Rupert Murdoch’s US tabloid newspaper the New York Post has been accused of an extraordinary litany of racist and sexist behavior by a former senior editor who is claiming discrimination over her sacking in September.
Sandra Guzman has filed a lawsuit in the New York courts against Murdoch’s media empire, News Corp, the New York Post, and its editor-in-chief Col Allan.
She claims that behind the Post’s famously pointed and cheeky headlines lies a “hostile work environment where female employees and employees of color have been subjected to pervasive and systematic discrimination and/or unlawful harassment based on their gender.”
AWARD WINNER
Guzman was hired in July 2003 by Murdoch’s eldest son Lachlan, who was then publisher of the Post, with the express instruction to help attract more Hispanic readers. She is an award-winning journalist known for her reporting of Latin American affairs, and she claims her input increased circulation among this community by 40 percent.
She ran into conflict with management over the controversial decision to publish a cartoon in February that drew an implicit comparison between the recently inaugurated US President Barack Obama and a violent chimpanzee shot dead by police. Following a public outcry, Rupert Murdoch was forced to apologize for the cartoon. Guzman complained about the cartoon in an internal e-mail that was leaked to outside blogs. In the lawsuit she claims that her complaint was ignored and instead management retaliated against her, leading to her dismissal in September.
She also claims the Obama cartoon was part of a concerted effort by the paper’s management to undermine the US’ first black president. The lawsuit alleges that Charles Hurt, the Post’s Washington bureau chief, once told her that the goal was “to destroy Barack Obama. We don’t want him to succeed.”
The New York Post said the lawsuit was groundless. A spokeswoman said: “Ms Guzman’s position was eliminated when a section she edited was discontinued due to a decline in advertising sales.”
DETAILED ALLEGATIONS
Despite the outright rejection of the suit, News Corp executives are likely to be discomfited by the mass of detailed allegations in Guzman’s legal complaint. She reserves her strongest accusations for Allan, who she says participated in discrimination against her.
The lawsuit says that at after-work drinks he approached her and three other female employees and showed them pictures on his BlackBerry of a man exposing himself, with the comment: “What do you think of this?”
Guzman complained but no action was taken.
In other alleged incidents, Allan commented on a female employee’s breasts and referred to a black receptionist as “that damn girl.”
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