Don Marsh says he quit ‘St. Louis on the Air’ because a colleague deemed his comment sexist
Don Marsh, the longtime host of “St. Louis on the Air,” quit the show last week because producers questioned him about a comment one colleague deemed sexist.
Marsh, 80, resigned from his position Wednesday, St. Louis Public Radio reported on its website. He’d been hosting the show since September 2005 and had worked many years in print, radio and television journalism in St. Louis before joining KWMU radio.
According to what Marsh told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, he quit because a manager questioned a remark he made toward Karen Foss, a retired KSDK anchor who was a guest on the show the day before.
“Reportedly Marsh was reprimanded for greeting me with a ‘you look good.’ The assertion being that Don was making a sexist comment,” Foss, 75, said in a Facebook post Saturday.
“I am appalled. 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,” she said, noting that she responded with “so do you.”
Marsh was pulled into a meeting after Foss’ appearance on the show, but Tim Eby, the station’s general manager, told donors in an email Monday that the purpose of the meeting was not the comment one colleague had complained about.
“...We agree, and communicated to Don, that his on-air and in-person greeting to Karen Foss was an appropriate one between friends,” Eby wrote.
In the letter, Eby said Marsh was not asked to resign and was not forced to choose between termination and resignation. Eby said that though listeners and members would like to hear the full story, details of the March 27 meeting could not be shared, “as it would be improper to discuss personnel matters in general.”
Marsh told the Post-Dispatch he was not ready to retire and that he felt “humiliated that people think that I’m a sexist creep for this.”
This story was originally published April 1, 2019 at 4:03 PM.
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