UK'S SUNDAY TIMES PULLS 'ANTISEMITIC' COLUMN AFTER CRITICISM

JULY 30, 2017 15:02

Kevin Myers wonders if two BBC presenters were paid better due to being Jewish

A man buys a Sunday newspaper at a news stand in London July 17, 2011.. (photo credit:REUTERS/SUZANNE PLUNKETT)

The Sunday Times, one of the largest-selling British newspapers, pulled an opinion column on Sunday after it was accused of being antisemitic.

The column, written by Irish journalist Kevin Myers, was titled "Sorry, ladies - equal pay has to be earned," and dealt with the ongoing public battle over salaries for women at the BBC. It was originally published online and in the Irish print edition of the weekly paper.

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"I note that two of the best-paid women presenters in the BBC - Claudia Winkelman and Vanessa Feltz... are Jewish," Myers wrote. "Good for them. Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price."

After a horrified backlash from many readers, the newspaper deleted the column from the site and issued an apology.
Martin Ivens, editor of the newspaper, said the comments "were unacceptable and should not have been published. It has been taken down and we sincerely apologise for the remarks and the error of judgment that led to publication."

Frank Fitzgibbon, editor of the Ireland edition, echoed Ivens.

"I apologise unreservedly for the offence caused by comments in a column by Kevin Myers and published today in the Ireland edition of The Sunday Times," he said. "It contained views that have caused considerable distress and upset to a number of people.... I take full responsibility for this error of judgment. This newspaper abhors anti-Semitism and did not intend to cause offence to Jewish people."

The editors did not address if they were apologizing merely for the antisemitic content, or also the rampant sexism. Myers speculated in the piece that men were likely paid more because they are harder working, more driven and "more charismatic performers."

UK Media Watch, a division of CAMERA, tweeted that it found the Times to be "generally good on issues of antisemitism. This one horrendous article is quite atypical."

Guardian columnist Marina Hyde said she was "amazed this disgrace made it into the paper. But instructive that it did," and Lionel Barber, editor of The Financial Times, marveled at the "undiluted anti-semitism and misogyny in one paragraph."

Aiofe Barry, a news editor at The Journal in Ireland, tweeted that Meyers "has espoused terrible and offensive opinions for decades and yet he's always been given a national platform."

Indeed this is far from Myer's first foray into offensive - and antisemitic - viewpoints. In 2009 he published a column in The Independent entitled "There was no Holocaust." In it, he claimed that six million Jews were not killed by the Nazis and that this is an "irrefutable truth." That article remained online for more than eight years, until The Independent pulled it on Sunday, noting that it "does not comply with our editorial ethos."
And in 2008, he wrote a piece in The Irish Independent - also since deleted - called "Africa is giving nothing to anyone - apart from AIDS."