First broadcast 1st April 2009.
While charting the rise of the public's role in making the news via vox pops and mobile phone footage, Brooker examines the good, the bad and the absurd in citizen journalism.
Charlie Brooker
Peter Oborne
While charting the rise of the public's role in making the news via vox pops and mobile phone footage, Brooker examines the good, the bad and the absurd in citizen journalism.
Charlie Brooker
Peter Oborne
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Hello, I'm Charlie Brooker and you're watching Newswiper, a programme all about what's been
00:26happening like this. Media mourns as it loses earthbound rights to top line content provider.
00:34Vandals target Fred the Shreds house. Maybe that giant photo wasn't such a good idea.
00:40And adult films on expenses. Jackie Smith's husband comes clean. Yeah, but first. It might
00:53sound like an odd statement, but the relationship between the news and what I like to think of as
00:58real people has shifted somewhat throughout the years. Over to the newsroom. Not so long ago,
01:03the news basically consisted of a bloke at a desk telling you the viewer what had happened that day
01:07with the help of some reporters, some cheap graphics and an irritating weatherman. Real
01:13people, i.e. us common or garden shoe wearing schlubs, didn't get much of a look in except,
01:17of course, if we'd witnessed something important. She told me what happened after the first
01:22explosion and the second bomb didn't go off for a good ten minutes after that. But in the late
01:2770s and early 80s, this began to change and real people started to have more input. We should be
01:33worried that the Chinese might flood our markets with even cheaper goods than the Japanese can
01:37and so destroy any surviving industry. Yeah, whatever your bloody six year old. The concept
01:42of the public having their say hit a peak in 1983 when housewife Diane Gould famously put the boot
01:46into Mrs. Thatcher live on Nationwide's On The Spot segment. Mrs. Thatcher, why when the Belgrano,
01:54the Argentinian battleship, was outside the exclusion zone and actually sailing away from
02:00the Falklands, why did you give the orders to sink it? But it was not sailing away from the Falklands,
02:06it was in an area which was a danger to our ships. Mrs. Thatcher, I am saying that nobody with any
02:15imagination can put it sailing other than away from the Falklands. Mrs. I'm sorry I forgot your
02:20name. It's Mrs. Comeuppance. It was in an area which was a danger to our ships. Now you accept
02:28that, do you? Uh, no. It was proof that real people's questioning of the facts could move the story
02:34forward for the journalists, so from this point on their opinions were solicited more frequently
02:38whether they were interesting or not. Hey real people, what do you make of the pound coin? I think
02:43a pound note has got more value than a pound coin. Hey real people, what do you think about public
02:49transport? I prefer the railway, I don't know why they've come with torches this time. Looking back at old Vox
02:55Pops, it's striking how unemotional and objective they can seem, perhaps because the public thought
03:00that's what the news expected of them. What happened to those around you? Um, mutilated. All of them?
03:05Or many of them? Um, well I have vouched for five or six. I saw it in my eyes. What was the scene?
03:13Well, bodies and torsos everywhere. How many of them your friends? They're all my friends, I've
03:20been working them for 10 years. That situation changed with the death of Princess Diana in 1997.
03:26Here the public's emotional reaction became the central focus of the story itself. It started out
03:31as shock and sorrow. The outpouring of emotion just grows by the day. What had begun as a sea of
03:38flowers has now turned into an ocean. Before mutating into anger. Queen's not in residence
03:44today, but where the hell is the flag, eh? You see what I'm saying about the establishment? And it
03:49eventually altered the events themselves. This afternoon provided the focal point the crowds
03:54had been demanding. Their sudden appearance on the Mall, just one of a series of fast-moving changes
04:00in which Buckingham Palace repeatedly bowed to the wishes of the people. Well I'm glad she's
04:05listened to, obviously, to the media, isn't she? And to the people. Afterwards the news was terribly
04:10pleased with itself for reflecting the feeling of the nation for being so wonderfully inclusive.
04:15Which is odd because the entire saga left me, and I suspect millions of other people like me,
04:20feeling weirdly alienated. Because I wasn't an anguished mourner. Diana's death didn't make me
04:25happy, but it didn't move me to come down to the palace and demand to see the Queen weeping on the
04:28pavement either. Inadvertently what the news was doing was driving a wedge between regular people
04:34and emotional, demonstrative, and some might say overreactive people. And ever since Diana's death
04:39it's been this second group that's had more influence over the news agenda. That's why
04:43stories such as this angry ITN news piece on the Baby Pee report often lead on the emotional public
04:49outcry. Baby Pee's grave is still surrounded by the thought and care he never had in life.
