Danny Baker sacked

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-48212693

The BBC has sacked Danny Baker, saying he showed a "serious error of judgement" over his tweet about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's baby.

The tweet, which he later deleted but which has been circulated on social media, showed an image of a couple holding hands with a chimpanzee dressed in clothes with the caption: "Royal Baby leaves hospital".

The BBC 5 Live presenter was accused of mocking the duchess's racial heritage.

Baker claimed it was a "stupid gag".

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Another example of the BBC snowflake culture and political correctness gone mad. Danny is the only proper presenter on the station. If the other university educated, P C so called presenters had any cahoonas they would come out on strike in support of him. They won't though, will they. I believe they were looking for an excuse after his recent off the cuff comment saying that the generals were taking over the country. A lie in this Saturday then.

If you had made similar comments on Twitter today then you are apparently automatically racist. At least that is what was repeatedly suggested.

The BBC is putting everyone on high moral standards. They forgot Jimmy Saville. Also Angus Deayton must not go strange with another wife than his own.

Bobdogs said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-48212693

Another example of the BBC snowflake culture and political correctness gone mad. Danny is the only proper presenter on the station. If the other university educated, P C so called presenters had any cahoonas they would come out on strike in support of him. They won't though, will they. I believe they were looking for an excuse after his recent off the cuff comment saying that the generals were taking over the country. A lie in this Saturday then.

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The BBC has to take the flack for loose mouthed (& handed?) frontline staff, not just immediatelt after the event but sometimes for years after. With more than a few BBC haters in the government, running a campaign ofdeath by a thousand cuts, the last thing the broadcaster needs is for staff/contractors to alienate even a few of the population. Whether you like it or not, Baker's tweeted 'joke' was poorly judged, and unnecessary in his role as a broadcaster. This error of judgement belies any claims that he is a 'proper broadcaster'.
So this isn't the first such swift action, and even though other would-be random tweeters might think twice before making inappropriate outbursts, there will be others who think that they are above reasonable behaviour limits who hopefully will be similarly promptly dealt with.

i think it is an overreaction to a stupid post but hardly surprising these days as there is a rush to offence at the slightest provocation. I don't think it should come a surprise.

Bobdogs said:

Another example of the BBC snowflake culture and political correctness gone mad. Danny is the only proper presenter on the station. If the other university educated, P C so called presenters had any cahoonas they would come out on strike in support of him. They won't though, will they. I believe they were looking for an excuse after his recent off the cuff comment saying that the generals were taking over the country. A lie in this Saturday then.

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What a silly post. It seems to be lifted almost directly from the Daily Mail comments page!

If you can get sacked for an silly error of judgement like that, why on earth is Chris Grayling still in a job?

You hsve made it bad when your sacking gets mentioned in the Dutch media!

Mag_seven said:

If you can get sacked for an silly error of judgement like that, why on earth is Chris Grayling still in a job?

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Good point. Has anyone checked Graylings Twitter feed for dodgy jokes (he is a joke)?
I feel sorry for Danny Baker. I enjoyed his show on Saturday mornings, and I don’t really see why he couldn’t have just made an apology after the potential connotations were pointed out to him.
If he was actually racist (which I believe he isn’t) then there’d be plenty of evidence of it out there.
All this required was an apology and an opportunity to learn from his mistake.

Come on!
He may be quite entertaining, but I believe he is also a keen football follower. He must be aware of how offensive the racist chanting of monkey grunts aimed at black players is considered to be, and how much effort is being made to discourage it.
So if he's not racist how else can anyone interpret a picture of a monkey or ape baby titled "royal offspring" or whatever when the first mixed-race child has just been born into the royal family?
I am appalled by it and think he deserved his sacking.

The irony is that most chimps had never even heard of Baker until he insulted them by suggested they're related to humans .....

AndrewE said:

Come on!
He may be quite entertaining, but I believe he is also a keen football follower. He must be aware of how offensive the racist chanting of monkey grunts aimed at black players is considered to be, and how much effort is being made to discourage it.
So if he's not racist how else can anyone interpret a picture of a monkey or ape baby titled "royal offspring" or whatever when the first mixed-race child has just been born into the royal family?
I am appalled by it and think he deserved his sacking.

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Baker has a recurring meme on his show where he goes on about animals wearing clothes. The joke is “hey, look at this stupid circus with the chimp dressed up for entertainment!”, not “haha, look at the little mixed race kid who looks like a monkey”.

