The ‘naive cynicism’ of Russell Brand’s hasty defenders 

I can’t imagine that Channel 4’s investigative slot Dispatches has had such an audience in living memory. On Saturday evening, many thousands of people who seldom if ever watch terrestrial television – I was one of them – will have tuned in at 9pm, just like the old days, to watch a conventional broadcast. Most of these people will already have known the substance of what was in the programme, because it was a joint investigation with a good-old-fashioned newspaper – whose version of the story was published a few hours earlier and was eagerly and widely read online. Quite a moment for the so-called ‘legacy media’.

The gist of the reports, if any readers of Coffee House have managed to remain sheltered from them, is that the comedian turned ‘wellness guru’ Russell Brand has been accused of a range of offences – which he vehemently denies – from sexual assault and emotional abuse to rape, by women who had dealings with him in the Noughties.