Academics blast Daily Mail for race and gender 'insinuation' in diary item

An item in the Daily Mail's Ephraim Hardcastle diary has engendered a stiff letter of complaint from a leading academic.Hardcastle (aka Peter Mackay) wrote on Wednesday:"Newsnight's Guardian-trained editor, Ian Katz, is keen on diversity. So, two women were invited to comment on the report about (white, male) American scientists who've detected the origins of the universe – giggling Sky at Night presenter Maggie Aderin-Pocock and Sri Lanka-born astronomer Hiranya Peiris."The BBC and Katz have grown used to such nonsense from the Mail. But Professor David Price, vice-provost for research at University College London (UCL), was not prepared to let the matter pass.So he has written an open letter to the Mail's editor, Paul Dacre, about the implications of Hardcastle's malicious comment on the race and gender of his UCL colleagues: "I am writing to express my deep disappointment in the insinuation in your newspaper that Dr Hiranya Peiris was selected to discuss the Big Bang breakthrough on Newsnight for anything other than her expertise.In Ephraim Hardcastle's column on 19 March, he asserts that Dr Peiris and Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock were selected based on gender and birthplace because 'Newsnight's Guardian-trained editor, Ian Katz, is keen on diversity.'The implication that anything outside of her academic record qualifies Dr Peiris to discuss the results of the BICEP2 study is profoundly insulting. She is a world-leading expert on the study of the cosmic microwave background, ...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Media Daily Mail Newsnight UCL (University College London) Gender Women Paul Dacre Astronomy BBC2 Higher education theguardian.com Blogposts Source Type: news