The NUJ’s Equality Council welcomes censure of Clarkson column
The Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) ruled that an article by Jeremy Clarkson published in The Sun last December was misogynistic and presented a serious breach of the Editors’ Code of Practice.
Lord Faulks, Ipso's chairman, said the language used by Clarkson to describe Meghan Markle was "humiliating and degrading", included a "pejorative and prejudicial reference" to her sex, and spread "dangerous conspiracy theories and misogyny". This is the first time that Ipso has upheld a complaint because of sexism since the regulator was established in 2014.
The press regulator received a record 25,100 complaints following The Sun's publication of Jeremy Clarkson's column about Meghan Markle online and in print in December 2022. Two of the complaints, one from the gender equality charity Fawcett Society and one from the abuse survivors’ charity Wilde Foundation, were formally investigated by IPSO.
Although The Sun and its columnist apologised for the column in December and removed the article from its website, it is clear that Clarkson's article should have never been published in the first place and that it fell short of the editorial standards the newspaper should have followed.
The NUJ's Equality Council is committed to fighting sexism and violence against women in the media. We ask all publishers to adhere to the Editors’ Code of Practice and that all journalists follow the NUJ's Code of Conduct which says journalists should not produce “material likely to lead to hatred or discrimination on the grounds of a person’s age, gender, race, colour, creed, legal status, disability, marital status, or sexual orientation”.