MacKenzie to leave ‘The Sun’ as Ofcom ponders Murdoch bid for Sky

Hard to resist saying “GOTCHA” now The Sun columnist and former editor Kelvin MacKenzie looks set to leave the paper.

That was one of a series of controversial front-page headlines that helped to define his career at the tabloid – Argentine warship General Belgrano had been sunk in 1982, killing all 323 people on board.

MacKenzie’s genius was to create uproar with headlines like that and then ride out the ensuing storm, selling bundles of papers in the process.

It was almost inevitable, however, that one day he would push it too far, and so he did with front-page splash: “THE TRUTH” – an ugly smear against “drunken Liverpool fans” who were held to have “viciously attacked rescue workers as they tried to revive victims of the Hillsborough soccer disaster” in 1989.

Trouble is, it wasn’t the truth or anything like it, as the long campaign for justice by fans has made very clear. Repeatedly.

The seeds of MacKenzie’s demise as editor were arguably sown with that headline – it hit the newspaper’s sales, particularly in Liverpool. Some shops there still refuse to sell it.

There’s a certain pathos in the city being at the root of MacKenzie’s demise as a columnist for the same paper after a piece in which he wrote that looking into the eyes of Everton player Ross Barkley had given him a “similar feeling when seeing a gorilla at the zoo”. He then opined that those eyes made him “certain not only are the lights not on, there is definitely nobody at home”.

A picture of a gorilla was laid out next to a picture of the player. Trouble is, Barkley has Nigerian ancestry (through his grandfather). It looked very much like a racial slur.

MacKenzie has denied that accusation, insisting he had no knowledge of the player’s family roots. The paper apologised for the article and took it down from its website.

It did not, however, include in that apology other remarks suggesting that the only people in Liverpool who could earn as much as football players were drug dealers.

You do rather wonder what was going through MacKenzie’s head as he was writing it, given his history with the city. And what was going through the heads of the editors that gave it the green light.

It’s only a year since a second inquest ruled that Liverpool supporters were unlawfully killed during the Hillsborough disaster, owing in part to a catalogue of failings by the police and the ambulance service on duty at the time. The aftershocks from that, and the findings of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, continue.

In February Liverpool FC banned Sun reporters from its home matches. Everton followed suit in the wake of MacKenzie’s controversial column.

What makes the affair all the more interesting is that it comes against the backdrop of broadcasting watchdog Ofcom’s continued scrutiny of Fox’s bid for Sky.

The news of MacKenzie’s departure broke just a day after Wendy Walsh, the woman who accused the former star anchor of the Fox News Channel, Bill O’Reilly, of sexual harassment, visited with Ofcom to argue that 21st Century Fox would not be a “fit and proper” owner for Sky.

Now I have no doubt that any suggestion of a link between the two issues would be denied.

The Sun’s publisher, News UK, is part of News Corp, a separate entity from Fox. When Fox’s bid for Sky was tabled, it was stressed by the Murdoch family that each company has its own independent directors, and base of shareholders.

The demerger of the two was part of what led some of the critics of the first bid for Sky by the Murdochs to shelve their objections on competition grounds.

That, and the emergence of news competitors on the broadcasting scene (Amazon, Netflix etc), was enough to satisfy competition watchdogs, despite the Murdochs having a controlling stake in both. And despite the fact that the Murdoch family, in the form of Rupert Murdoch, alongside sons James and Lachlan, holds the most senior executive roles at both. They rule the roost.

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Fox News is in the midst of a purge that goes way beyond O’Reilly. It began months ago with the departure of Roger Ailes, Fox News’s leading light, who also faced the lurid allegations about his conduct towards female employees. Several other executives have joined them in departing in the wake of a growing pile of lawsuits, and revelations about past settlements.

MacKenzie’s offending column in The Sun, and his departure from the newspaper, are entirely different issues at an entirely different company, even if you can conduct a debate about the latter given the same people run both.

The message? Well, we can talk about that too, because MacKenzie going does seem to be saying the same thing as the firings at Fox: we’re cleaning house.

The counter-argument to it is also very similar: Why did you allow it to happen in the first place?

Ofcom needs to consider that.