Canada TV firm fires announcer for abusive comments
Tuesday January 18 2:16 AM ET
OTTAWA (Reuters) - A leading Canadian television company Monday sacked an announcer who mocked lesbians, blacks and the disabled without realizing she was on air.
CTV said it had had no alternative but to terminate the contract of Avery Haines after her comments Saturday prompted several protests from viewers and minorities groups.
Haines -- who had been with the company only a short time -- made her fateful remarks after she had trouble pronouncing a word in the script she was reading out.
``I kind of like the stuttering thing. It's like equal opportunity, right?'' she said.
``We've got a stuttering newscaster. We've got the black, we've got the Asian, we've got the woman. I could be a lesbian, folk-dancing, black woman stutterer.''
Haines twice apologized on air after making the comments but her contrition was not enough.
``The nature of her comments did not leave CTV News with any alternative,'' said Henry Kowalski, senior vice-president of news at CTV.
``The public must know that CTV (regards) this kind of behavior as absolutely unacceptable,'' he said in a statement.
January 18, 2000
Courtesy of Reuters/Variety
To write to the Ontario Black Anti-Racist Research Institute obarri@oocities.com