The Plight of John & Ashley

You know what really grinds my gears? (What’s that? You love my Peter Griffin impression? Why, thank you!) The travesty of justice that was John & Ashley’s trial by media last year.

After they were ejected from the Big Brother House 10 months ago, the media took the view that what they’d done — turkey-slap fellow housemate Camilla — was tantamount to sexual assault and that they should count themselves lucky no Police charges had been brought. And they were hung out to dry.

Now you’d think that, given where it took place, working out what had actually happened would be as easy as rolling the tape. But Network 10 wouldn’t release the footage. This was very odd behaviour, because they had already streamed it live around the world on the internet. A few sites posted copies of the clip of the incident, but Network 10 worked quickly to use copyright laws to have them pulled.

This left fans speculating wildly on the whole incident, many taking the media view and vilifying John & Ashley. But views quickly started to change as people — mainly gens X & Y — tracked down and watched the clip. This seemed to leave the majority of older people in the ‘hate BB’ and ‘vilify J & A’ camps and most younger people in the ‘BB is OK’ and ‘it was just harmless fun’ camps. And a couple of weeks ago, the Chaser Team took a swing at Channel 7’s Today Tonight, which had put up pics of John & Ashley (real names Michael & Michael) side by side and used graphics to ‘stamp’ the word “LOSER” onto them.

But on Monday’s Difference of Opinion (a show The Guru normally steers clear of) BB05 Housemate Tim Brunero, a journalist who blogs for The Chaser Team, proved that you can be a well-informed, open-minded gen-Xer and still not have your ‘Turkey-gate’ facts straight. He brought up the incident, and described John & Ashley’s behaviour as “inappropriate”. The Guru is disappointed, Tim...


Links: The Guru sets the record straight in The Truth about Turkey-gate.