The Sunday Times fires journalist for antisemitic and sexist article
The Sunday Times columnist Kevin Myers has been given the boot by the broadsheet after the British journalist wrote an article that was deemed antisemitic and sexist.
The Sunday Times has fired columnist Kevin Myers for his anti-sematic and sexist article
In his column in the paper’s Irish edition that has since been taken down, Myers claimed that BBC paid television presenters like Claudia Winkleman and Vanessa Feltz earned more money because of their Jewish heritage.
Myers wrote: “I note that two of the best-paid women presenters in the BBC – Claudia Winkleman and Vanessa Feltz, with whose, no doubt, sterling work I am tragically unacquainted – are Jewish. Good for them.”
“Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price, which is the most useful measure there is of inveterate, lost-with-all-hands stupidity.
“I wonder, who are their agents? If they’re the same ones that negotiated the pay for the women on the lower scales, then maybe the latter have found their true value in the marketplace.”
He then went on to express his support for the much-publicised gender pay gap at the BBC, claiming that men deserved to be paid more because ‘they work harder and rarely get pregnant.’
"Is it because men are more charismatic performers? Because they work harder? Because they are more driven?” wrote Myers.
“Possibly a bit of each and that men might be paid more because they "work harder, get sick less frequently and seldom get pregnant"
Myers has previously denied that the Holocaust ever happened and also once referred to children of unmarried mothers as ‘bastards’ in his previous column for his former employers, The Irish Times.
Frank Fitzgibbon, editor of the Sunday Times Ireland, apologised for Myers’ remarks and for the article being published in the first place.
"As the editor of the Ireland edition, I take full responsibility for this error of judgment,” said Fitzgibbon.
“This newspaper abhors anti-Semitism and did not intend to cause offence to Jewish people."