Alastair Stewart | ITV host resigns after social media furore

ITV News host Alastair Stewart has stepped down from his role after he was accused of writing a tweet that referred to a black man as an ‘ape’ while quoting Shakespeare – The Telegraph reported.

The 67-year-old broadcaster said in a statement that “it was a misjudgement which I regret” and Stewart’s Twitter account has since been deactivated.

ITN bosses – the company that produces daily news programmes for ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 – claimed that Stewart’s use of social media ‘breached’ editorial guidelines but didn’t elaborate on the specific reasons for his departure. ITN referred to it as "errors of judgement in Alastair's use of social media".

Yet, a senior ITN journalist told The Telegraph that “he is not a racist” and said that his choice of words was “no more than ill-judged”.