The journalist at the heart of the GB News storm in the UK says she fears for her safety and is uncertain whether she will be able to carry on in her job.
Ava Evans, who works for the Political Joe website, found herself at the centre of a media debacle this week, when actor turned activist Laurence Fox appeared as a contributor to GB News (where he also has a show) and slammed her using misogynist language.
Evans had angered Fox with comments earlier in the day about mental health problems not being limited to men. On GB News, he called her “a little woman” and added “Who would want to s**g that?”
On Saturday, Evans told the Daily Mail that she intended to go to the police, after receiving a huge amount of abuse on social media, including rape threats. She said, “I do actually fear for my safety. Why should my choice of career — political reporting — mean I have to contend with this?
It’s made me question whether I can even continue doing it.”
Evans urged the regulator Ofcom to come down on the channel, which was recently deemed to have breached the broadcasting code with a lack of political impartiality – having two Conservative politicians interviewing the Conservative Chancellor about the budget.
She said: “It is about every woman, because the message he was sending was that it is OK to demean a woman like this. All women are game — to be reduced to their sh*gability.”
“I’m not naive. I know that men talk like that about women. But this was on national TV. It was demeaning. It was dehumanising.
“It should never have been allowed to go as far as it did.”
The channel said that Fox had crossed a line and suspended him the following day, along with host Dan Wootton who didn’t move to stop Fox speaking on air, nor contradict what he was saying, but was instead seen giggling along to the comments. Calvin Robinson, said on Friday evening that he too had been suspended for voicing his support for Wootton. It is unclear whether any of these men will return to the controversial channel, whose boss Angelos Frangopoulos yesterday told the BBC an investigation was ongoing.
