Kelvin MacKenzie and the limits of freedom of speech

Kelvin MacKenzie’s hijab outburst speaks to serious issues about where the limits of freedom of speech should be drawn and what constitutes TV visual impartiality in a multi-cultural society

What with BT and BBC regulation to come, you would think that Ofcom had enough to do without Kelvin MacKenzie and the saga of the hijab of Channel 4 presenter Fatima Manji.

For those more concerned about whether BT Openreach can be persuaded or cajoled into providing a universal fast internet service for all of the people of the UK under BT ownership, the Kelvin story might seem bizarre and even irrelevant.

It looks like a throwback to the good old days when we used to have a silly season and the Loch Ness monster would make regular appearances in time for the summer holidays.

For those who have been away, the former Sun editor, took great exception to the fact that Manji and her hijab anchored the coverage of the Nice atrocity in the studio while Jon Snow and chums reported from the scene in the south of France.

The presenter was not one of the regulars – Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Matt Frei or Cathy Newman – Kelvin fulminated.

She was “a young lady wearing a hijab” and Kelvin could scarcely believe his eyes.

Warming to his theme MacKenzie asked whether C4 would have used a Hindu to report on the carnage at the Golden Temple of Amritsar or an Orthodox Jew to cover the Israeli-Palestine conflict.

The outburst has already attracted more than 1,700 complaints to the press regulator IPSO, and Kelvin has promised to decide by the end of this week whether to lodge a formal complaint with Ofcom alleging a breach of broadcasting impartiality rules.

Naturally MacKenzie kept on digging and asked whether it was “appropriate” that a woman so obviously a Muslim should be on camera when there had been “yet another shocking slaughter by a Muslim.”

Actually this is far from being a silly season story in a silly season that tragically no longer exists, but speaks to serious issues about where the limits of freedom of speech should be drawn and what constitutes television visual impartiality in a multi-cultural society.

What will IPSO make of this level of abuse in a personally signed column? The regulator has already had a number of run-ins with the Sun, most famously when IPSO found the paper’s headline “Queen Backs Brexit” to be seriously misleading. Sun editor Tony Gallagher went straight to the Today programme to complain about and reject the finding.
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In a memorable comment in an interview, Sir Alan Moses, the IPSO chairman, reached for a quote from Corporal Jones of Dad’s Army in response: “They don’t like it up ’em.”

In his column Kelvin MacKenzie is guilty of mindless abuse – the strange implication that a trained journalist who has tackled a wide range of issues during four years on Channel 4 News somehow cannot report objectively on Muslim matters because she is a self-identifying Muslim.

He went on to accuse “the twerps” on Channel 4 news of deliberately sticking “one in the eye of the ordinary viewer” – even though the channel said Fatima Manji had been rostered routinely, something that Kelvin partially acknowledges.

Kelvin went on to argue that the channel should be privatised and sold to someone who can supply “balance in these difficult times.”

Ben de Pear, the editor of Channel 4 News, says that MacKenzie has breached IPSO rules on intimidation, harassment and inaccuracy. De Pear added that he had to defend an employee being singled out on the basis of her religion and subject to an act of religious discrimination.

There are a lot of issues for IPSO to unpack there.

Kelvin is guilty of insensitivity, ignorance, and crass abuse aimed at “a young lady wearing a hijab.” But IPSO rules do not prevent, and should not prevent, unpleasant, even unreasonable opinions per se.

Kelvin will probably go down on grounds of inaccuracy – the implication that the Channel 4 “twerps” deliberately used “a young lady wearing a hijab” to stick it to viewers. He might also be found guilty of religious discrimination through the allegation that a Muslim cannot by definition be trusted to report objectively on TV on the actions of a Muslim terrorist. By implicitly calling into question her professional ability, MacKenzie veers in the direction of libel.

The complaint to Ofcom, if it goes ahead, will centre on whether it is “appropriate” for a news reader to wear a headscarf when it is more a matter of choice than of strict religious necessity.

In his follow-up column Kelvin recalled the controversy a decade ago over Fiona Bruce’s small silver cross, worn when reading the news.

At the time Helen Boaden, now head of BBC radio, said: “Staff should not wear anything which hints or directly points to a political or religious leaning.”

That was then, and Ofcom is not yet responsible for full regulation of the BBC, but it certainly has oversight of Channel 4 News.

Is a headscarf, or hijab worn by a television newsreader, evidence of its own of a breech of impartiality rules, and that as a result the work of a journalist cannot be trusted? Almost certainly not.

Could there be a perception of a breech of impartiality? Again probably not, even though insistence on wearing such garb seems curious and irrational to the non-religious.

It signals identity rather than the ability to do a particular job and ought to be a matter for the editorial management of Channel 4 News and not one for Kelvin MacKenzie.

So it is likely that Kelvin will have at least one complaint upheld against him by IPSO and that Ofcom will reject his complaint on impartiality if he makes one.

As for BT, Ofcom has come to a sensible compromise. The proposal is that BT Openreach should remain part of BT rather than being hived off, but should become a legally distinct company with a majority of non-executive directors including the chair. It would be ultimately answerable to its customers rather than the BT Group.

Ofcom’s established reputation means that it can be trusted to regulate the BBC with a professional touch – though this is now more likely to begin in April rather than 1 January.

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