When there are so many more serious things going on in the world, it is oddly reassuring how people are still interested in the petty politics of day time TV. Probably because issues such as climate change, global recession, mass gun killings, AI destroying the world, are rather overwhelming. TV is small fry and soap opera even more so when the characters are allegedly 'real'. There is nothing real about television. Tell - lies - vision after all shows us in plain sight we are complicit in an illusion these presenters are our friends, whom we know and like and relate. We do not know them. They do not know us. They are as connected to us as royalty and politicians. In other words, they are not, they are simply paid handsomely to convince us they are.
Top of the 'empathy' pile are those who work on day time TV, but it is these same folk who tend to be the most ruthless, nastiest pieces of work in the industry. Ive been told this by many people over the years, who worked in the industry in front of and behind the camera, at all times of the day, and told me those whom appear the loveliest tend to be the exact opposite. These shining firmaments of goodliness are allegedly the most malignant, malevolent to those who work with them. I've always thought it must be the pressure of appearing so calm and lovely all the time.
I have been interviewed a few times on morning and daytime TV. This was some decades ago, and even then I heard how one presenter had a long standing, wide spread reputation of being an utterly shitty human being - treating everyone who they didn't consider their equal or above their pay grade like a serf. I was interviewed by them a few times.
There was another presenter on morning TV who also had a reputation for being lovely who I also found was the antithesis of how they wished to appear.
It is not so much day time TV is not a happy place to work, it is more to do with so many people want to work on it, so they put up with appalling behaviour in order to maintain the status quo. There is a degree of ruthlessness in daytime TV presenters more akin to the characters on a FX trading desk than a smiling happy clappy place where everyone feigns kindness and empathy. They protect a brand of integrity and honesty, but that is what it is - a brand. At least on a trading floor you are able to be your money fixated self.
When I met them, I liked Ferne Britton and I liked Eammon Holmes. They are too long in the tooth to care about what those in TV will or won't do to them. The rest care, and that makes them easy to manipulate and to buy.
The final denouement came with Nadine Dorries talked about Schofield abusing 'authority, power and trust', and I thought she was talking about her mate Boris Johnson.
TV land is a microcosm of politics, everyone pretending to be something they are not, wanting to maintain a brand so they maintain and enhance their viewing and voting figures. They are liars - playing a part - or actors, which sounds so much more acceptable doesn't it. They all lie big, huge, massive. All of them. And we, the viewer and the voter are complicit in the lie. I watched PS being interviewed. Presenters do have influence on contributors, so they are able to get people moved if they so wish. Whether they chose to use it or not is another matter, but I know it does and has happened.
The media are relentless, but I remember having lunch with a senior tabloid newspaper editor once who said the most he regretted in life was causing the death of someone who they had written about. This person wasn't famous, and this editor had no doubt he - he was a reporter at the time - had triggered the death. His editors argued that the person was vulnerable anyway, in which case they should have taken that into account. PS has put himself in the spotlight and is aware of the consequences of doing so. If you accept the acclaim you accept everything else. I am told he thinks he will be spat at. That says more about the people who choose to do so than it does about him, but it also reflects a all embracing self pity that fails to recognise why people dislike him - and that is unconnected with the runner incident but is connected to his behaviour towards them and others.
He is also aware of the consequences of lying. He has interviewed enough of them over the years to identify the repercussions, but perhaps it is always a case of feeling you have risen too high to fall. Some in society do appear to have reached that level.
PS knows how to play the media, he has had decades of experience, and the 'hate' may have been generated by years of people who feel they have been mistreated by him. What's that comment 'don't kick people on the way up coz they will kick you on the way down'. The hate may just be the kicking PS has given to others on the way up, which has nothing to do with this particular incident, but to do with the arrogance which allowed him to believe he could get away with it. I don't know. Person who is free from sin, throw the first stone and all that, as one of his colleagues said. Although I doubt any one in that world abides by that rule. We have become a culture of stone throwers, encouraged by the media, politician, even religion, actually especially religion, to do so. I've done it in the past, feeling they've given me the stones to throw. There must be a lot of other day time presenters who are concerned they will receive the same treatment when their star falls. If PS knows how to play the media he knows how to play the audience. He's not a victim of hate. He is a victim of his own narcissism and conceit. The upside is that he knows his daughters love him unconditionally. They are the important and innocent ones as well. To be loved unconditionally sustains when you feel there is nothing left. And he isn't poor.
As for watching daytime TV, decide to vote in the only way the Exec producers and the presenters understand. Best to turn off and, as that BBC1 Saturday morning show would tell me every week, when I was a teenager, 'Why don't you just turn off your TV and do something much more interesting instead'....
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