04:55No one was there to help you read this card. The most recent example of course is the coverage of
05:00Jade Goody's death, the emotive nature of which has alienated many. We'll be looking at that later.
05:04In effect the journalist and the public have swapped places. Instead of offering us a
05:08factual summary of events that we can then form an emotional opinion on, they're asking us for
05:13our emotional opinion and then incorporating it into their factual summary of events. That's one
05:18of the reasons we're asked our opinions more than ever via any one of the 10 million boneheaded
05:22say what you think viewer feedback systems which often just cough up a load of boneheaded gunk.
05:27Diana Croyd emailed to say the reason my children never eat school meals is because they are
05:33for the most part vile slob. Oh dear. Well you know instead of asking for emails they might as
05:38well say we're turning on the idiot magnet now. Well now it's time for some of your views. We're
05:43going to switch on the idiot magnet and our first message comes from Tony in Bristol who says
05:52You made me an abuser, you bloody immigrants. Anyway opinions and emotions are one thing, pictures are another.
06:01Now anyone with an atom of sense in their head understands implicitly that in the real
06:05three-dimensional world nobody wants to see your holiday snaps and home videos.
06:10Why? Because they're boring and your kids are boring and your holiday was boring and you're
06:15f***ing boring. But sometimes they're not boring. Thanks to modern technology anyone might capture
06:22an exciting moment of history at any time. Footage the news will gleefully use to become
06:26more dynamic visceral and frightening than ever. The 2004 tsunami was a decisive moment for user
06:32content. Most of these terrifying clips had been gathered by traditional news agencies
06:36which in turn sold them on to TV networks who ran them again and again and again.
06:42It was so exciting that the BBC set up a dedicated user-generated content department
06:47aimed at harvesting footage directly from the viewers. Shortly afterwards 7-7 happened and
06:52harrowing pictures sent in by those caught up in the attacks quickly made it directly onto the screen.
06:57People shot hours of footage. Now of course I can completely understand why you'd want to
07:02look through a viewfinder if you found yourself caught up in the middle of something like this.
07:06Seeing it all through a lens would somehow disconnect you from the misery of what was
07:10happening and make it seem less real. At least that's why I do it whenever I get caught up in
07:14a bloody argument in a bloody relationship. A few months after 7-7 another citizen journalism
07:25spectacular occurred as the Buncefield oil depot went up like a well like an exploding oil depot.
07:31Minutes after the first explosions two young men took a video camera to within 50 meters of the
07:36fires. They defied official advice to keep away. Yes helpfully illustrating one of the potential
07:41pitfalls of citizen journalism two amateur filmmakers raced towards the inferno with
07:46their lenses on. Aside from recklessly dumb visual observation we also got to enjoy
07:51recklessly dumb vocal observation as one of them said it wasn't a fire but actually
07:56satan coming to earth in the form of oil. It's actually satan coming to earth in the form of oil.
08:03See? Imagine we were sitting right here when it went and it did that to those buildings.
08:09Yeah I imagine we'd be dead. Yeah well good job there aren't any oil tanks left to explode yeah.
08:14At one point their camera zooms in on an oil tank yet to explode. Well this should be good
08:20aren't they? Stick around. We've got to make a move now because they're expecting another
08:24explosion. If there is another explosion we're gonna die. Oh come back I was enjoying that you
08:29chicky. Their pictures are another example of the growing public involvement in the recording of
08:35major news events. They knew it was dangerous but say their filming instincts took over from
08:40personal fear. Still at least the Bunsfield footage was spectacular because it was a massive explosion
08:46and not say a bit of snow. Now about 20 years ago the news used to cover heavy snowfall like this.
08:53Moira Stewart dressed in a straitjacket barking a load of basic information about which trains
08:58weren't running. Services to Sheffield and Newcastle are also disrupted. And a few sternly
09:03voiced VT reports telling you what to do. Emergency services have repeated their advice
09:09for people to stay inside, wrap up warm and not to venture out unless it's absolutely necessary.
09:15Fast forward to earlier this year and a cold snap has suddenly become a chance to turn the
09:19news into a cuddly wuddly multimedia slideshow. We've been getting hundreds of pictures, your
09:25pictures of the snow in different parts of the country. Let's take a look at some of them. Oh
09:28yes look they got a photo of some snow and a photo of some more snow and a photo with some
09:33snow in it and a photo showing what happens when it snows. No matter how many they got it seemed
09:38they still didn't have enough. We would like your snow pictures by the way just to let you know
09:42where you can email them as we're watching this at yourpics at bbc.co.uk. Eventually the sheer
09:49amount of user generated content they'd received became a self-congratulatory story in itself.
