BBC is getting more sensitive about what its newscasters are saying. There has been ongoing controversy lately on the types of comments made by BBC employees...
Perhaps the BBC has realized that the UK has gone global...
BBC fires presenter for turban remarks
* Jemima Kiss and agencies
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday November 12 2008 09.28 GMT
The BBC has dismissed a local radio presenter in Bristol after she made "completely unacceptable comments" about Asian cab drivers.
Sam Mason, who hosted an afternoon show on BBC Radio Bristol, called a taxi for her 14-year-old daughter - while off-air - asking them not to send an Asian driver because "a guy with a turban might freak her out".
"I know this sounds really racist, but I'm not being - please, don't send anyone like, you know what I mean," said asked the operator. "An English person would be great, a female would be better."
The operator for the unnamed taxi firm, which later sent a recording of the call to the Sun, told Mason it could not penalise Asian drivers and that her request was racist.
"I work at the BBC. I'm far from racist and that uneducated woman has no right to call me one," said Mason when her call was transferred to a supervisor.
"I don't want her to turn up with a guy with a turban on, it's going to freak her out. She's not used to Asians. She's not racist - her godparents are black."
Mason, who joined the BBC in late September, was suspended and dismissed by the BBC 24 hours later.
"Although Sam Mason's remarks were not made on-air, her comments were completely unacceptable," said a spokesman.
"For that reason, she has been informed that she will no longer be working for the BBC with immediate effect."
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