Columnist fired in row over Rangers’ tweet gets her column back
I am delighted to report that the Sunday Herald columnist who was fired at the end of January has been reinstated.
Angela Haggerty will be writing a column in the Glasgow newspaper’s next issue after her case was reconsidered by the editor-in-chief Magnus Llewellin.
She was fired for sending two tweets in which she registered her support for a Herald sports columnist, Graham Spiers, who had objected to the paper issuing an apology for one of his articles about Rangers football club.
One of her tweets complained about Rangers’ bigotry. She maintained that she was writing about fans, but the Herald viewed it at the time as an unacceptable reference to Rangers’ directors and therefore as a failure “to act within the spirit of its apology.”
Haggerty received trenchant support from the National Union of Journalists, which accused the Herald of “pandering to the mob”. Other people later lobbied the Herald on Haggerty’s behalf.
She also enjoyed the backing of the Sunday Herald’s editor, Neil MacKay, who originally hired her.
In an email to Llewellin in early February, I asked if he would consider reinstating Haggerty. He replied that “bringing her back would be difficult – for the time being at least.”
But having allowed things to calm down over a couple of weeks, and also having re-examined the context of Twitter postings, he reinstated her.
Spiers, who is now working for The Times, greeted the news by saying he was “chuffed to bits” about her winning back her column.
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