Choking on my Cornflakes
GMTV are really plumbing the depths. Their story on the family hounded out of a series of council estates because they have ginger hair was misguided and plain naïve.
I squirmed as the reporter listened intently to their stories of graffiti and abuse and how their young rascals can’t play outside safely. For two reasons.
Only one of them was a real ginger, even after I adjusted my set – and the neighbours were united in their view - that they were the family from hell.
Not the first time the newsroom has learnt to its cost that they may have got the angle slightly wrong. I was once bollocked when a news editor read my council-blamed-for-damp-house story and found a quote from the town hall claiming that they had a paraffin heater in every room and had blocked the air bricks to stop the draft.
It never made page 29, let alone national TV. Odd. That I could find it the Sky News site on but not on GMTV’s. Or maybe it’s not.
Anyway, I'm not alone in thinking a little old fashioned news judgement wouldn't have gone amiss.
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- Richard Burton
- I'm the former editor of telegraph.co.uk, a visiting lecturer at the University of Westminster, and a Fleet Street journalist of 25 years with Today, the Sunday Mirror and the Daily Telegraph. Until recently, I was managing editor of the Jewish Chronicle. I am now working as a publishing and PR consultant and freelance writer. My views here do not reflect those of any of those organisations.
1 comment:
You don't have to look far, even online, to find people who have more to say about the Chapmans than the colour of their hair.
What the story does show is the undeniable prejudice that exists, which can be used to garner sympathy when what's needed is a closer look at the back story.
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