It’s very unlikely that Baker, a very seasoned journalist, could have operated in plain sight without any suspicion of racism for nearly 40 years, only for the mask to slip momentarily and be revealed as someone who equates black people with monkeys.

Baker made a stupid and careless mistake and is entitled to the benefit of the doubt as to his motives.

Society today is preoccupied with destroying people for single mistakes - a very unwelcome trend.

Cowley said:

Good point. Has anyone checked Graylings Twitter feed for dodgy jokes (he is a joke)?
I feel sorry for Danny Baker. I enjoyed his show on Saturday mornings, and I don’t really see why he couldn’t have just made an apology after the potential connotations were pointed out to him.
If he was actually racist (which I believe he isn’t) then there’d be plenty of evidence of it out there.
All this required was an apology and an opportunity to learn from his mistake.

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An apology is not enough. Apology should bring communion and reconciliation, which is why apologies should usually be accepted unless there are compelling reasons to reject.

Many of the people demanding an apology from him want to make him look weak or destroy him, not to reconcile, forgive or understand.

Problem is that Chris Grayling did not insult the Royal fsmily and/or the BBC. Maybe just the British society. But if not sacked by Theresa May or with a vote of no confidence he keeps his post.

He'll be back - been sacked by the BBC before !!!

Can highly recommend his biographies - witty and full of insight !!

Bobdogs said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-48212693

Another example of the BBC snowflake culture and political correctness gone mad. Danny is the only proper presenter on the station. If the other university educated, P C so called presenters had any cahoonas they would come out on strike in support of him. They won't though, will they. I believe they were looking for an excuse after his recent off the cuff comment saying that the generals were taking over the country. A lie in this Saturday then.

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Ummm, did you actually look at what Danny Baker tweeted before you wrote that (if not, it's not hard to Google to find it)? It really is utterly vile.

Personally I feel that there is too much of a culture in the UK of people being offended by other people's genuine mistakes - and in general we ought to be more forgiving of people for occasionally tweeting or saying something carelessly that has connotations they didn't intend. I don't for a minute believe Danny Baker is a racist, I'm sure he's mortified at what happened, and if he really is a good broadcaster then I think it would be reasonable to let him back into his job after a suitable period (say a year or two).

But at the same time he Tweeted something completely offensive and (to my mind) unfunny. And it wasn't even a re-tweet, it was a tweet he constructed himself, so it's not something you can do in one thoughtless mis-click: He must've chosen the picture, and then typed out the caption with its obvious racist overtones himself. At the very least, that's incredibly unprofessional behaviour by someone who must know that, if your job is a radio presenter sitting constantly in the public eye, then the standards expected of you are higher than the standards expected of your average unknown private citizen. Like I say, I'm sure it was a genuine mistake, but in the circumstances, I think any decent, professional, broadcaster would sack him almost immediately.

A couple of other points: Even if you ignore the obvious historical-racist overtones of presenting the UK's first mixed-race Royal baby as a monkey, what is he doing showing a baby like that? It's not even funny, it's basically poking fun in a really obnoxious way at a 3-day-old baby who obviously has no ability to defend himself, and who also has no choice in his royal parentage. Since when was it OK to be so publicly nasty to a baby, just because you (presumably) don't like the institution his parents represent (I don't know if that is Danny's view, but I can't see any other explanation for his tweet). And if he did tweet it because he's not keen on the royal family, that brings up issues of impartiality (TV presenters are generally under pretty strict rules about keeping their private political views to themselves in order to protect public broadcasting). For all those reasons I don't think you have any grounds to complain about Danny Baker being fired. I have some sympathy for him, but in the circumstances, firing him really was the only sensible course of action.

News is that the BBC did not air HIGNFY yesterday evening. Not that they have Danny Baker, but 1 Heidi Allen.

It’s a commonly heard turn of phrase referring to a child as a little monkey, he says it was a circus based post with the baby being the newest addition to the royal circus.
There are so many innocent explanations, it’s just the political correct brigade turning it into something it wasn’t.

richw said:

There are so many innocent explanations, it’s just the political correct brigade turning it into something it wasn’t.

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And the people chucking bananas at black footballers are just concerned they might be running out of energy, it’s just the political correct brigade turning it into something it wasn’t.

