Push duly came to shove as Mr Angel Cake Frangipane, or whatever the head man at GB News calls himself, intervened and suspended Wootton too. This was excellent spectator sport, but another question soon entered: would the suspended two just get let back onto the airwaves? Or would one or other of them get the boot? It looked like Fox would fall into the latter category.
So what of Desperate Dan? Despite much of the media class closing ranks and trying to shut down discussion of the subject - SNP MP John Nicolson tried to raise the point on the Radio 4 PM Programme and was told by host Evan Davis “we’ll leave it there” - Wootton’s future has certainly been discussed by a further instalment of the Byline Times investigation.
Following their Twitter feed noting “Recurrent from the BBC whenever Byline Times reported into Media Islamophobia, Russian interference, Brexit Party Paypal Funding, Dodgy PPE procurement, Herd Immunity Covid Negligence, Vote Leave Law Breaking, Hedge Fund Market Abuse, Tufton Street …”, has come the headline “This is a Network Problem”. How so?
“GB News’ chief executive Angelos Frangopoulos wrote to staff this afternoon announcing the suspension and promising to 'investigate the comments made on air by Laurence Fox last night'”. Why? “Byline Times understands that it was the threat of ‘staff insurrection’ over how Wootton, the show’s executive editor, handled the segment - and the apparent mocking of production staff (per Fox’s tweets) - which led to Wootton’s suspension”.
There was more. “Employees have painted a picture of a ‘rudderless’ organisation that has lost hundreds of experienced journalists in the past two years, driven out by ‘presenter power’ and a management team which refuses to listen to their warnings about potential breaches of the Ofcom code, and which is now has a staff heavy with ‘uni leavers and ideologues’”.
And yet more. “GB News has claimed it doesn’t have a toxic workplace culture. But the latest incident - which GB News insists does not ‘reflect our values’ - could lead the news channel facing yet another Ofcom investigation, adding to the 11 currently active, on top of three others the regulator has previously upheld against the troubled network”. If, of course, Ofcom acts.
The problem for Ofcom is that it has previously depended on the good faith of those it regulates. GB News appears otherwise: certainly, those prepared to shill for the channel and simultaneously smear Ava-Santina Evans are the lowest form of bad faith actors, misrepresenting what she had said, indeed, lying about her in return for inflated appearance fees.
Which is most revealing: we see here the desperation of GB News to get its critics to look elsewhere, anywhere, rather than home in on the misbehaviour of Dan Wootton, who was on a £600,000 a year deal with them. But look elsewhere they will not, not this time. The only way the broadcaster will clear the air - and clean up its image - includes sacking the SOB.
Mail Online has sacked him. GB News is next. Just rejoice at that news.
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What becomes clear over time is how many organisations on, shall we say, the right are more often than not fun and games larks for the lads - a jolly boys' outing where all too often the assumption that someone else will do the actual work is rather misplaced. Just as they were at university, everything's a big joke and can be smoothed over with a quick call to daddy's lawyer. Or indeed, daddy phoning the college master.
ReplyDeleteMedia outlets strip budgets and rely more on a few big names to provide commentary, their 'star quality' seen as enough to keep the punters hooked. Demagogues take power and fire/remove anyone who disagrees with them (who tend to be the people who actually keep things working), replacing them with toadies, then wonder why nothing goes to plan. When the only qualification that matters appears to be loyalty, or being one of the gang, you can guarantee things will fall apart sooner rather than later.
Sadly, when they do combust, we tend to be standing underneath.
"...a network problem..." my arse.
ReplyDeleteScum like Wooton and Fox are the tiniest of tiny symptoms of a cultural disease eating its way through what remains of Western Civilisation.
Once they're gone they'll be replaced by similar. Initially relatively subdued, but then reverting to type.
Dry rot of the soul. See Spengler's Decline of the West written over a century ago.
What do Fox tweet to throw Wooton under the bus?
ReplyDeleteSenior newsroom sources have said Frangopoulos ignored warnings … that … Fox and Wootton was ‘an accident waiting to happen’”.
ReplyDeleteCar crash. Not an accident.
The odious bigot Nigel Farage inevitably leapt to the defence of cons pricy peddler Russel Brand. He suggested the allegations stacking up against him are part of a wider conspiracy to silence him. All because he angered ''the elite''.
ReplyDeleteOrdinarily he'd leap to the defence of the equally loathsome Wooton and Fox. Except he can't. Because he'd have to claim his employer GBN was acting on behalf of those dastardly "elites"!