Maybe it’s a case of Any Port In A Storm. I’ll just leave that one there.
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Monday 24 January 2022
Brillo Channel 4 Hypocrisy
After his ignominious departure from Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”), former Murdoch editor Andrew Neil faced a dilemma. Who would take him on, given his effective failure at GB News, and indeed his age? The suggestions, not all of them helpful, were not long in arriving. But one broadcaster, it seems, was a no-no.
And that broadcaster was Channel 4: Brillo wasn’t about to entertain that lot, and said so - more than once. As far back as 2013, he was passing severely adverse comment upon the channel’s output: “Looking at Channel 4 schedules has it just become one big freak show (bar excellent C4News)? Doesn't it have public service obligations?”
By the following year, when someone on Channel 4’s Gogglebox called Brillo “a smug little twat”, he simply responded “What's Channel 4?” And when it came to the short-lived Andrew Neil Show on BBC2, this merely presented him with another opportunity to put the boot in. “Another 800,000+ for the Andrew Neil Show last night on BBC2, well over 100,000 more than Channel 4 News or Peston. But 1m would be better!”
This was not an isolated occurrence. Two weeks after that last snark came “Another 900,000 for the Andrew Neil Show last night (not counting catch up, iPlayer) - a comfortable 300,000 ahead of Channel 4 News. But not happy till we break that 1m mark!” A few weeks later came “The Andrew Neil Show on BBC2 was watched by over 900,000 last Wednesday, well above any other current affairs show on any channel that night. And several hundred thousand ahead of Channel 4 News”. Then came accusations of bias.
After all, Channel 4 was just a hotbed of Rotten Lefties™, wasn’t it? So after former BBC man and career Tory Brexiteer Robbie Gibb had been given a platform by the Mail to sneer “To me, it came as no surprise that the Prime Minister decided not to give an interview to Matt Frei of Channel 4 News at the G7 Summit in Biarritz at the weekend” after someone at the broadcaster had deemed it acceptable to call Bozo a “known liar” (possibly because our alleged Prime Minister is a known liar), there was Brillo Tweeting it on.
As recently as August 2020, after one Tweeter asked The Great Man “would you not consider Channel 4, they do at least give the illusion of trying to hold people to account”, he was dismissiveness personified. “Channel 4 is basically the broadcast arm of the Guardian. Don’t think they’d have much interest in me”. So that’s that, is it?
Well, no it isn’t: Louisa Compton, who is Head of News and Current Affairs and Specialist Factual and Sport at Channel 4 (multitasking, much?) has this morning announced “Delighted to announce that [Andrew Neil] is fronting a new documentary investigating the current turmoil in the Conservative party. ‘Boris Johnson: Has He Run Out of Road?’ will air on [Channel 4] and [All 4] on January 30 at 7pm”. Well, well.
This is not Brillo’s first Channel 4 excursion - he grilled the infamous Jimmy Savile for the broadcaster in the mid-90s - but given his clear disdain for the channel, and the impression that he has suggested it to be biased to the mythical metropolitan left (“broadcast arm of the Guardian”), one would think he’d avoid it like the plague. If he had a choice.
Maybe it’s a case of Any Port In A Storm. I’ll just leave that one there.
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Maybe it’s a case of Any Port In A Storm. I’ll just leave that one there.
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9 comments:
That pic just about sums him up. I seem to recall his doing that when interviewing Alec Jones of pirate channel fame. (Fame?).
Anyone who thinks C4"News" is "liberal" would do themselves a favour by analysing the "foreign reporting", career and activities of Lindsey Hilsum, plus the lower apparatchiks Rugman and Miller. She and they are just tin drummers for the warmongering homicidal maniacs in Britain and the USA. An appalling clique of far right propaganda clerks.
And then there's the "liberal" Jon Snow and Matt Frei, both of them fully indoctrinated by lengthy spells as "Our America correspondents".
Narcissistic Snow, of course, now retired in clown socks and ties to contemplate his on-air claim that "London is a blessed place". Maybe even to remember his bullshit to Anna Ford that "...the provinces are the potting sheds of London". So much for HIS "liberalism".
Replacement Frei (as forecast, Guru-Murthy is out of the running as front man) is a standard issue careerist media righty. Like virtually all media "journalists" an opportunist journeyman who knows how to step carefully on the career ladder.
Occasionally, C4"News" actually does its job of fair reporting and even trying to hold political thugs and thieves to account. This is an almost extinct activity in British media. Naturally it has drawn the hatred of a tory party which long ago crossed over to far right insanity. That, plus the public funding financial model. To say nothing of sporadic scatty documentaries showing steep cultural decline in British society.
Inevitably, Neil, a mere far right fat greasy Murdochised thug and gobshite, has joined with other tory boot boy cowards in attacking a C4 which is essentially as politically harmless as the BBC.
Thus demonstrating yet again how the political establishment and its media has created a nightmare shit hole of a country.
Neil?....Pffffttt....A poison boil leaking on the arsehole of a leper.
Andrew came to see one of my plays in Chichester once and was a lovely conversationalist.
His dissemination of Corbyn was superb and I welcome anywhere that gives him a home, one a little better furnished than GB News.
Don't know the time line for C4 relocation to Leeds or whether its news bit is also moving. But it'll be interesting to see what happens to staff and presenters. After all, none of them are used to "working" long term outside the London Delusion. Relocation is one more reason for the Bullingdon Gang to hate C4 - it might trigger another treacherous Pilgrimage Of Grace.
@Mark Hayhurst.
Of course he did. If your plays reflect the general poor standards of your contributions here, I'm sure he would have enjoyed it immensely.
What would Sir Robbie Gibb know about impartiality? Knighted for his services to the Tory Party. He had a long career as a broadcast journalist in BBC News - he was head of BBC Westminster and Editor of Live Political Programmes, as well as Deputy Editor of BBC Two’s Newsnight. He left the BBC in 2017 to become Director of Communications at No10 Downing Street, stepping down in 2019. He also previously worked as an Editorial Advisor to GB News, until October 2020. Sir Robbie now works as a senior communications adviser at Kekst CNC and is a Director of the Jewish Chronicle newspaper for which he led a consortium buy out, and fond positions of influence of stoking antisemitism claims against anyone of the left found critical of Israel. He is now a trustee member of the BBC's Board member of the BBC's Board.
Anonymous's attacks on Lindsey Hilsum is a foaming at the mouth tirade that springs from some conspiratorial mind and is nasty and plain wrong. Rugman has done some very good and brave reporting unlike our not very brave 'anonymous'.
It opened its new HQ in Leeds in September.
@21:39
Your remark is in very poor taste and I'm sure that Andrew has an excellent cultural appetite.
Easy to criticise and all that.
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