09:55Now over the past 24 hours we've had the biggest response so far here at the BBC to any story that
10:01we've covered. It's the weather. 35,000 pictures the BBC yesterday received of the weather. An
10:08absolutely amazing response, our biggest ever response. Who'd have thought a national weather
10:12condition would have generated that many pictures. Just to pop that into context for you, in total
10:18and the Buntsville oil oil fire depot we received 15,000. So yesterday 35,000 in one day we just
10:24couldn't believe it. How do you wade through all those pictures like that? Yeah how and why? I think
10:29these pictures we're just looking at now, I mean they're beautifully shot. Still it was fun to hear
10:34Bill Turnbull getting a bit Alan Partridge about some of the more jackassy clips. Look at that,
10:39look at that. That is dangerous, that really I would not recommend at all. It's probably illegal
10:45and it's not something to do. I don't know maybe I'm mean-spirited but when I see all these zany
10:50photos sent in by zany members of the public I just want to run out into the street and
10:54start kicking people in the neck. F*** your snowman pictures, don't send them into the news.
10:59You know why? Because they're not news, they're f***ing snowman pictures. If the snowman's learned
11:04to talk or he's hanging Saddam Hussein, that's news. This is what news looks like and this is
11:09what a snowman looks like. Can you see the difference? You know what? Paxman agrees with me.
11:15In the meantime it's all available again on the website along with our editors. Pathetic please
11:19for you to send some of us your old bits of home movie and the like so we can become the BBC's
11:24version of animals do the funniest things. Good night. Now animals and man don't really mix unless
11:31you put them all in a blender but they've mixed in the news this week. Here's a special animal-centric
11:35week in bullshit. Well hey animals, they're fun and they don't need release forms. There's been loads
11:43of the furry shits in the news lately like this painting cat thing on BBC Breakfast.
11:47Five News cheered us up with this uplifting story of a disabled man who's turned his dog
11:52into a cheap meat-fuelled engine. This is very much the Channel 5 version of Ben-Hur. Thank you
11:57my love. Five also brought us this startling evidence of Islam's influence on modern Britain,
12:03a horse in a hijab. But the most arousing animal story of the week has to be this,
12:09lions and Five News run an astonishing report about a man who's watched far too many Walt
12:13Disney films and not enough Werner Herzog documentaries. That's what you call a lion
12:20sandwich. No, this is lion and a bit of panda. Got it from the garage. In the wild, lions don't
12:27like water but look at this, a young lioness playing with him in the river. I hope they show
12:33him sticking it in in a minute. There are plenty who say that any human interaction with a wild
12:38animal is just wrong but others say that this actually promotes the species in a way which
12:44should guarantee its long-term survival. Here's a f*** buddy. Are you okay? Yeah.
12:53This is normal. MP's expenses have been in the news again of late. One minute they're claiming
12:58money for a second home, you know, just like you can't, and the next their partner's adult
13:02viewing habits end up leaving a great big crusty stain all over their expense sheets.
13:06But are MPs really all out for themselves? Here's veteran political journalist Peter
13:11Oborn with his view. We've been asked to point out that the following represents the personal
13:15and some might say cynical views of veteran political commentator Peter Oborn, author of
13:19The Rise of Political Lying and The Triumph of the Political Class. Once again, these are views,
13:24not facts. Views, not facts. When I went into political reporting 20, 15 years ago, I thought
13:29that MPs went in to serve the public good. What I came to realise, the core thing which happened
13:37in the House of Commons was not opposition but collusion. The MPs of rival parties have far more
13:44in common with each other than they have in common with ordinary members of the public,
13:51that in fact they are to a large extent engaged in a conspiracy against the public. I'll give you
13:58an example. When Jackie Smith was caught up in her expenses controversy a few weeks ago,
14:04which looked very odd to ordinary members of the public, when she went into Home Office questions,
14:11the Home Secretary took questions, there wasn't a single question from the Tory opposition or
14:17from the Liberal Democrats about her very peculiar expenses arrangements. And that is because
14:24attacking either party on expenses issues is like using an aerial weapon, i.e. it's going to destroy
14:30or kill off personnel on both sides. Labour now no longer would attack a Tory who's bent because
14:37there's too much at stake. If you go back a generation or two, people who came into the
14:43Commons, whether from the left or the right, the primary objective was to serve the country or to
14:49serve their voters, not to make money for themselves. What is new is that the majority
14:57of people now coming into Parliament have sought politics as a career since leaving universities,
15:04and therefore what we see is the use of the House of Commons, use of MPs' alliances, the use of
15:10political connections as a way of making a huge sum of money. Very interesting to watch what
15:17happens to former ministers. Let's have a look at Tony Blair. He's gone off to work for an
15:23American investment bank and earns millions of pounds of money for that, giving very high-level
15:30consultancy about how to link business and politics. John Major, Blair's predecessor,
15:36joined the Carlisle Group, a very, very secretive little-known organisation linked to the Bush family,
15:43whose whole sort of raison d'etre is to make money out of government privatisations and contracts.
