Presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy was sacked from Channel 4 after he insulted a foreign minister he had just interviewed.
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The political melodrama that culminated in the resignation of Liz Truss has tested many nerves… including journalists like a star Channel 4 presenter who was taken off air after being recorded insulting a minister.
A busy week
If political journalists have lived through many eventful evenings since the Brexit vote in 2016, Wednesday was marked by a series of twists and turns until Prime Minister Liz Truss stepped down on Thursday.
The unrest had gone up a notch again at the end of the day.
As Home Secretary Suella Braverman had just left office, Wednesday night turned into a rat race in parliament between the Conservatives over a vote on shale gas production.
In this general confusion, presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy interviewed Northern Ireland’s Secretary of State, Steve Baker, and chuckled after the interview: ” What an asshole! “.
A note from the air
The remark was made off-air, but was recorded and quickly caused a stir on social media.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy quickly apologized to Steve Baker.
” After a robust interview with MP Steve Baker, I used a very offensive word in a moment of off-air distraction “, he tried to explain himself on Twitter.
” This word is below the standards that I impose on myself and I offer my unreserved apologies “, he added.
A trick from other journalists
But the channel said on Thursday that the presenter’s outing breached its code of conduct. strict and took him off the air for a week.
Another journalist, the head of ITV’s political department, Robert Peston, slipped up by renaming the new Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt “Jeremy Cunt” (Jeremy Asshole). A slip that he wasn’t the only one to make.
Others struggled to find the words to describe what they saw, such as Guardian political reporter Peter Walker, who tweeted: ” During the worst period of the Brexit turmoil under Theresa May, I once had to stop while writing a paragraph to look up synonyms for ‘chaos’. Tonight it happened again, but for ‘carnage’ “.
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