After being accused of promoting antisemitic stereotypes, the London-based Guardian newspaper apologized and took a caricature of departing BBC chairman Richard Sharp off its website.
The picture was released a day after Jewish employee Sharp announced his resignation due to a violation of the regulations governing conflicts of interest.
A subsequent investigation discovered Sharp had concealed his prior assistance in getting Boris Johnson, the then-British Prime Minister, a credit guarantee for £800,000.
Sharp was portrayed in the animation as having exaggerated looks and toting a puppet of contemporary British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
The Community Security Trust’s Dave Rich, head of policy, observed that the image was reminiscent of those showing Jews “with outsized, grotesque features, often in conjunction with money and power.”
Sharp, 67, had worked in banking and donated money to the Conservative Party. Early in 2021, he was chosen to be the BBC’s chairman.
A Guardian representative issued a statement in which they stated: “We recognize the concerns that have been voiced.
We have removed this cartoon from our website since it doesn’t adhere to our editorial guidelines.
The Guardian sincerely regrets any offense caused to Mr. Sharp, the Jewish community, or anybody else.
Martin Rowson, the cartoonist, also expressed regret: “Satirists, even though they are frequently granted permission to express the unthinkable in modern democracies, are no more immune to making mistakes than anyone else, which is what I did here.
“I am aware that Richard Sharp is Jewish. Richard Sharp and I went to school together, but I doubt he remembers me now that we are gathering networks of cronyism.
His Jewishness never occurred to me as I drew him because it is entirely unrelated to the plot or his actions, and it had no conscious influence on how I deliberately bent his looks following the rules of cartooning.
JOIN US ON WHAT'SAPP, TO GET INSTANT STATUS UPDATES AND BE IN THE KNOW.
CLICK HERE