15:50What it does is to cast doubt about the real integrity and independence of the advice
16:00these people are doing in office, because the people they're dealing with in office then come
16:05and give them jobs, incredibly well-paid jobs, afterwards. The political class funds party
16:12political activity in a completely different way to the system which prevailed after World War II.
16:20Because parties can't go to mass members anymore, there is one way they can use fund money,
16:29is by basically using their access to the process of government and selling that to interested
16:35parties in the business world. You go to the annual conference of the governing party,
16:41it's much more like a corporate away day than a party conference, and so businessmen who want to
16:48acquire access to the prime minister can get it, but they have to pay for it. And you get the
16:54emergence of these rather sinister figures, lauded in the press, never exposed, these
17:00people who broker, they broker between big business and the politicians,
17:08and they fix deals. I'll name them, I don't know if you have the balls to put this on air...
17:14There's maybe two or three others in London who handle a lot of this business of brokering,
17:20normally or often secret, or very private deals between very senior and rich businessmen
17:27and their political clans.
17:31Yeah, is it recording? It's going, yeah. Sorry, the remainder of this sequence has been removed
17:40Showbiz and former pop star turned bloated porridge face nation botherer David Van Day
17:45spices up Morning Pisscast's The Right Stuff by chucking his girlfriend live on air.
17:49I'm actually dating a lady, a very beautiful lady, Sue Moxley from the South, beauty editor.
17:53Right. Obsessed with fame.
17:55She can't be that obsessed with fame, she's going out with David Van Day.
17:58We eat out a lot, we do a lot of fine dining.
18:01Well, anyway, we're going to have a nice dinner, we're going to have a nice dinner,
18:04we're going to have a nice dinner, we're going to have a nice dinner, we're going to have a nice dinner.
18:07We eat out a lot, we do a lot of fine dining.
18:09Well, anyway, where they'll let you wheel in a trough.
18:11I've had enough. And so would I dump you now? Yes, I would.
18:16You've been dumped. David, live on air, on TV, celebrity dumping.
18:21Yeah, I think I've seen the pilot for David Van Day's celebrity dumping. It's horrible.
18:26Oh, and next up, it's national embarrassment, David Van Day, and here he comes, he's dropping his trousers,
18:31he's assuming the position, he's straining, he's straining, he's straining, he's straining,
18:35oh, he's hit the target, he's hit the target. Well done, David, you absolute prick.
18:39The world of quantum physics, which, since you ask, I'm a huge expert on,
18:43gave us one of science's most famous thought experiments, the sorry fate of Schrodinger's cat.
18:50Now, I'm simplifying here, but essentially, it hypothesized that if you put a cat in a box
18:54accompanied by a canister of poison gas that may or may not leak and shut the lid,
18:58then, according to quantum theory, once it was hidden from view, the cat would be neither dead
19:03or alive, but both dead and alive until you open the lid to observe it. That, in other words,
19:08it's possible for something to exist in two contradictory states at the same time,
19:12which is impossible, obviously, but it's also possible. It makes your head hurt.
19:16But that's the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics for you, eh, yeah?
19:21Anyway, at the risk of sounding pretentious, I'd like to apply this complex theory
19:25to the sad and paradoxical tale of Jade Goody.
19:29We all know who Jade Goody was. A none-too-bright reality TV star who
19:33became massively famous for simply existing, polarizing opinion as she did so.
19:37Some loved her, some hated her, and some, of course, were indifferent either way.
19:41A lot of people said she was talentless, which wasn't strictly true.
19:44She wouldn't have been invited on feel-good entertainment shows like this repeatedly
19:48if she didn't have something.
