Hook: I paid price for rape comments... and so did my family

NEWSTALK broadcaster George Hook has claimed that broadcasters will now be reluctant to tackle controversial topics following his judgement by the ‘twitterati’ over comments he had made about rape.

He claimed radio presenters would ‘now look at items and say, “Should we really do this?”’ for fear of the reaction on Twitter.

Mr Hook asked: ‘Are the Twitterati going to be the determining factor of radio or TV success. Are they going to decide?’

In terms of the reaction to his rape comments, he said he was ‘finished’ by around 200 people.

‘There were 150,000 people listening to me and there were probably 200 who took me down. I am not defending it at all. I have apologised twice. If people want me to apologise three times, I will apologise three times. I know what I did. I know it was wrong. I am not happy about it. And I paid the price.’

In an interview with the Neil Prendeville show on Cork’s Red FM, Mr Hook said his family had Back on radio today: Hook suffered, that people rang up his son’s customers and asked them why they were doing business with the ‘son of a rapist’.

The broadcaster, who returns to Newstalk today, stepped down from his lunchtime show in late September, following comments earlier that month when he discussed the case of a woman who claimed to have been raped.

He asked: ‘Is there no blame to the person who puts themselves in danger?’

Mr Hook said what particularly disappointed him was the ‘fake news’ in the media.

‘I don’t think there was a true word written in the newspapers in the weeks after that event. There wasn’t one sentence that was entirely true.

‘I was reading day after day of fake news and the so-called quality press rang up every person who had worked with me in the last 15 years and essentially said, “Have you any dirt on Hook?”’

Mr Hook said he was “very proud” that in almost 16 years of broadcasting not one person had come forward with ‘dirt’ on him.

He was grateful for the ‘goodwill’ of people on the streets and was still replying to letters from people who felt compelled to contact him after the controversy.

Mr Hook added that Kevin Myers, whom he described as a ‘good mate’, was really speaking for him on the Claire Byrne show recently

‘Because what he said was, “I have a right to be wrong.” I was wrong – there is no doubt about that, I have never denied that. I was wrong. But like Myers, I was clumsy.

‘We are in one of the toughest businesses of all because it is live radio, so if we say something we can’t take it back. There is no sub-editor to say, “Write that a different way.” We have said it.

‘It is on the airwaves. It is done. I do radio live. I don’t have any notes. I just do. And I did that off the seat of my pants.

‘That was unprofessional because that was a big item. I handled it extremely badly.’

Mr Hook said he bore no animosity towards his employer for how they handled the situation.

‘They (Newstalk) didn’t really have a lot of choice. I understood exactly. There was no animosity between me and the station at all. I sat there and let the cards fall where they may.

‘There was incredible opportunism. The hotel group that sponsored the programme says with great integrity, “We can’t possible continue to sponsor this man”. They had two weeks left in their sponsorship.

‘The radio station is a commercial operation. And a commercial radio station has to look at its advertising and everything else. I had no difficulty with that.’

‘Have you any dirt on Hook?’