Thread by @TwisterFilm

1./ Is the Russell Brand takedown a plot by the mainstream media? Of course not. In Plain Sight was a rigorously constructed and brilliantly made example of British current affairs documentary-making; in the finest tradition of @C4Dispatches.
1 of /12
channel4.com/programmes/rus…

2./ What conspiracy theorists fail to notice is those who come off worst in this coruscating investigation - other than Brand himself- are ...mainstream media organisations. The programme-makers fearlessly took on broadcasters they rely on for work, Channel 4 and the BBC.

3./ The script was also clear that both channels tried at first to ignore the investigation. Channel 4 execs then shifted, as broadcast approached, and lifted their game. By the time it was shown, the BBC pathetically had to apologise for still not dealing with its FOI requests.

4./ At its heart, the show was a searing criticism of how the television industry licensed Brand's alleged behaviour. The person who delivered this criticism wasn't some rebel outsider, but a legend in mainstream television, @laheggessey, the first female controller of BBC One.

5./ I think we safely assume that Lorraine, who rose through the ranks in the 1980s and 90s, was speaking from the heart when she complained about the way alleged male harassment of female staff, especially junior employees, was not taken seriously on set.

6./ When self-styled media rebels like @GBNEWS or @elonmusk allow programme-makers to take on their alleged faults like this, they will have earned the right to consider themselves the journalistic equal of fearless British television at its best. Until then... not so much.

7./ The joke is that a character as incoherent as Brand could be seen as a genuine rebel. Or a threat to anyone in power. This review of his ludicrous book, Revolution, fawned over by the cretinous Owen Jones, by @DAaronovitch remains the last word on it.
thetimes.co.uk/article/revolu…

8./ He compares Brand's prescriptions for change to "sub-Yoko mysticana". Take this garbage: "If you can transcend the limits of the instinctual and anatomical self, you can become part of a kingdom of unified consciousness defined by power, glory and eternity.”
Oh give over.

9./ So who is really to blame for the rise of a charlatan like Brand? There's perhaps a clue in a brief conversation I had with Lorraine Heggessy in the mid 90s. I was a lowly researcher at the BBC, when Lorraine ran the series, QED, in the Science Department.

10./ At the time she was one of a small group of formidable women in that Department who went on to transform the BBC, like Susan Spindler, Emma Swain and the late and much-loved Jana Bennett. I went to see Lorraine to pitch an idea for a QED. It did not go well.

11./ After I pitched what I thought was my brilliant idea, she paused, looked into my eyes with all the sympathy she could muster, and asked, "who on earth would want to watch this?" She was right and that's the issue here. Who wanted to watch Brand? We did. Or lots of us did.

12./ TV is driven by ratings, like so much of the "capitalism" Brand claims to despise; and Brand rated. The sad truth is audiences are drawn to clowns who have the gift of the gab. It's an addiction television needs to overcome. For, as we know now, this addiction has victims.