Alec Baldwin leads drive to oust racist newspaper columnist

Academy Award-nominated actor Alec Baldwin joined more than 60 Hamptons residents at a town hall meeting to voice outrage over the racist, sexist writings of a community newspaper columnist.

The group were demanding that editor Rick Murphy be fired from the Independent Newspaper Group for columns written in the supposed voice of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

But Jerry Della Femina, who publishes the weeklies in the Hamptons and the North Fork, refused to fire the editor - even though he agreed the columns were abhorrent.

"I have not paid attention to his writing before, but from now on, I can assure you, I will," Della Femina tells the New York Daily News.

"There is no excuse for this horrible column, which I have suspended until further notice. It's tragic that he thought he was funny, but it turned out to be filth."

Some of the demonstrators at Friday night's meeting called for a boycott of the papers and Della Femina's restaurants.

But Baldwin, 49, who lives in Amagansett, said a boycott would hurt innocent employees of the businesses - and said Murphy is the only one who should be punished.

"He should either get fired or resign after these columns, which are hurtful to people," said Baldwin, who was last in the news for calling his daughter a "thoughtless little pig" in a voicemail.

"I also think the Independent should give full pages of space to these groups to give their comments."

By Owen Williams, Feb 10 2008 © Copyright 2008 - Showbiz Spy