A prominent newspaper executive in Alabama has been accused of assaulting multiple female employees during the 1970s by spanking them, according to reports in Alabama news outlets this week.

H. Brandt Ayers, the former publisher of the Anniston Star and current chairman of the company that owns the Star and five other newspapers, on Tuesday admitted that he spanked at least one female reporter decades ago, claiming he was simply following a doctor’s advice.

Ayers, now 82, told the Anniston Star he spanked the woman in her home. He claimed the woman, who worked at the Star between 1973 and 1974, had been psychologically ill, and a doctor had suggested he ‘‘calm her down,’’ Ayers told the Star. When Ayers asked the doctor if spanking would work, the doctor said it would, Ayers said. Ayers told the Star he could not recall the name of the physician.

The Star named the woman who was spanked, saying she may now be deceased. The Washington Post does not name victims of sexual assault who have not gone public with their stories.

Ayers also acknowledged allegations from Star reporter Veronica Pike Kennedy, who spoke publicly to the Star, the Montgomery Advertiser, and the Alabama Political Reporter, that the publisher spanked her 18 times with a ruler in the Star newsroom in 1975. When asked about the alleged assault, Ayers told the Anniston Star: ‘‘Let the accusation stand.’’

‘‘As a very young man with more authority than judgment, I did some things I regret,’’ Ayers said in the statement to the Anniston Star. ‘‘At my advanced age I wish I could relive those days again, knowing the seriousness of my position and with the accumulated judgment that goes with age.’’

Ayers said he had no intention of resigning as chairman of the board of Consolidated Publishing. ‘‘Of course not,’’ Ayers told the Star. ‘‘I am the third generation of a family that has served honorably, even courageously, in the public interest.’’

The allegations against Ayers were first reported in the Alabama Political Reporter and later described in articles in the Anniston Star and Montgomery Advertiser.

Kennedy told the three publications Ayers spanked her on a Saturday morning in February 1975, when the two of them were among a few employees in the Star newsroom. Kennedy was 22 at the time, and Ayers, then publisher, turned 40 that same year.

Ayers asked her to read an article he had written. After reading it, she told him it ‘‘really is a good piece of writing,’’ Kennedy recounted to the Montgomery Advertiser. Though she knew he had written the piece for an editorial, she joked, ‘‘Can you tell me who wrote it?’’

‘‘And he said, ‘Oh, you are being a bad girl,’ ’’ Kennedy told the Advertiser. ‘‘’You know what I do to bad girls? I spank them.’’’

Kennedy said she then held onto her chair as Ayers ‘‘picked me and the chair up’’ and then ‘‘bent me across the desk behind me.’’

He allegedly spanked her forcefully 18 times with a metal pica pole, a type of ruler used by newspaper designers and editors at the time.

‘‘I was fighting him the whole time. Trying to kick him. Bite him. Scratch him. Whatever I could do,’’ Kennedy told the Alabama Political Reporter. Then Ayers told her, ‘‘Well, that ought to teach you to not be a bad girl.’’