaming demonisation of the EU, and indeed anyone who does not have English as a first language. And the sneering dismissal of those concerned about bigotry as merely “Woke”, there to be used as so much cannon fodder as part of the next onslaught of hatred.

Small wonder we now read “More than 160 journalists of colour and the editors of the Guardian, Financial Times and HuffPost have objected to the statement, written by the SoE’s executive director, Ian Murray, which argued that Meghan’s claims that parts of the media were racist were ‘not acceptable’”. But the press bigots aren’t listening.

Instead, the hatred which Murray mistakenly thought he could brush off has continued this morning at full throttle, with the Mail demanding that the Sussexes be punished for their effrontery in talking to Oprah. The paper cites a poll it has commissioned, demonstrating a total lack of self-awareness: you feed readers hatred for long enough, they end up hating those the Mail wishes them to hate. And so the bigotry machine rolls ever onward.

Leaving Ian Murray in its wake, his utterly trashed reputation just so much collateral damage, his protestations another futile gesture. The press peddles bigotry. Get over it.

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