Media regulator Ofcom has rapped Channel 4 across the knuckles for its handling of the racism row that engulfed Celebrity Big Brother earlier this year.
Ofcom says that Channel 4 made "serious editorial misjudgements" in its handling of specific incidents involving Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, pig woman Jade Goody, brain void Danielle Lloyd, and the human equivalent of a toilet, Jo O'Meara .
Naughty Channel 4 broadcasting the behaviour of the people locked up in the house. Big Brother is reality TV trash, how could it let all that nasty racism and xenophobia spill over into our vacuous lives!
It's the old "PC gone mad" argument again - God forbid that television actually reflect what's going on the real world. Why is Ofcom reprimanding Channel 4, exactly? For allowing the racist bullying to go on? For broadcasting it? Surely this is exactly what it should do. Goody et al actively persecuted Shetty, mirroring the conduct of their ilk in the real world, so why shouldn't they show it? In fact, had they edited the footage, only for it to leak out later on, the media would be screaming "cover-up" from the rooftops - or redtops. Had they not screened the footage, or warned the instigators earlier, would that not make them complicit in a cover-up. Wouldn't they then be protecting the cheap reputations of these z-list celebs?
Genuine racism exists, and here in Britain there's an unhealthy denial about it. Props to Channel 4 and Big Brother for airing the dirty laundry - even if the real motivation was publicity and ratings...
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