Broadcaster Danny Baker sacked by BBC
BBC Radio 5 Live's broadcaster Danny Baker has been sacked after his 'racist' and 'insensitive' tweet on royal baby. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle welcomed their first newborn early morning on May 6. The couple named their son Archie after they introduced The Queen to her eighth great-grandchild at Windsor Castle. We know how obsessed the world is with British royals. Netizens were quite active on social media checking all the updates about the royal baby. So, when a 61-year-old radio presenter tweeted something about the baby, it went viral in no time.
Danny Baker shared a monochrome image of a chimpanzee wearing a suit and captioned it, “Royal baby leaves hospital.” As a result, he got sacked. Informing Twitterati about losing his job, Baker wrote, "Just got fired from @bbc5live. For the record it was red sauce. Always''.
Later, he apologised for posting the image and state that he didn't realise that the picture has racist connotations. ''Here we go. Opened door, grinning Mail hack. "Do you think black people look like monkeys?" Any other time you'd knock someone right on their arse for saying that. No mate. Gag pic. Posh baby chimp. Alerted to circs. Appalled. Deleted. Apologised. He asks again! #MailonRacism,'' he wrote.
Baker accused BBC of throwing him under the bus. ''The call to fire me from @bbc5live was a masterclass of pompous faux-gravity. Took a tone that said I actually meant that ridiculous tweet and the BBC must uphold blah blah blah. Literally threw me under the bus. Could hear the suits knees knocking,'' he tweeted.
An official statement was released by BBC following this incident. BBC spokesperson said, “This was a serious error of judgment and goes against the values we as a station aim to embody. Danny’s a brilliant broadcaster but will no longer be presenting a weekly show with us.”
On a related note, Baker has won several awards for his Saturday Morning show on BBC 5 Live. He was also a successful magazine columnist, scriptwriter and TV documentary maker.
