Media Matters Stephen Glover

Sun columnist Kelvin Mackenzie has been defenestrated, following an offensive piece. But was that Murdoch’s real reason for sacking him?

Kelvin Mackenzie has been let go as a columnist by the Sun, the newspaper he edited from 1981 until 1994, after having written an incendiary article. This is a big deal. Mackenzie is no ordinary columnist. He is an old favourite of the paper’s proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, who has backed at least one of his successful business ventures. He is also on good terms with the Sun’s present editor, Tony Gallagher, whom he praised in a recent piece in the Spectator.

Nonetheless, Mackenzie has been made to walk the plank. The reason is that Rebekah Brooks, who runs Murdoch’s papers in Britain, wanted him out. Murdoch’s sons, James and Lachlan, – increasingly influential satraps in their father’s global media empire – were also glad to see the back of him. Mackenzie was regarded by all three as a reactionary and uncontrollable throwback to the Sun’s wilder days. He was certainly not an ideal advertisement for a company which wants to be on its best behaviour as it tries to persuade the British regulator Ofcom and the Government that it should be allowed to buy the 61 per cent of the broadcaster Sky it does not already own. Rupert Murdoch had to sign the death warrant of his irrepressible old retainer.

Mackenzie’s column was undoubtedly cruel and provocative. He claims that in comparing an Everton footballer called Ross Barkley to a gorilla he had no idea the player had a Nigerian grandfather. Neither did anyone else, it seems, and there is no reason to doubt his word. I don’t believe he is a racist. His rude comments about Liverpool (he suggested that the only people in the city who earned as much as footballers were drug dealers) are less easy to exculpate. Similar insults coming from any other journalist would go unnoticed, but Mackenzie has form as a result of (wrongly) blaming Liverpool fans for the 1989 Hillsborough disaster in which 96 people died when he was editor of the Sun. The paper is still widely boycotted in the city, despite attempts by its management at a reconciliation. Mackenzie was poking his old adversary with a stick.

But should he have been fired? Any such column is read by the editor, or whoever is standing in for him, as well as by a succession of senior journalists. A lawyer would probably have looked at it, too. However inflammatory it may have been, the article had the newspaper’s imprimatur. So it’s most unusual and, I suggest, unjust to ask Mackenzie alone to carry the can. I’m sure that as a fairminded man Tony Gallagher must share this view. He cannot have wanted the columnist to be made a scapegoat. With her eye on the Murdoch empire’s corporate image, Rebekah Brooks did.

Relations between her and Gallagher are not as happy as they might be. As a former editor of the Sun, she thinks she could make a better fist of it. She is said to regard Gallagher’s paper as too serious (he was editor of the Daily Telegraph from 2009 until 2014) and too confrontational (he cut his journalistic teeth at the Daily Mail). If she intends to defenestrate him, it won’t be easy because he is a tough cookie. Nonetheless, there is no doubting that Mackenzie’s dismissal is a victory for her.

The wonder, of course, is that Rebekah Brooks should be on her moral high horse at all. She resigned her job as Murdoch’s senior British executive over the phone hacking scandal in 2011, stood trial at the Old Bailey, and saw her one-time lover Andy Coulson go down for eighteen months. She got off. Amazingly, she was restored the following year to her old job by Murdoch, who, for reasons we can only guess at, dotes on her. Now a woman who has done more damage than most to the reputation of his media empire is doing her utmost to burnish its image.

James and Lachlan Murdoch are also frantically fumigating the stables in America, where a presenter called Bill O’reilly left Fox News last month after the New York Times unearthed a series of pay-offs to sexual harassment claimants. Wendy Walsh, who claims O’reilly reneged on a job offer after she declined to join him in his hotel suite, has been banging on the door of Ofcom with her lawyer. Other allegations of sexual misconduct against Fox – the Murdoch company hoping to take over the whole of Sky – are expected to surface.

Where will it end? Since Murdoch already controls Sky as the majority shareholder, it’s not clear that total ownership would make much difference. Whatever happens, the excellent Sky News should be hived off into an independent trust, which Rupert Murdoch offered to do before his previous bid for Sky was scuppered by the phone hacking scandal. I’m certainly no fan of Rebekah, James and Lachlan, but if the Government insists on this concession I can see no good reason for blocking the deal.