Sky Sports presenter Hayley McQueen has recalled how Joe Brolly's remark about her colleague Rachel Wyse left her "fuming".
In May 2014, Brolly apologised for a Twitter remark about Wyse, who anchors Sky Sports's GAA anchor, tweeting the line: "Sky = TV3 plus Baywatch Babe".
Speaking to Newstalk's Team 33 at the launch Sky Sports' 2016-17 Premier League coverage, McQueen was discussing some of the challenges faced by women in the sports media among other topics.
"Not so much anymore it doesn't happen but if it did, My God I'd certainly call someone out. Definitely! I think when you're strong, and I'm quite feisty, I would happily slam someone down," she told me.
@RACHEL_WYSE Rachel, I apologise for the remark about a "Baywatch babe" . It was not meant to be personal but it was crass & wrong of me.
— Joe Brolly (@JoeBrolly1993) 21 May 2014
"I remember there's a journalist here [in Ireland], Joe Brolly, who wrote a really bad article on one of my best friends, Rachel. I was fuming. Rachel is an intelligent, brilliant journalist who was just starting out in her career here, needed the confidence, needed the backing of her own press and some guy wrote a really derogatory piece about her. That's when I get defensive. So I might not necessarily come under scrutiny. But when I see my friends and colleagues and other young girls, that becomes a problem. How is somebody like that who is supposed to be professional and putting a message out... there are people read his column and you think 'these young people trust this journalist and everything you guys say as journalists and you've just gone and taken us back 10 years.' That bothered me."
Listen to the interview with Hayley here or on iTunes:
In the full interview with Team 33, Hayley also discusses how she started out in sports journalism, working at Sky and the Offside Rule podcast.
We also have a chat with Niall Quinn which we will play out next Tuesday. His Sporting Lisbon story is already available here.
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