ITV LEGEND QUITS AFTER APE JIBE
Alastair Stewart: My tweet errors
NEWSREADER Alastair Stewart quit ITV last night over comments in a Twitter spat which have been dubbed racist.
NEWSREADER Alastair Stewart last night stepped down from ITV following “errors of judgment” on Twitter amid accusations of racism.
The veteran broadcaster said he had made a “misjudgment.”
It was unclear last night what exactly had triggered his departure.
But a black Twitter user had accused Stewart of calling him an “angry ape”. He had allegedly used the term while quoting from Shakespeare’s play Measure For Measure during a social media spat with Martin Shapland, a policy manager at the Institution of Civil Engineers, on January 13.
Breached
Formerly prolific tweeter Stewart has now deleted his account.
Stewart, 67, had worked for ITV and Channel 4 for almost 45 years.
But ITV said bosses were all in agreement over the decision, which “follows errors of judgment in Alastair’s use of social media which breached ITN’s editorial guidelines”.
Stewart said: “It was a misjudgment which I regret, but it’s been a privilege to bring the news to households throughout the UK for the past 40 years.”
His former colleague Andrea Catherwood tweeted: “What a sad end to #AlistairStewart’s long and distinguished ITN career.”
Mr Shapland wrote: “Just an @ITV newsreader referring to me as an ape with the cover of Shakespeare. Measure for measure, Alistair is a disgrace.”
Danny Baker, who was sacked from the BBC for his own Twitter use, said: “Alastair Stewart has been forced to quit ITV and Twitter.
“It is the latter where I shall miss him most.”