ST. LOUIS • Don Marsh, who quit his job on Wednesday as a longtime host at St. Louis Public Radio, said Sunday he did so after managers asked him about a remark he had made to a guest a day earlier that a colleague had felt was sexist.
The station’s general manager, Tim Eby, said on Sunday that the remark was not the purpose of the meeting between managers and Marsh. He would not specify the meeting’s purpose. Although the colleague’s complaint came up in the meeting, Eby said it was “not something that management was concerned about.”
Marsh’s guest on Tuesday’s edition of “St. Louis on the Air” was Karen Foss, who retired in 2006 as anchor for KSDK-TV (Channel 5). Marsh said in an interview with the Post-Dispatch on Sunday that when he greeted Foss before the 21-minute interview, “I told her she looked great.”
People are also reading…
Foss, 75, wrote on Facebook on Saturday that she accepted the greeting from Marsh, 80, as a “common way for those of us who are aged to greet each other.”
“As a woman who has long argued for the equitable treatment of women, I am highly alert to sexism and discrimination and I sensed absolutely none of that in his greeting.”
The post was shared more than 800 times, and several Facebook users commented that it seemed like the radio station was being too sensitive.
St. Louis Public Radio tweeted on Sunday that its management “did not take issue with Don for his in-person or on-air greeting” of Foss.
Madalyn Painter, the station’s director of marketing and digital media, said in an interview that Marsh was “an amazing host” and that he “was never asked to resign, nor did we want him to resign.”
Foss could not immediately be reached for comment.
Marsh told the Post-Dispatch that a producer had complained about his greeting of Foss. He said he was called into a meeting with two managers before going on the air Wednesday, in which one of them said they wanted to “put this behind us.”
“And I said, ‘Are you basically saying what I did was wrong?’” Marsh said. He said the manager made a gesture with his hand “like it’s right on the edge. And I said, ‘That’s it, I’m done.’”
Post-Dispatch columnist Joe Holleman was the first to report on the resignation last week. Alex Heuer, the show’s producer, and political reporter Jason Rosenbaum have filled in since Marsh’s departure.
Marsh said he was not necessarily ready to retire and was “certainly looking for something to do.” He said he felt “humiliated that people think that I’m a sexist creep for this.” But he said he worked as emcee at an event on Saturday night where people said they supported him, “and that made me feel pretty good.”
He said that the comments after Foss’ post showed that many people feel a culture of over-sensitivity was “out of control.”
He said, “This is very much a generational thing. Look at what’s going on with Joe Biden right now.”