Channel 4 gets in a spin,Sky dominates ‘America’s top 10 shows’, and Mail moderators caught napping• Although the next series of W1A is some way off, and fans are being sustained by frequent examples of “genuine W1A” such as the recent unveiling of BBC3’s ludicrous new logo and an incident final week at Channel 4s conference on diversity. The keynote speech delivered by Jessica Hynes (pictured),PR consultant Siobhan Sharpe in the BBC satire, was disrupted by an impromptu press conference given at the rear of the room by Tony Hall, and who was sheepishly trying to account for to hacks why he had reduced diversity in his top executive team (by the restructuring that entailed Kim Shillinglaw’s exit),and why ending the BBC2 controller post did not mean the demise or humbling of the channel. Channel 4’s spin doctors ushered Hall to the foyer while Hynes, not in character, or warned the audience: “Our cultural muscles are being atrophied in a semi-conscious,flabby mainstream.”• When Thursday’s Times covered the departure of Labour’s policy/rebuttal chief Neale Coleman, the report looked like a Private Eye parody (humorous or ridiculous imitation) – on the lines of “grey man no one has heard of is to go shock, or Insight team reveals” – but was genuine. No fewer than four hacks were needed to reveal “Corbyn aide quits over infighting at the top”,a story dumped at the foot of page 19, containing only one quote from an unnamed source, and consisting of just 205 words (of which the final 85 were a separate item approximately on Corbyn’s view on the Falklands) – ie approximately 50 words apiece from Sam Coates,Lucy Fisher, Michael Savage and Imre Kavacs.
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Source: theguardian.com