CTV parts ways with journalist after coronavirus joke

On January 26, CTV investigative journalist Peter Akman tweeted a photo of himself standing in front of an Asian man wearing a mask with the caption “Hopefully ALL I got today was a haircut.”

The now-deleted tweet was poorly received, quickly amassing dozens of accusations of anti-Chinese racism and insensitivity in the face of what has just been declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization.

Akman quickly apologized, responding to the backlash with a repeated copy-and-paste of his explanation of the situation. The man in the photo was apparently a barber in Akman’s city of Toronto and had been offering masks to patrons.

The statement was equally condemned by Twitter users, with many accusing Akman of refusing to acknowledge the racism behind his initial tweet:

Today, a source speaking to The Post Millennial provided information that Peter Akman was no longer working with CTV. The journalist’s profile no longer appears on CTV’s W5 Team Bios page, where it did just two days ago, according to the Internet Archive. His CTV profile has also been removed from the website.

Peter Akman had been an investigative journalist with CTV since 2013 after leaving CBC in 2006, and had gained some notoriety for reporting live from international sites such as Afghanistan, Israel, Kuwait, and Libya.