Green Party LGBT News

Schools Out speaks out on broadcast bullying	1 November 2008
Summary Schools Out co chair Tony Fenwick today hit out at the BBC for encouraging a culture which led to Russell Brand's broadcast harassment of Andrew Sachs and his family.

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Schools Out co chair Tony Fenwick today hit out at the BBC for encouraging a culture which led to Russell Brand's broadcast harassment of Andrew Sachs and his family:

'Now that the press rats are gnawing at the bones that were the radio careers of Russell Brand (he'll be back; they always took Kenny Everett back after sacking him), Jonathan Ross and Lesley Douglas, I think it's time for a little sober reflection.

'Brand's and Ross's behaviour was sexist and harmful. It was an interesting social experiment in that it showed us what can happen when two men with an agenda to be controversial are put together to plot in a studio. They come up with a means to bully and intimidate. They bully and intimidate an elderly man by making allegations about his granddaughter's sexual past. She comes out of it with her reputation tarnished and Brand comes out of it with his reputation as a Lothario enhanced. Only this time it didn't go according to plan.

'It's these two men's profession to be controversial. That's how they make their living and the BBC (and Channel 4) contract them to be so. They also broadcast programmes such as The Apprentice and The F-Word where people are sworn at, destroyed and sometimes reduced to floods of tears in front of the camera. Brand and Ross are guilty of bullying and harassment. But in permitting this frightful behaviour the BBC has made that bullying and harassment institutional, as if it were an acceptable part of our culture. It is not and we should not put up with it.

'School's OUT believes that bullying and harassment are never acceptable and that their prevalence on the TV and radio is pernicious. How can we teach our children that it's wrong to bully when they see their role models doing it on the telly? We would like to think that the Brand/Ross episode is the final straw and will bring about a reassessment of the values held by the broadcasting media and the prevailing culture. It's never too late.'

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