The Daily Express editor has said some of his newspaper’s past front pages have been “downright offensive”, made him feel “very uncomfortable” and contributed to an “Islamophobic sentiment” in the media.
Gary Jones, who took over at the newspaper last month, said he was unhappy with some of its previous coverage and would be looking to change the tone of the Express.
“Each and every editor has a responsibility for every single word that’s published in a newspaper,” he told the home affairs select committee, which is investigating the treatment of minority groups in print media.
“Cumulatively, some of the headlines that have appeared in the past have created an Islamophobic sentiment which I find uncomfortable,” said Jones, who is also the editor of the Sunday Express.
“It is my responsibility to ensure content is accurate and newspapers don’t look at stereotypical views that may or may not be around in the general public. I should be held to account and be answerable.”
Jones, who was previously the editor of the Sunday Mirror and the Sunday People, replaced Hugh Whittow this year after Richard Desmond sold his Northern and Shell newspapers to Trinity Mirror in a £200m deal.
The Daily and Sunday Express have been relentless in their support for Brexit and campaigning for reduced immigration.
“I’ve gone through a lot of former Express front pages and I felt very uncomfortable looking at them,” Jones told MPs. “There have been accuracy issues on some of them, and some of them are just downright offensive. I wouldn’t want to be party to any newspaper that would publish such material.
“I have to accept as a newspaper editor that people have different views to my own and a newspaper is there to represent the broader section of views. But I think there are limits as to how far you should go in an honest and fair-minded society.”
The Sun’s managing editor, Paul Clarkson, also appeared in front of MPs and dismissed suggestions that newspapers have a problem with Islamophobia. “In the mainstream media, I don’t believe it is an issue,” he said.
The Labour MP Naz Shah held up a Sun front page with the headline “1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ sympathy for jihadis”, which was ruled to be misleading by the press regulator Ipso, and criticised the paper’s record on covering British Muslims.
“You chose to present an outright lie as a fact because it supports your editorial narrative, which undeniably stirs up hatred against Muslims,” she said.
Clarkson apologised for mistakes in that report, but insisted it was not part of a wider pattern and said the paper’s coverage had changed. He said a large number of complaints in the media about the Sun’s coverage were made by “politically motivated or other kinds of interest groups”, and said the newspaper never received praise when it ran stories that showed Muslims in a positive light.
Peter Wright, representing the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, also denied his newspapers were Islamophobic. “There is no anti-Muslim agenda. It doesn’t exist,” he said.
“If we were trying to incite racial hatred, it would be appearing on our front page. Stories inciting hatred against Muslims do not appear on our front page.”
He said newspapers had toned down some of their language in recent years, but claimed Hindu and Sikh communities had complained to the Mail about the newspaper using “Asian” instead of “Muslim” in copy.
Wright also downplayed the influence of newspapers on Islamophobia in society. “I don’t know where people have got their views from. We’re told these days, they get them all from social media,” he said. “I’m afraid I think social media is a dreadful cesspit.”
