Everyone's so tired of feeling powerless, of feeling hopeless, of feeling like there's nothing we can do to stop what the government does or fails to do.
There's been too much for too long.
So much dishonesty, so much shamelessness, so little integrity or decency, so much that is self serving, careless and disregarding. It feels like there's nothing we can do to hold them to account. It feels like there's no way to make them take responsibility - that they can always duck, dive and slip away from being scrutinised. That they can do what they like.
Slippery, evasive and so shoddy. It's depressing.
But we are not powerless and
Channel 4 is not theirs to sell.
Channel 4's remit is to cultivate the risk taking needed for creativity to thrive; its job is to support new talent and fresh bold voices; to nurture the energy and innovation that produces original and exciting programming. Its remit means voices that would be unrepresented are given a platform. Voices from all over the country.
Their independence means they can give oxygen to productions that wouldn't see the light of day if advertising revenue, shareholders and profit were the guiding principle.
The news and current affairs programmes on Channel 4 - independent of the agendas of power, greed, control - are able to hold politicians up to scrutiny and properly to account. Whether that's in relation to Grenfell, Cambridge Analytica, Partygate or any of the other countless failures of justice and accountability.
How can we hope to have a properly functioning democracy if our news programmes are controlled by the agendas of shareholders, the rich, the powerful - who wish to protect their interests and not to be challenged?
What sort of democracy is it if news can be defunded, its oxygen taken away, if it doesn't serve those in power?
It's the job of journalism to hold power to account.
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We've made a great start!
thank you