19:50You know, let's face it, she had more star quality than Gordon Brown,
19:53and he's all over the f***ing telly.
20:02In 2007, she was widely pilloried following apparent racism in a very ugly series of
20:07Celebrity Big Brother.
20:09She may have been the ringleader, but Jade didn't actually make the worst comments of all.
20:12Those were left to smirk at her.
20:15But by virtue of being the loudest and the most well-known, Jade bore the brunt of the
20:19criticism. Suddenly, everyone hated her.
20:22Even the viewers of normally sedate GMTV.
20:25Jade Goody is an absolute disgrace to Britain.
20:28And then in upsetting scenes on the Indian version of Big Brother, she was diagnosed
20:31with cervical cancer.
20:33Having lived in the south of England, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer.
20:36She was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2007, when she was diagnosed with cervical
20:40cancer.
20:41Having lived in the spotlight for years, she carried on doing so, mainly, she said, in
20:45order to provide for her son's future.
20:47So she granted harrowing and distressing front page interviews to the tabloids, allowed her
20:52physical deterioration to be recorded by a camera crew for a genuinely unsettling TV
20:56series, and sold the rights to her fairy tale wedding to OK! magazine, turning it into a
21:00slick media event in the process.
21:02And finally, she died of an easily preventable illness at a tragically young age.
21:07The end.
21:07Except it's a bit more complicated than that.
21:09Jade's death was tragic, no question there.
21:12But the coverage of her death, well, that was hardly about death or Jade at all.
21:16Instead, it was about the news media having a collective self-perpetuating bun fight.
21:20Take the tabloid papers, which, having hurled buckets of misogynist abuse or eye-swiveling
21:25rage over Jade for years, suddenly had to perform a U-turn, so huge it was visible from
21:30space, and start gushing with cliched tabloid speak about inspiring bravery.
21:35It was almost as though the press felt guilty for treating her badly in the past, although
21:38of course, the press doesn't feel anything, it just wants to sell more papers.
21:42That's why they willingly put her on the front cover as often as possible, veering into astronomical
21:46bad taste in a way that would simply alarm them.
21:48Take this astonishing Daily Star front page from the 18th of February, which, as Private
21:52Eye pointed out, is actually a photoshopped version of this more jubilant photograph taken
21:57a year ago, when Jade still had hair.
21:59It's amazing to think somebody actually did that, somebody actually sat there.
22:02It's amazing to think somebody actually did that, somebody actually sat there, spending
22:05hours photoshopping out that hair, giving Jade retrospective cancer to sell their f***ing
22:10paper, and to think the press has the temerity to moan whenever TV gets accused of faking
22:15things.
22:16What twats.
22:17Speaking of things that want photoshopping, look at Peter Cushing here, aka Carol Malone.
22:21Here's someone who had to change her tube quicker than an iPod shuffle.
22:25Having berated Jade for 200 years in her shit and nasty newspaper columns, suddenly she
22:29was conducting sympathetic interviews with her, before taking to the newsstands on March
22:33the 8th to say, it was time to turn the cameras off, Jade, asking, is it just me who's starting
22:38to feel like the spectre at the feasts?
22:40Although I think she meant look, not feel.
22:42Luckily for Carol, before they turned the cameras off, she had time to appear in a mawkish
22:46ITV Tonight special the very next night.
22:49She made headlines without thinking, and she was perfect.
22:52Of course, the tabloids weren't the only ones jammed full of Jade.
22:55No, the self-appointed quality press got in on the act too.
22:58They ran plenty of chin-stroking, or what-does-it-all-mean pieces on the cultural meaning of Jade's
23:03suffering.
23:03There was a lot of old Wobetidus intellectual masturbation, which sometimes veered over
23:08into outright snobbery, such as in Rod Liddle's bizarre, venomous article for The Spectator.
23:15I've tried to think of something clever to say about Rod Liddle, but he just comes across
23:19as a cunt.
23:20Throughout the depressing blanket coverage, Jade was repeatedly referred to as a star
23:25of reality TV, which she was, although it's more accurate to say she was a star of reality
23:30TV and news.
23:32After all, in her final weeks, taken accumulatively, she made far more appearances on front pages
23:37and news broadcasts than in her living TV specials.
23:40Sally, what's the latest that you've been able to discover about Jade's condition?
23:44The populist news broadcasts had exciting live updates filling us in on each fresh
23:48development as and when it happened, often displaying characteristic tact.
