St. Louis TV station KMOV is under fire after anchor Corey Stark used an “outdated” racist term.

US News

by David Propper

A St. Louis television station has come under fire after an anchor “mistakenly” described minority homeowners using an “outdated, derogatory and racist” term.

KMOV TV station He issued an apology for using the term on February 26 while running a story about racial bias in home appraisals, according to reports.

“Tonight, homeowners of color are sounding the alarm when it comes to undervalued home appraisals,” anchor Corey Stark, who is white, said on air.

J.D. Sosnoff, KMOV's vice president and general manager, and Stark tried to control the damage from the apparent slip-up as criticism mounted over the embarrassing remark.

“It was originally called ‘Colored Homeowners’ and was inadvertently changed and misread on the air,” Sosnoff said. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

He added that the station regrets the error and quickly apologized to viewers in two radio episodes last week.

One of those apologies came from Stark.

“The word should have never come out of my mouth, and it does not reflect who I am or what First Alert 4 stands for,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.

National Association of Black Journalists Attack the errorHe called it “outdated, insulting and racist” while noting that 43% of St. Louis' population is black.

The organization said that although there have been multiple apologies by the station, it wants to retrain staff and wants KMOV to better recruit and retain black employees.

“We look forward to these discussions with KMOV management,” NABJ President Ken Lemon and Vice President of Broadcast Walter Smith Randolph said in a statement.

“However, this also shows that the fight for equal treatment and fair coverage is far from over. We hope that these discussions will be fruitful and lead to documented results.”

While St. Louis County NAACP President John Bowman condemned the incident, he does not believe there was offensive intent behind it.

“Trust me, I have enough experience dealing with people who intentionally display discrimination or racist behavior,” Bowman told the Post-Dispatch.

“But I interacted with Corey Stark, and at no point did I feel that way about him.”