BBC Radio 4 broadcaster John Humphrys has defended his “jocular exchange” with Jon Sopel over colleague Carrie Gracie and the BBC’s equal pay controversy.
The presenter of the Today program on Friday told ITV News that he was “totally, totally in support of equal pay for equal work.”
However, he was caught earlier in the week making disparaging remarks after Gracie decided to leave her post as China editor after she learned that her male colleagues, including Sopel, were earning significantly more than her.
Humphrys’ comments are believed to have been made on Monday and were leaked on Wednesday.
Humphrys told Olivia Kinsley of ITV News that Sopel was an old friend.
They were in the habit of winding each other up and the jokey exchange “was a bit of mutual mickey-taking and that is all it was,” he said.
“It was not meant for any other ears than Jon’s, although there happened to be a producer in the studio at the time — a woman as it happens, who thought it was very funny, because they know about the relationship that I have with Jon,” he said. “It had absolutely nothing to do with my views on women’s pay, which I repeat and have said consistently should be equal — equal pay for equal work, absolutely no question of that.”
“It wasn’t meant to be broadcast to anybody. It was just a chat — I had no idea, neither did Jon, neither did anybody else — including the producer — that it was being recorded somewhere in the bowels of the BBC and somebody chose to leak it and that er, yeah, was mildly annoying,” he added.
The BBC on Friday said the comments did not break its editorial guidelines as the pair were not explicitly campaigning about an issue, so Humphrys would not be barred from reporting on equal pay.
However, some female broadcasters who have commented on the issue have been prevented from discussing equal pay on air.
“I can understand only that if people have been misled as to what the exchange was all about, then maybe they could take the wrong message from it,” Humphrys said when asked if this was a case of double standards.
When asked whether he would get behind the campaign to close the gender pay gap as an influential person at the BBC, he said: “I am behind that campaign and so, if I may say so, is the BBC.”
A BBC spokesman on Thursday said the leaked exchange was ill-advised and that the presenter regretted it.
However, a source from the corporation told reporters that “management are deeply unimpressed” with the conversation.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of