Jonathan Ross returned to work this week, and to controversy once again. The controversy was, quite frankly, stupid.
The gist of the story is this. Ross was interviewing someone who made a comment about an old lady who kept trying to kiss him. Ross made some comments. At this point it may be considered poor taste but that's it. Its an anecdote about an old lady.
The News of the World, clearly trying to mine their own overblown Sachsgate decided that for once they were going to do research and the like and tracked down the old lady in question and her son, so he could be suitably offended and they could be suitably smug and condemning. This is really stupid in 2 ways.
1. The guy hadn't listened to the show, and was unaware of its existence until the News of the World found him and told him. That's a hell of a lot of effort to be offended. I'll say this to any papers now, if any radio DJ has insulted my gran, I really don't care.
2. Until the News of the World got its crusade on, no-one knew who this woman actually was. Of course now her name is in papers across the nation and she may as well now be known as that blokes senile granny.
In fact, more harm here has been done by the tabloids, who have turned this into a circus where now existed. Of course it has also raised the grim spectre of "Standards" at the BBC which will no doubt further hobble any decent comedy. We can look forward to more insipid comedy like My Family I guess.
My take on it, The BBC alone has 6 analogue radio stations (1-5 and a regional one) all of whom broadcast 24hrs a day (I think) now if you find Ross' banter offensive there are 5 other places from the BBC alone for you to tune into in the few hours he is on. Same with TV, so Channel 4 is showing horse Orgies (they're not, calm down) well watch BBC2, unless the programme is called Gentle Gardening for the Easily offended and in fact involves sex, swearing and bad language, watching Horse Orgies and claiming offence is really just going out of your way to be offended by something.
What bugs me is that there are a significant group of people who believe all broadcast media should be made so it caters to, well frankly them. Specifically nothing should offend them, which is a bit unreasonable since their threshold for offence seems so damned low. Now if I was to demand TV Catered to my every whim, well aside from a few Sci-fi and US shows it would probably look a lot like Channel Dave. So, I have a satellite channel that pretty much caters to me. And that's good, but the God Channel, Living and various other channels hold no interest, so I don't watch them. I don't get offended and write complaints, I just watch something else, which is surely the best advice to any serial complainers.
:squee:
16 years ago
With regards to the latest Jonathan Ross controversy, the only thing I will say is that the joke was probably a bit dodgy for 10am in the morning. Can't say I was offended by it though, as I missed the show so its naff all to do with me.
ReplyDeleteI'm a fan of Jonathan Ross, but I can't help but wonder if it would be better putting him on a later show to give the Beeb more wiggle room in the event of one of these slips.
As for Sachsgate:
Was he prat? Absolutely.
Did he acknowledge this and apologise? Repeatedly.
Was he disciplined: Definitely.
Beyond that, again its got naff all to do with me, and I'm sick of hearing about it. This whole thing is more about the BBC's competitor's using him as part of their anti-BBC agenda.
Frankly, if I was Andrew Sachs I'd probably have been more upset by the reporters blockading my front door and harassing my family for weeks on end more than a couple of stupid (and probably long-since deleted) answering machine messages. We've all received dodgy phone calls at somepoint. And we hang up and get on with our lives. Something Andrew Sachs wasn't allowed to do.
Its a huge problem with the press in this country that they get away with this. And that's thanks to the public sadly. If most people were too look at the situation and say, "Ok he left some offensive answering machine messages, but for God's sake look what *you're* doing to the man" maybe we wouldn't have to put up with this nonsense.
Thankfully the BBC have behaved very sensibly, investigating the matter, disciplining as appropriate, and then accepting that: while a few thousand Red-Top readers complained, there's several million Jonathan Ross fans who really didn't see what it had to do with them and just wanted it dealt with appropriately rather than people's heads on spikes outside BBC Centre.
I really feel for the BBC at the moment. They're producing some of the best television and radio available in this country today, yet they're constantly under siege for it. Every little thing that happens is constantly blown out of proportion for the sake of sticking the knife in.
Well, if youw ere another TV station you'd have good reason to be out to get the Beeb.
ReplyDelete1. Despite constant accusations of Left wing Bias, Right Wing bias, Being anti/pro goverment, the BBC is still one of the best respected news organisations worldwide. Do people in the US, or anywhere else in the world look at ITN's site for their news, or The Sun, or the Telegraph? No, they look at the BBC, not just ex-pats either.
2. You'd be upset that your station didn't Make Dr Who.
Agree totally on the fact that we allow the press too much free reign to intrude on to peoples lives. This is why the really famous buy huge estates. If you have a mansion surrounded by 10 square miles of land you can keep the press miles away from yoru frint door.
The BBC will always face greater scrutiny because we pay for it regardless, but it also means they have a level of transparency that is not as prevalent in other organisations. the Ross/brand affair really snowballed out of all proportion, and I have heard some people complain that Ross isn't as funny now because He's running a fairly major internal Censor.