Ed Miliband has written to the owner of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, Lord Rothermere, asking him to "reflect on the culture of your newspapers".
In his letter the Labour leader claimed a Mail on Sunday reporter attended uninvited a memorial event for his uncle in Guy's Hospital on Wednesday.
Mr Miliband says relatives told him they had been approached for views on "the Daily Mail's description of my father as someone who 'hated Britain'."
The Daily Mail stands by its reporting.
In his letter Mr Miliband said the memorial event for Professor Harry Keen was attended by family, close friends and colleagues.
"The Editor of the Mail on Sunday has since confirmed to my office that a journalist from his newspaper did indeed attend the memorial uninvited with the intention of seeking information for publication this weekend.
"My wider family, who are not in public life, feel understandably appalled and shocked that this can have happened.
"Sending a reporter to my late uncle's memorial crosses a line of common decency. I believe it a symptom of the culture and practices of both the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday.
"There are many decent people working at those newspapers and I know that many of them will be disgusted by this latest episode. But they will also recognise that what has happened to my family has happened to many others."
He says he believes there is no point in complaining to the "widely discredited" Press Complaints Commission.
"Instead, I am writing to you as the owners of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday because I believe it is long overdue that you reflect on the culture of your newspapers.
"The reaction of many people to the Daily Mail's attacks on my father this week demonstrates that the way your newspapers have behaved does not reflect the real character of our country."
'Calculated hysteria'Earlier Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg had become the latest politician to back Mr Miliband in his row with the newspaper, which was prompted by a profile on Saturday of Marxist academic Ralph Miliband in Saturday's newspaper headlined "The man who hated Britain",
Mr Clegg told his weekly LBC radio phone-in that "if anyone excels in... vilifying a lot about modern Britain, it's the Daily Mail - talk about kettles and pots".
Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
"It seems to me that if anyone excels in denigrating and often vilifying a lot about modern Britain, it's the Daily Mail", Mr Clegg told LBC radio
The Daily Mail has stood by its reporting of the views of Ralph Miliband, who died in 1994.
In Thursday's edition, columnist Stephen Glover accuses Mr Miliband of staging a "show of calculated hysteria" for political reasons.
"On one level, Red Ed knew that, as he has bound himself to his father in a series of speeches, he could not afford to let the accusation that Miliband senior had hated Britain go unchallenged," he wrote.
"On another level, Ed Miliband realised that his diatribes against this paper would go down well with the party faithful, and possibly convince the wider electorate that he was stronger and more determined than they had thought.
"He may also hope that, by creating such an almighty hullabaloo about his supposedly traduced father 19 months before the general election, he will somehow neutralise a potentially embarrassing issue - the influence of his Marxist father on his own beliefs - and deter the press from returning to it in the near future."
Education Secretary Michael Gove also defended the Daily Mail's freedom to publish the article, saying a free press was "raucous" and would hold politicians to account and "by definition, will sometimes offend".
Ed Miliband has said he does not share his father's ideology, but the Daily Mail has maintained it was fair to scrutinise the beliefs of his father as the Labour leader has talked of him being an influence.
In a right of reply in Tuesday's Daily Mail, Mr Miliband said his father "loved" Britain.
On the same pages the paper then repeated its original article and wrote an editorial saying his father had had an "evil legacy".
The head of the Press Complaints Commission, Lord Hunt of Wirral, told the BBC it would be "inappropriate" for him to comment in response to Mr Miliband's criticism.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Miliband asks Mail owners for action
Dengan url
http://cangkirtehhangat.blogspot.com/2013/10/miliband-asks-mail-owners-for-action.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Miliband asks Mail owners for action
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Miliband asks Mail owners for action
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar