The Django Unchained director's lack of interest in the gun-control debate was typical of a broadcasting culture where marketing always seems to come first
You may admire Krishnan Guru-Murthy's dogged Channel 4 News pursuit of Quentin Tarantino over movie gun violence, but you must also pause over Tarantino's grumpy response. I'm not here to debate all this Newtown stuff, snarled the would-be director of Kill Krish 1. "I'm here to sell my movie." And that, in TV world, is the gospel, all-pervasive truth. You have something – a movie, a record, even a new TV show – to sell, and cameras roll in the most unlikely newsroom places. Once upon a distant, Reithian time, public service broadcasting meant never plugging anything explicitly. Now chat show after show from Graham Norton on down arrives stiff with non-subliminal ads and one old refrain is never heard. Why am I here debating all this tedious stuff? I haven't got anything to plug.
■ Barack Obama's official response to the 100,000 or so angry gun-lobby petitioners who want Piers Morgan sent back to Britain is clever and crisp. "Let's not let arguments over the constitution's second amendment violate the spirit of the first." Thus the fickle finger of fate swings again, with Piers as a Time Lord of Liberty. Memo to Morgan detractors: you can't keep the bouncing boy down, here, there or anywhere.
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Guardian