Residents in Grimsby are rising up against Channel 4’s attempts to cast them as the subjects of its next documentary series on the poor – a television genre that has been dubbed “poverty porn”.
Camera crews from the producers of controversial series Skint have been scouting and “test filming” on Grimsby’s Nunsthorpe estate since before Christmas. The first series of Skint last year caused great upset in nearby Scunthorpe, where drug users and benefits claimants were filmed on the town’s Westcliff estate.
Since then Channel 4 has caused uproar with its portrayal of Birmingham’s James Turner Street in the series Benefits Street, which has been the subject of hundreds of complaints to the media regulator Ofcom but has been a ratings success for the broadcaster.*
More than 500 people have signed a petition calling for the camera crews not to film in Grimsby. “We do not want these shows filmed in the area,” the petition reads. “…especially when the town is working hard to bring jobs to the area”.
Austin Mitchell, MP for Great Grimsby, said he was writing to Channel 4 to complain. “...This is turning the poor into objects of entertainment. I think Channel 4 has gone mad – we have now got Benefits Street and Skint. It used to be an innovative, liberal and human channel and now they are just exploiting the poor.”
After the first four-part series of Skint, Nic Dakin, MP for Scunthorpe, wrote in complaint to Channel 4. “This is not a documentary it is an 'I’m a Celebrity' type programme. It is a particularly poor piece of television and does not represent the area accurately at all,” he told BBC Radio Humberside.
...Among Grimsby residents contacted by the film crew from production company KEO films was Cath Homewood, who runs the Grimsby Food Kitchen. “They came in to our annual buffet and interviewed us, but I told them from the start that I have nothing negative to say,” she said. “I think they were amazed that we had 140 people here and not one of them was drunk or badly behaved, but they probably don’t think that will make good TV.”
Yes, that's right, I am thinking this is a parallel of how major sections of Israel's media treats solid, basic Zionist stories, reality and accomplishments and in particular, the residents of Judea and Samaria/YESHA.
In YESHA there are schools, industries, social welfare projects, immigration absorption, agriculture, volunteerism, contribution to society through National Service, security-related issues, redemption of the Land and more but the media, in much too many instances, relates to all this, and more, in a fashion that, based on the above, I would term: Zionist porn (If you comprehend Hebrew, you've seen this?).
And add to that the bias.
____________
*
Note:
Steve Chalke, executive chairman of the charity that manages Oasis Academy Foundry on James Turner Street, and a nearby primary school...questioned whether..."Channel 4 considered all the legal and pastoral implications of showing what will be an historical situation and reopening a sensitive situation?" he also asked in the letter.
Justifying his concerns, Chalke wrote that Benefits Street had already had "a considerable negative impact" on Oasis Academy Foundary pupils.
"Some of them are currently afraid to play outside … for fear of being heckled by the stream of tourists posing by the road sign against our school wall," he said.
He added that some children had not attended school since the disruption prompted by the Channel 4 documentary, which he claimed had included "tourists cruising the street in cars" heckling and shouting abuse, and journalists and cameramen "intruding into the lives of residents".
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