CTV News apologizes for airing 'non-consensual' kiss clip
Jenny Yuen - Toronto Sun
CTV News has apologized for airing a clip that featured “non-consensual behaviour.”
In the video, a woman being interviewed was abruptly interrupted by a stranger who kissed her without permission.
“I feel as if masks are not 100% important…” said the woman.
“Sorry to interrupt,” said the man, wearing a tie-dyed shirt and yellow bandana wrapped around his head, before kissing the woman while the camera continued to roll.
“No, I met him for a second with my dog, that’s insane,” the woman said moments later.
The reporter asks her if she is okay with the “spontaneous kiss.” The woman tells the man to “text me” as she walks away.
The interviewer then asks the man whether he is concerned about contracting the COVID-19 virus from someone he doesn’t know.
“I think the kiss was worth it,” he said.
The man, Jack Ring, told the Toronto Sun Friday he’s been getting a lot of comments that his actions were sexual assault. But he said he met the woman, Gillian McKeown, earlier that day at Trinity Bellwoods Park and they had spent some time together.
“She sat down with us for the whole day and she was telling me she likes me, I went to the shop and when I was away she had to leave, so she left her number with a friend for me and told me she wanted to get together, so I came back and they told me what she said. I seen her being interviewed so I went in for the kiss,” Ring, 25, explained.
“People are assuming it’s just a random girl I don’t know, which is weird.”
McKeown declined comment Friday, except to say “it was not sexual assault.”
The video was tweeted by a CTV reporter and subsequently deleted on Friday after commenters raised concerns about consent.
CTV Toronto News anchor Nathan Downer told viewers Friday that it was “wrong” to air the video, saying what occurred was “unacceptable.”
“The video demonstrated non-consensual behaviour and downplayed the fact that what had occurred was simply unacceptable and offensive,” he said.
A spokesman for Bell Media declined to answer further questions about the video.
The reporter did not return a request for comment from The Canadian Press.
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