EVERY little while the story is “interrupted”.
My phone will ring relentlessly as friends, family, celebrities, industry guys and, once, a minor royal all demand a quick update.
The unceremonious dismissal of Jermaine Jenas by the BBC is one such story. (Phillip Schofield’s “I’m not a groomer”/frantic vaping interview; Matt “hands, face, space” Hancock; Huw Edwards being a pedophile; and, bizarrely, Molly-Mae Hague unhooking Tommy Fury, are others.)
Maybe because Match Of The Day, one of the shows he won’t be appearing on again, is a national institution.
And The One Show, a fluffy magazine-style entertainment program, covers the basics for football haters.
Whatever your television interests, it was hard to escape Jermaine Jenas.
You’ll be lucky to find it anywhere today. Because in a very W1A way, the aunt has completely failed.
First, a huge mural in Manchester’s Media City, featuring Jermaine alongside other BBC Sport stars including Gary Lineker and Alex Scott, was hastily removed.
And today he’s finally gone from the official One Show homepage, no longer shining alongside Alex Jones and Roman Kemp. Instead, replaced with a generic program logo.
(Probably some runner somewhere feverishly wants to replace said logo with a livelier photo of Alex Jones with someone, ANYONE, else).
The Corporation is now said to be busily combing through the archives, removing bits and pieces of Jermaine at random.
Probably not the parts his poor wife wants the RN to remove, but still.
This seems like an extreme, knee-jerk and unnecessary thrashing from the history of a man who sent some dodgy sexts.
As Jermaine himself said on Friday, he did not break any laws. I was conducting the interview and he was obviously still in shock.
Rattling, crying and a bit shaky. The sun did not pay him.
And he could hide behind a bland statement on social networks or make a contrite contribution in front of the camera on Instagram.
One where he wouldn’t be asked, on the record, if he broke the law by “sending any kind of whore image.”
No, he insisted, calmly answering the mildly humiliating question.
He refuses to hide from his mistakes. But the BBC is hiding it.
By erasing the former England player from her history books, they are effectively putting him in the same moralistic camp as the other two erased men — Jimmy Savile and Huw Edwards.
Two real pedophiles who were honored, promoted and overpaid for a long time. Indeed, Edwards was given a raise and kept on the payroll for months after his arrest for indecent images of children.
In fact, the newsreader’s announcement of Queen Elizabeth II’s death remains available for all to see, considered, as it is, a matter of historical and cultural significance.
While Jermaine’s insightful analysis of Bournemouth’s dubious back four is unlikely to be so for posterity, nor is it likely to offend or spoil.
Unless, perhaps, you’re one quarter of Bournemouth FC’s redoubtable back four. As one commentator noted, the BBC is suffering from severe Edwards PTSD – and Jermaine is clearly the culprit.
To be clear, what he did was wrong. Not only morally, but also professionally. Only a fool or serial philanderer would disagree.
But until recently, time and time again, BBC stars got away with such bad behavior with a mere slap on the wrist. It’s not a P45.
What the BBC is doing now, erasing Jermaine from history, smacks of something Kim Jong Un and his state cronies would do. Not the so-called liberal left.
It also sets a frightening precedent.
And surely there are plenty of famous people who live in fear that their every misdeed will come back to haunt them.
One inappropriate WhatsApp screenshot and posted online, one drunken, flirtatious comment to a colleague.
But in the wake of the Huw Edwards scandal and Strictly Come Dancing – with a seemingly endless misconduct investigation continuing into the latter – the BBC simply cannot afford another misstep.
In the case of Jermaine, they were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t.
They played it safe, and maybe something else will emerge that will fully confirm their decision.
Whatever the truth about his dismissal, the way he went about it was mildly chaotic.
An internal memo confirming his departure was sent after The Sun published the story,
And now the star’s lawyers have sent legal letters to the Beeb, threatening legal action.
Either way, this is a cancellation culture. And these are troubling times for the entertainment industry in general.
Categories: Optical Illusion
Source: HIS Education