Morrissey Receives Apology For Being Labelled A Racist - But Not From The NME
by 
Dave Parrack on April 3rd, 2008
NME magazine published an interview with Morrissey at the end of last year where, amongst other things, he spoke about immigration. The comments he made seemed to be verging on racist, or condoning racism, but Morrissey insisted that they had been taken out of context and edited to show him in a bad light.
Tim Jonze, the journalist that conducted the interview, seemed to back up Morrissey’s claims of misrepresentation when he requested that his credit for the piece were removed from the article due to it being re-worked by the editorial team.
Morrissey threatened and then started legal action against the NME, and that is still ongoing at this present time. However, he also took Word magazine to court after it repeated the allegations in a later article about the singer and the NME story.
Today, Morrissey won the case against the magazine, and received an apology for it at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
According to Digital Spy, Word accepted that a feature written by journalist David Quantick in March 2008 “could have been construed to suggest that Mr Morrissey was a racist, held racist opinions or that [as the child of migrant parents] he was a hypocrite”.
Speaking afterwards, the former singer with The Smiths said:
“I am obviously delighted with this victory and the clearing of my name in public where it is loud and clear for all to hear. The NME have calculatedly tried to damage my integrity and to label me as a racist in order to boost their diminishing circulation.
“Word Magazine made the mistake of repeating those allegations, which they now accept are false and, as a result, have apologised in open Court. I will now continue to pursue my legal action against the NME and its editor until they do the same.”
It seems the NME are standing firm, and refusing to back down over the article, and the words contained therein.
At the time the article was printed, the Love Music Hate Racism organisation criticised Morrissey for the views printed in the magazine, and proposed that he “should be taking responsibility for those words”.
But the point is, did he actually say them? Things can easily be skewed and taken out of context, so I have a lot of sympathy for Morrissey. Personally, I’ve never thought of him as a racist at all, and today’s judgement further cements that view.
All it needs now is for the NME to settle the case, and we can all surely move on from the whole sorry mess.
[Photo Source: mrmatt at Flickr]
Tags: Digital Spy, Interview, Journalist, Love Music Hate Racism, Morrissey, NME, Race, Racism, Racist, The-Smiths, Tim Jonze, Word| 2.5 |
Related Stories
POSTED IN: Announcements, Gossip, Morrissey, News, Pop
0 opinions for Morrissey Receives Apology For Being Labelled A Racist - But Not From The NME
No one has left a comment yet. You know what this means, right? You could be first!
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: