By Gabriel Princewill-
Uk Press Regulator Ipso has ruled that an article published about Meghan Markle by Jeremy Clarkson in the Sun – in which he wrote about the Duchess of Sussex being paraded naked in the street – was sexist.
Ipso ruled that the newspaper had broken its editors’ code of practice, as the piece contained a “pejorative and prejudicial reference” to Meghan’s sex.
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The regulator said Clarkson’s comparison of his hatred of the duchess with his feelings towards former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and serial killer Rose West, was because all three are female .Clarkson had written that he hated Meghan “on a cellular level”.
Their ruling came six months after receiving its record complaints of 250,000m people, but Ipso said its job was to assess whether the paper had breached its code.
The article caused uproar at the time of its publication, and was a reaction by Clarkson in response to recent features by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in their Netflix docuseries.
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Ipso chairman, Lord Faulks described the image as “humiliating and degrading towards the duchess”.
After investigating the article, Ipso ruled the newspaper had broken its editors’ code of practice as the piece contained a “pejorative and prejudicial reference” to Meghan’s sex.
The watchdog rejected complaints that the piece was discriminatory on the grounds of race, inaccurate, or that it was aimed at harassing the duchess. Indeed, there were no factual grounds to suggest any racial element in the reproachable article, although Clarkson has been rapped for racism by the British media on more than one occassion.
In the column, Clarkson wrote that he was “dreaming of the day when [Meghan] is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her”
The spirit of the article was essentially inciteful in nature, though not in the literal sense of ‘dream’ the television presenter said he yearning to witness.
He later sought to mitigate the offence caused by the article by explaining that he had been thinking of a scene in Game of Thrones, but wrote the column in a hurry and forgot to mention the TV show.
“So it looked like I was actually calling for revolting violence to rain down on Meghan’s head,” he said in a statement in January.
At the time The Sun Newspaper apologised publicly, stating that it realises that with freedom of expression comes responsibility.
Clarkson is among a network of high profile figures in the Uk who has taken an intense disliking to Meghan Markle over the controversies that have attended her marriage to Prince Harry.
Piers Morgan has been the chief critic of the couple, following the feud between the Sussexes and the royal family.
Meghan Markle from the outset did not fit the utopian image of the new princess in the royal family, having come from a broken home, with friction between her and her father and half siblings atop the divorce between her parents, already not the perfect fit.
However insiders from the royal family have been at pains to emphasise the efforts that was made to welcome Meghan Markle in and try and make things work- cliam denied by both Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Within a short period of time, inside tension in the royal family led to multiple criticisms in the press against Meghan, most notably during her pregnancy period with her first child, Archibold.
According to royal insiders, Meghan was very difficult to deal with, resisting all efforts within the royal household for peace.
However, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle alleged victimisation including claims that representatives of Prince Harry’s brother, Prince William was selling’ untrue’ stories to the press.
The internal upheaval soon reached a crescendo, culminating in a controversial global televised interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021 in which the couple dropped bombshell after bombshell, with multiple allegations against the royal family, including the insinuation of racism when they revealed that a senior royal member had asked how dark the colour of Meghan Markle’s unborn baby would be.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Talk To Oprah Winfrey in 2021 Image: CBS
Prince Harry later described the question as being a reflection of unconscious bias- an implicit back track from the original connotation of racism. The after thought served to soften the blow, though any perceived damage or offense caused was already done.
Not long after, the former U.S actress and Prince Harry had stepped down from royal duties and were further broadening their criticisms against the royal family for alleged ill treatment, and the refusal of Prince Harry’s father- the now King Charles III- to intervene and impose checks on the press, which Harry felt was bullying his wife.
Prince Harry’s detractors have accused him of succumbing to the influence of his wife, whom they assert had ulterior motives for marrying into the royal family.
Sun Publishes Summary Of Regulator’s Findings
The Sun has now published a summary of the regulator’s findings on the same page as the column usually appears, as well as running it on the front page of their website.
The regulator had considered complaints from two groups, gender equality charity The Fawcett Society and The Wilde Foundation, a charity that helps victims and survivors of abuse.
The Fawcett Society’s chief executive, Jemima Olchawski, called Clarkson’s column “vile and offensive”.
“This was a particularly egregious example of media misogyny, and our case was that the language in it and the tropes that Jeremy Clarkson used added up to sexism and discrimination against Meghan Markle that was harmful to her,” she told the BBC.
She called for an investigation into how on these “toxic comments” made it on to the pages “of one of our biggest newspapers”.
Senior Labour MP Harriet Harman, the society’s incoming chairwoman, called Ipso’s ruling “a big step forward for women in the battle against sexism in the media”.
Responded to Ipso’s ruling, the Sun said it “accepts that with free expression comes responsibility”.
“Half of the Sun’s readers are women and we have a very long and proud history of campaigning for women which has changed the lives of many,” it added.
It acknowledged Ipso ruled that Clarkson’s column “contained a pejorative and prejudicial reference to the duchess’s sex”.
There are separate calls for action to be taken against Jeremy Clarkson, who has a track record for crossing ethical boundaries.
Ipso’s ruling very co-incidentally came on the same day s Prince Harry’s High Court challenge concluded.
Its ruling did not include any punitive measures like fines or suspensions, neither of which is part of the regulator’s function.
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