Radio presenter and apparent Jabba the Hut cosplayer - but with a slightly worse attitude towards gender politics -, George Hook, is set to be kept on at Newstalk despite the controversy over his comments about rape which led to his suspension last week.
The station announced yesterday that he would be removed from his weekday show 'High Noon' to instead present a weekend show. This seems like a rather half-hearted compromise given the illwill the whole debacle brought about, both towards Hook himself, and towards the station. It is a compromise in the same way that being told the skin condition you were worried might be leprosy is actually just relatively severe eczema; it's an improvement on things, but it is by no means the perfect outcome.
It is yet to be announced who will replace him in his weekday slot or indeed what the details of his weekend show are. However, it seems that beyond the initial impact of the comments made by Hook, regarding the case of a girl in the UK, there has been a veritable can of worms opened, and this particular can of figurative worms is labelled 'gender dynamics in Irish radio'.
Prior to his being suspended from his show, fellow Newstalk presenter Dil Wickremasinghe said that, in protest of the comments made by Hook and the inaction of management to take suitably punitive measures, she would not be hosting her show. She went so far as to accuse bosses of "unsupportive and unwelcoming" of female presenters.
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In this context, the decision to keep Hook at the station, in whatever capacity, seems controversial. With his newly modelled weekend show not set to start until December, it seems that they're hoping for the current antipathy toward both Hook and the station to simply dwindle away while he's out of the spotlight.
Do you think he should be given this second, third, fourth... another chance?
