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Sunday Times editor Emma Tucker has apologised after a front page story about Prince Philip’s funeral claimed the public “secretly enjoyed” gaffes which sometimes had a racial element.
The paper’s chief foreign correspondent Christina Lamb wrote from Windsor that the Duke of Edinburgh was an “often crochety figure, offending people with gaffes about slitty eyes, even if secretly we rather enjoyed them”.
This line only appeared in the print edition of the paper.
The online version states that Philip was known for “offending people with his gaffes, even if we secretly laughed at them”.
A petition set up on Change.org calling for the paper to publish an apology and retraction for “trivialising racism”, with a particular focus on the anti-Asian comment quoted, had gained more than 17,000 signatures by Tuesday afternoon.
It said: “Portraying the nation as a collective ‘we’ that ‘secretly’ enjoys racist and derogatory slurs at the expense of ethnic groups is insensitive at best, and encouraging racist violence at worst.”
The petition added: “The constant framing of these comments as a light-hearted joke must be condemned for what it is – egregious nullification of racism, giving legitimacy to the false belief that using derogatory terms to describe the features of ethnic groups is nothing more than humour and entertainment. Intent does not negate the impact, whether in regurgitating or approving the ‘gaffes’.”
Sunday Times editor Emma Tucker, who has led the paper since the start of last year, has now apologised and said Lamb “never intended” to make light of the duke’s comments.
“The Sunday Times apologises for the offence caused in a piece about the Duke of Edinburgh, published in our print edition,” Tucker said.
“This so-called ‘gaffe’ made by Prince Philip was a well-known aspect of his life story. The Sunday Times did not intend to condone it.
“It was noted by us on Saturday night that the sentence was offensive and it was not published in digital editions.
“Christina Lamb has spent her whole career reporting on discrimination and injustices against people in every part of the world and never intended to make light of his remark in any way.”
During a visit to China in 1986 Prince Philip told a group of British students: “If you stay here much longer you’ll all be slitty-eyed.”
[Read more: How the UK media covered Prince Philip’s death]
The post Sunday Times editor apologises for report saying 'secretly we rather enjoyed' Prince Philip 'slitty eyes' gaffes appeared first on Press Gazette.
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