Journalist off air for alleged sex harassment

UNITED STATES: MSNBC says journalist Mark Halperin has been suspended as network contributor following charges from five women who claimed he sexually harassed them while he was an ABC News executive.

The network said yesterday it found Halperin’s conduct as described in a CNN story ``very troubling’’ and that the veteran political reporter will be off the air until questions about his past are fully understood.

Later yesterday, Penguin Press cancelled a planned book by Halperin and John Heilemann about the 2016 election and HBO called off a mini-series based on the book. Halperin and Heilemann had collaborated on two previous books, including Game Change, a best-seller about the 2008 race.

``HBO has no tolerance for sexual harassment within the company or its productions,’’ the company said.

Halperin has apologised for what he termed inappropriate behaviour, and ABC said yesterday that no complaints were filed against him during his tenure, which ended more than a decade ago.

The women, who asked to remain anonymous, said they didn’t report Halperin’s conduct because they feared retribution or were embarrassed.

But Emily Miller, a former ABC employee who is now a reporter at One America News Network, retweeted the Halperin story yesterday with the hashtag ``(hash) MeToo’’.

She gave no details of her alleged incident, but tweeted that she did not report Halperin to ABC ``because I thought I was the only one, and I blamed myself, and I was embarrassed and I was scared of him’’.

CNN international correspondent Clarissa Ward, who also used to work at ABC, tweeted that Halperin’s behaviour was ``an open secret’’ at the network. She saluted the women who came forward in the CNN story.

``Let’s be very clear – the one responsible for any sexual misconduct that may have taken place is the man who instigated it,’’ Ward tweeted, ``NOT the women who were victims of it, nor their friends and colleagues who tried to suppot them through it.’’ -AP