The story on ACA on Tuesday night showing Gordon Ramsay being fouled-mouthed and obnoxious at GTV 9 before last Friday’s interview raises a couple of questions for the sainted Tracy Grimshaw.
Why was it shot in the first place? The normal procedure is that guests roll up, go to security/reception, make up and then to where the interview is to be conducted. It’s a time honoured ritual. It is very, very unusual to have a camera following a guest through a TV station into make up etc. That has not been explained. Was Nine planning to do another story/ interview with Ramsay ‘uncut’ as a sort of blokey PR story?
Can Grimshaw and her bosses explain if they would have used his swearing and obnoxious behaviour in a story that was critical of him? If this is the case, the footage was part of an ambush to make him look bad.
Gordon Ramsay would not have allowed the camera to follow him without knowing why the material was being gathered. He’s too media savvy not to demand an explanation, and if he didn’t like it, to threaten to walk, or walk out.
On the face of it there seems to have been another motive here for gathering that footage. It rebounded against Ramsay because of his weekend outburst, which Nine, Ms Grimshaw and ACA would not have known was coming. Or did they?
The footage recalls a key part of the Matthew Johns story: the disclosure by Nine sports reporter, Danny Wiedler that he knew of the events in Christchurch in 2002 involving Johns and other Cronulla players and had known for several years, but never reported it. He had the story, but did nothing and around 6pm on Friday evening, ACA had a story showing Gordon Ramsay abusing people who were in his line of fire, for no reason, except that its part of his persona.
Why wasn’t that used on Friday night, or Monday if Friday was too hard for the dears at ACA wanting an early night? If Ramsay had not abused Ms Grimshaw on the weekend in Melbourne, would Friday night’s vision been broadcast on ACA on Tuesday evening? It was a news story in its own right. It did show Mr Ramsay being offensive to many people. I think we haven’t had the full yarn, yet
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