The Sun columnist Kelvin MacKenzie criticises Channel 4 for hijab-wearing reporter’s Nice coverage
Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of The Sun who now serves as a columnist, has come under fire online for suggesting a Muslim presenter should not have fronted Channel 4 News' coverage of the Nice terror attack.
The Sun's inflammatory Kelvin MacKenzie piece
Writing in his column, "Why did Channel 4 have a presenter in a hijab fronting coverage of Muslim terror in Nice?" Mackenzie asked “Was it appropriate for [Fatima Manji] to be on camera when there had been yet another shocking slaughter by a Muslim?”
He said that “the presenter was not one of the regulars — Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Matt Frei or Cathy Newman — but a young lady wearing a hijab,” failing to acknowledge the fact she'd been at the broadcaster for four years.
He added that C4 would not have had a “Hindu to report on the carnage at the Golden Temple of Amritsar” or an “Orthodox Jew to cover the Israeli-Palestine conflict”.
The Sun deleted a tweet leading to the story with a source telling the Guardian it did so because it failed to attribute to piece to MacKenzie. The column has been the point of debate on Twitter.
They've deleted this tweet now pic.twitter.com/1W7FCmGyvx
— kadhim (@kadhimshubber) July 18, 2016
The piece remains live on The Sun, meanwhile Channel 4 told the Huffington Post that it will respond to the opinion piece in “due course”.