Newstalk’s Dil: I’m off air until Hook goes
A NEWSTALK host has withdrawn from her presenting duties in protest at the station’s decision not to remove George Hook from the airwaves.
Dil Wickremasinghe last night announced that she will not present her weekend Global Village show this Saturday.
She is objecting to the handling of the controversy surrounding Mr Hook’s on-air remarks about a rape victim.
The broadcaster said she was appalled and disgusted by Mr Hook’s comments and is deeply disappointed by the station’s response to the controversy.
Mr Hook has been roundly criticised for asking on his High Noon show last week if there was no blame for a rape victim ‘who put themselves in danger’.
Ms Wickremasinghe said she expected ‘at the very least’ for the 76-year-old broadcaster to be suspended.
In a statement released on her website yesterday evening, the Sri Lankan presenter said: ‘I felt compelled to voice my discontent to management and conveyed to them that I didn’t feel I could share the same airwaves with George Hook until a formal disciplinary action was taken.
‘Like many of my colleagues, I felt, as a station, we need to take a strong stance to show that we have a social conscience and do not condone victim-blaming.’ Ms Wickremasinghe is the first member of the team at Newstalk since political editor Chris Donoghue to publicly condemn Mr Hook’s remarks. However, earlier in the week a number of staff members signed a petition calling for Mr Hook to be removed from the station. Ms Wickremasinghe went on to take a swipe at the station for its lack of on-air gender diversity, claiming that Newstalk ‘has been unsupportive and unwelcoming of female presenters’.
She added: ‘It is common knowledge that insufficient effort has been made over the years to address the lack of female representation during prime time.
‘As a result, female presenters are segregated to the weekend schedule. I believe this culture is connected to George Hook’s comments.’
Ms Wickremasinghe touched on her personal experience as a sexual abuse victim in her statement, saying she didn’t report her assault at the age of 13 because she thought it was her own fault.
‘I actually believed until I was well into my 30s that, at the tender age of 13, I was to blame that my first sexual experience was with a 70-year-old man.
‘Victim-blaming is unacceptable, irresponsible and dangerous.’
Newstalk issued an apology on behalf of the station and the controversial broadcaster on Saturday.
When contacted last night, a Newstalk spokesman said the station was unaware of Ms Wickremasinghe’s decision.
katie.o’neill@dailymail.ie
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