One month before Morrissey's libel case against NME is set to go to trial, the mainstay British music news magazine has issued a formal apology, insisting that the purportedly libelous 2007 article in question was never intended to paint the former Smiths frontman as a racist.
The magazine's official response, which may or may not be published in an upcoming issue, reads:
In December 2007, we published an article entitled 'Morrissey: Big mouth strikes again'.
Following this, Morrissey began proceedings for libel against us. His complaint is that we accused him of being a racist off the back of an interview which he gave to the magazine. He believes the article was edited in such a way that made him seem reactionary.
We wish to make clear that we do not believe that he is a racist; we didn’t think we were saying he was and we apologise to Morrissey if he or anyone else misunderstood our piece in that way. We never set out to upset Morrissey and we hope we can both get back to doing what we do best.
"Although I don't have anything against people from other countries, the higher the influx into England the more the British identity disappears," reads the interview feature in question. "So the price is enormous… If you travel to Germany, it's still absolutely Germany. If you travel to Sweden, it still has a Swedish identity. But travel to England and you have no idea where you are."
Xenophobia? Or a damaging bit of editorial decontexualizing? A high court judge will decide on July 16-19.
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[Pitchfork]
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