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London
CNN Business
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A group of British lawmakers has called for action against columnist Jeremy Clarkson after he wrote a “violently misogynistic” opinion piece about Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, in the Sun newspaper, which was later retracted.
“We welcome The Sun’s retraction of the article, we now demand action is taken against Mr Clarkson and an immediate apology is issued to Ms Markle,” it read. letter It was led by Caroline Knox, Member of Parliament for the ruling Conservative Party and Chair of Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee.
“We demand that concrete steps be taken to ensure that no such article is published again.”
The letter, published on Knox’s social media and signed by 64 other lawmakers from various political parties, condemned the “violently abusive” language used against Meghan.
“This kind of language has no place in our country, and it is unacceptable that it was allowed to be published in a mainstream newspaper,” it read.
“Ms Markle has faced multiple credible threats to her life, requiring the intervention of the Metropolitan Police. The hateful articles written by Mr Clarkson do not exist in a vacuum and directly contribute to this unacceptable climate of hatred and violence.
Thousands of people have written to UK press regulator the Independent Press Standards Organization (IPSO) to complain about the column in the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid. As of Tuesday morning, IPSO had received more than 17,500 complaints, the largest number of complaints the regulator has ever received about a single article, a spokesperson told CNN.
The Sun stopped sharing its readership figures in 2020, but the most recent data shows its circulation was 1.2 million in March 2020, trade publication Press Gazette reported, citing figures from the official Audit Bureau of Circulations. It had the highest circulation of any UK national newspaper at the time.
Clarkson, who is best known as the host of Amazon’s “The Grand Tour” motoring show and a former host of the BBC’s “Top Gear,” has also received significant backlash from other online commentators, and on Monday Tweeted His regrets on the column.
“Oh dear. I put my foot down instead. In a column I wrote about Meghan, I made a clumsy reference to a scene from Game of Thrones and it went down badly with a lot of people,” Clarkson wrote. “I’m terrified of getting hurt so much and I’ll be more careful in the future.”
The Sun has since removed the article from its website.
“In light of Jeremy Clarkson’s tweet he has asked us to take down last week’s column,” the page now reads.
The Sun declined to comment further when contacted by CNN. CNN has also reached out to Clarkson’s representatives for comment.
Knox responded to Clarkson’s tweet on his official Twitter account.
“I welcome Jeremy Clarkson’s acknowledgment that he has damaged #notanapology- but the editorial process allowed his column to be printed unchallenged,” she wrote.
Damian Tembini, associate professor of media governance at the London School of Economics, told CNN that Harry and Meghan “don’t really have much room to take direct action against newspapers” because the UK’s media regulatory framework is “disorganized” and IPSO is “widely regarded as a capture by the press.” ”
He added that the code governing UK media standards deals with blatant racism or careless inaccuracy rather than just hate, incitement or misogyny.
“The code and IPSO lack credibility and are unlikely to take real action,” Tambini said.
Clarkson’s column follows the release of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s “Harry and Meghan” documentary series on Netflix earlier this month, in which the couple discuss their treatment at the hands of the UK press.
Harry blamed the media for putting undue stress on his wife and linked the press coverage to her miscarriage in July 2020 after moving to California.
Meghan recalled how she felt the stress after UK newspaper The Mail published a private letter to her father, Thomas Markle.
CNN contacted the Mail on Sunday and its publisher Associated Newspapers Ltd when the documentary aired on 15 December.
After years of strained relations, Sussex cut all dealings with four of the United Kingdom’s largest tabloid newspapers in 2020.
The newspapers – Daily Mail, The Sun, Mirror and Express – were notified by a letter at the time.
In the letter, the couple said they believe a free press is “a cornerstone of any democracy” but added that the way tabloids go about their business “has a real human cost”.
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