Sky News presenter and Daily Telegraph journalist Caroline Marcus has deleted an offensive social media post of herself and family after it was called out as racist.
Marcus and her marketer husband, Jake Swarts, posted images of themselves and two children dressed as “Wuhan street vendors” selling “two-for-one” bats.
The images were posted to Marcus’ Instagram account over the weekend and were apparently part of the family’s Halloween celebrations.
Pedestrian TV quickly called out the images as racist and described them as “racially insensitive” that “perpetuated stereotypes around Chinese people and culture”.
Comments to Marcus’ now deleted post appeared divided over the images.
“This is brilliant,” wrote one supporter.
While a dissenter added: “This is really disturbing.”
Another added: “I hope you’ll take a step back and consider how offensive this might be to a group of people, particularly during this time when violence is being perpetrated against people of Asian backgrounds because of views like this.”
“As a journalist, I hope you’ll take some time to reflect on why this is not cool,” penned another.
Neither Marcus or Swarts have commented publicly on the controversy.