23:52We're also hearing that perhaps the cancer has spread to her brain.
23:57What's the latest on that, Rachel?
23:59Meanwhile, back in the studio, there was impressive cutting edge journalism, such as this exchange
24:03on 5 News between a reporter and a mysterious flat screen faced cyborg.
24:08The boys looked absolutely beautiful on the front page.
24:11How important to Jade was it that they had a very happy day packed full of special memories?
24:19Oh, it was very important.
24:20They also repeatedly looped footage of her being wheeled to an ambulance, footage with
24:24a cheery watermark in the top right corner, marking it the property of Mr. Paparazzi,
24:28the brainchild of fatuous Mel Smith lookalike and almighty human arse cheek Darren Lyons,
24:33seen here on Sky News, giddily commenting on a comment of the sort of press coverage
24:36he's a part of.
24:37It's a superb read and I would love everyone to have a look at this today.
24:42And which I'm now commenting on.
24:44This whole thing is a crazy endless feedback loop.
24:47Of course, when the sad news actually arrived, it was broken dramatically live and we were
24:51treated to real time spalling footage from outside her house, which we were told was
24:55a perfectly acceptable thing to do.
24:56This is not any kind of intrusion.
24:59This was followed by a motive coverage of well-wishers leaving flowers.
25:02It has, in this corner of Essex, been a sombre Mother's Day.
25:07And the occasional talking head overstating her good points to a frankly embarrassing degree.
25:12I think for people, she's become a saint, a princess, an exemplar of biblical proportions.
25:18Yeah, she's the patron saint of celebrity perfume ranges.
25:22At the other extreme, many people were so enraged by what they saw as disproportionate
25:25eulogising of Jade, they bravely took to the internet message boards to vent their
25:30disproportionate fury.
25:31Well, let's take a look at some of these online messages in a feature we like to think of as
25:35the gallery of hate.
25:37Family going through the grieving process.
25:39They're just counting the money, says Muffin the Mule.
25:42He's used a pseudonym there because he's too scared to use his real name.
25:45While many overweight hysterical people will mourn this loss, I am mourning the loss of
25:49what was a great country sleepwalking into communism.
25:54Wise words there from Jay Hunt, disguised as idiocy.
25:57Paul from London says simply, this is the celebration of ignorance.
26:01Empty vessels make the most noise.
26:03Well, thanks for bothering to share your views, Paul.
26:06Why are we discussing the passing of a talentless, uneducated, attention-seeking racist bully
26:11whose only real legacy is to be responsible for the word minger becoming common speech?
26:17Devil's advocate there, talking about a deceased mother of two.
26:28Well, yes, I think you'll find they are Bert.
26:30Strong words from Steve Wright here.
26:32Leave it be, stick her in the ground, and let's all get on with our lives.
26:36Well, it's refreshing to see such spite.
26:39Horrid, though, these messages are.
26:40I think they're being left by people confused to the point of anger.
26:43And it's this cognitive dissonance that reminds me of Schrodinger's cat.
26:46Because in my head, at least, the whole Jade saga existed in two states at the same time.
26:51Because although the event itself was palpably real, the coverage felt palpably unreal.
26:56None of it seemed real.
26:57Not the gaudy tabloid front pages,
26:59not the garish ads for tribute magazines published before she'd even died.
27:03OK magazine, special tribute issue with wonderful memories of Jade.
27:07Out now.
27:08Not the constant appearances of Max Clifford
27:11looking like a man playing Alastair Darling in a cheap TV movie.
27:15Not the tributes from establishment figures who, let's be fair,
27:18were only answering questions they'd been asked by the press.
27:21In the end, Jade Goody died on the biggest reality show going.
27:24Not Big Brother or some living TV special, but the news.
27:27After all, with its jaunty titles and its easy hate figures,
27:31its selective storytelling and its stupid viewer votes,
27:34it's a hair's breadth from being a multi-platform I'm a Celebrity spin-off.
27:38In fact, all it needs next is a special live edition
27:40where Gordon Brown has to eat a witchety grub or something to win the next election.
27:44And then the circle's complete.
27:46And then just before the world ends,
27:48we can all enjoy a quick look back at some of our best bits.
27:52Yeah, well, that's about all we've got time for this evening.
27:56Go away.
28:06Next tonight, Rory McGuire's at the mercy of Marcus Brigstocke
28:09and he's wielding a pair of straightening irons.
28:12I've Never Seen Star Wars is here in just a few moments.