I don't believe he is racist, and I do believe it was an honest mistake to put that post up, but to deny that the picture he selected, attached to the words he wrote, is only racist because of the PC police is utter nonsense.

Thought Baker was a clever guy, but this was a very stupid move.
Didn't leave the BBC much choice really.

I don't see how there could have ever possibly been any other result. It was a ridiculous thing to do. The small percentage chance that there was innocent intent will probably be enough to keep him out court, nothing more.

The important thing here is whether he was lost his job because the company he worked for thought his actions warranted his sacking or whether he was sacked because the social media lynch mob called for his head.

As for the man himself I have little sympathy. He has been on Twitter for 8 years, made 51,000 tweets and has a following of over ½ million. If he doesn’t realise that tweets by famous people can get blown out of proportion and have pretty severe consequences he must be an idiot.

Bertie the bus said:

As for the man himself I have little sympathy. He has been on Twitter for 8 years, made 51,000 tweets and has a following of over ½ million. If he doesn’t realise that tweets by famous people can get blown out of proportion and have pretty severe consequences he must be an idiot.

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One misplaced tweet out of 51000 is a better ratio than I’d probably achieve if I was on Twitter...

I was blocked from Twitter for 12 hours for mentioning Beachy Head. The accountholder thought it ment him, but i ment UK with Brexit to jump off the cliff.

51000! That's nuts. No wonder he had to tweet something stupid, he'd used up all the non offensive things to say. He's clearly not a racist though.

I don't personally think that he is racist per se, but whatever his motive was, it was an irresponsible action, and his employer is entitled to curtail his contract on the grounds of bringing the Corporation into disrepute. It's naïve to think that so long as he hasn't commited an offence, he cannot be removed. With big money (for a minor national radio station presenter), comes big integrity, responsibility and big falls if you forget those essentials.

If he removed the tweet and apologised as race didn't enter his head when posting but realises now that it could be viewed as highly offensive, would anyone be offended if he wasn't sacked?

The Leicester player who has been fined for offensive tweets when he was a teenager is a case more ridiculous.

What is truly ridiculous is people thinking putting stuff on social media is the equivalent of speaking to friends or family members. It isn't. I've no problem with people being deliberately provocative or controversial on social media but the thing about typing, rather than speaking, is you can read before you actually post. If you just blurt things out without thinking, don't start whining if it comes back to bite you on the bum.

404250 said:

If he removed the tweet and apologised as race didn't enter his head when posting but realises now that it could be viewed as highly offensive, would anyone be offended if he wasn't sacked?

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Him apologising (now that he sees the impact on his future income) doesn't make any difference. Him apologising because 'race didn't enter his head' does not reduce the fact that became a liability to his employers, (and likely to be so in the future) so they are entitled to remove him and others who behave in a similar way at their behest. The 'fans' of Danny Baker can protest as much as they like but their only redress is to stop listening to 5 Live. I doubt that the BBC would worry about a few posturing fans, most of whom would probably crawl back to the channel after a while anyway.

There is something deeply unsettling that we now live in an age where typing four words and picking an amusing historical picture to post on social media can result in you losing your job less than 12 hours later.

I’m not sure what more Danny could have done to rectify the situation. He posted something that he thought was amusing, as is expected of his Twitter audience. He did so as a continuation of the running joke about circus animals dressed up and to make a point about the media circus surrounding the royal baby. He made an error of judgement in not considering how some might interpret the use of a monkey in relation to a mixed race baby. Within minutes of posting, when it was pointed out to him the possible connotations, he deleted the tweet and apologised. The post was up for less than an hour. It is absolutely clear there was no racist intent, and no intent to offend.

This all happened on Twitter, not a BBC outlet and not part of his radio show. To be sacked with no investigation, no opportunity to explain and no opportunity to make amends seems unreasonable.

Compare and contrast with the Jonathan Ross / Russel Brand incident ten years ago when deeply offensive comments were broadcast on national radio about Andrew Sachs granddaughter and Ross was only suspended and not sacked. It seems that in the last decade the rise of social media has greatly amplified the voices of those just waiting to be offended and as a result we now expect bland, uncontroversial behaviour from everyone and anyone in the public eye. Meanwhile, the same social media enables those genuinely racist, homophobic or otherwise bigoted to spread their message unchallenged.

I don’t view this progress as positive and I fear for where it may lead society.