Scandals have a tendency to be unsavoury and unpleasant.
There are people with an axe to grind, because they are not nice people and there are people with an axe to grind because of genuine injustice.
GB news tends to straddle both. It's ukip TV and I won't watch it.
HOWEVER like ukip it tends to tap into the disaffected public - and as we found out from Brexit you should ignore that at your peril. They are the void where shit turns up.
You have people who turn to ukip and GB news because normal channels / politicians find the subject matter difficult and awkward. It's the stuff that genuinely nasty or the stuff that's swept under the table for convenience by people who don't want to tackle it.
And there's your issue. If you don't tackle the swept under the carpet shit, you leave those people open to exploitation by the nasty shitty bigots politically because other people have failed to do their jobs properly. That what ukip would do, tack a genuine injustice onto them and twist it so people believed it's cause was something incorrect. That's why and how you end up with conspiracy theories too. A lack of trust in normally reputable authorities.
This story is a classic example of that.
ITV have failed in their duty of care and everything screams both from obvious evidence (awards ceremonies) and testimonies of numerous individuals that ITV didn't investigate properly in line with duty of care. By Schofield's own admission he acted in an inappropriate way.
The story strikes a chord with the public because it's about abuse of power in the work place. Which they know and recognise. They know the power involved failed cos it's so bleedingly obvious. It's a 'how many fingers am I holding up Winston' going on from ITV.
How do you solve it? How do you stop Eamonn and Phil going at each other indefinitely with Holly doing a massive sod story to save her own skin?
You put pressure on for a full proper inquiry and you axe the show (cos your advertisers and guests won't go near it anyway). And ITV are resisting that. And the only reason that makes sense to continue that position is there's a problem ITV want to cover up. ITV can choose to bring in independent investigator to root out the scandal or they can watch whilst a bunch of conspiracy theories get popular appeal and damage their reputation (and advertising revenues) because they will blow up even bigger than the reality of what happened. That's now their choice.
I don't like various media outlets but one of the key things I was taught studying media was to be fully aware of what was being said across the board because that might set political and moral agendas, because sometimes they might tap into something important and worthwhile that no one else will touch and because it stops you slipping into your own echo chamber of arrogant belief. Again, you ignore them at your peril.
Eamonn isn't a nice bloke but what he's saying is lining up with what others - including Schofield himself are saying and with the evidence available. To ignore this is foolish. To take with a huge dollop of salt is wise.
The truth lies within the area where there is the greatest balance of probabilities and there's a definite issue here that needs to be addressed properly away from social and red top bickering.
Where are the grown ups in the room to facilitate this? ITV need to step up and recognise the problem instead of trying to double down on a position that is increasingly untenable.