Doubtless many regional press journalists were keen to find a local angle to draw readers to their websites following Jeremy Clarkson’s sacking by the BBC on Wednesday.
But this story from the Cheddar Valley Gazette has already been nominated as about the most tenuous.
The paper informs us that Jeremy’s sacking comes “two years after his colleague James May filmed a sequence with a double-decker bus in Cheddar Gorge.”
It goes on to reveal that Jeremy was not actually present for the filming.
Northern Echo editor Peter Barron commented waspishly: “So there we have it. Clarkson was sacked by the BBC quite a long time after he didn’t visit Cheddar Gorge.”
Whether the food-loving former Top Gear presenter is also a fan of the cheese named after that area of the country is yet to be confirmed.
Incidentally HoldtheFrontPage resisted the temptation to run the headline ‘Former Rotherham Advertiser reporter axed by BBC over fracas,’ factually accurate though it would have been.
Jeremy began his career as a reporter on the weekly paper in the late 1970s.
Sign up for our free daily email bulletin
Follow HTFP on Twitter
Got a story? Email the Editor at
Aside from the extremely tenuous and laughable attempt at localising a national story, that’s also a mightily impressive and informative photo caption they’ve used.
Report this comment
The photo caption is brilliant!
Report this comment
I expect the reporter who put this together knew exactly what they were doing, and were slyly mocking the LW Goons in the transformation team and their daily missives; localise this, hype that etc.
Well played.
Report this comment
Eeney meeney miney moe
out goes Jezza
Report this comment
Mr Nice spot on. This is desperate , pathetic journalism and an insult to the intelligence of readers. A lot of people are sick of the Clarkson story anyway. Bad call by editor, but he might be following orders from some witless fool higher up food chain. No legal harm done, but will hurt credibility of paper.
Report this comment
There are two types of people in this world. Those with a decent sense of humour and those without.
Anyone who actually cannot see the humour in this article fall into the latter of the two.
This is a good humoured article which gave most people a good giggle. And those slating it only make themselves look silly.
Lighten up. We spend so long being attacked for being journalists, don’t attack each other when it’s done to make our own lot laugh.
Report this comment
Ancient, it was tongue in cheek & a bit of fun – fancy giving us your real name so we can add you to the list of people who missed the point…be warned, you’re in fairly non-illustrious company…
Report this comment
Bet the website traffic was amazing, That’s the Local World way now, isn’t it?
Report this comment
Bede. You don’t get it do you? Maybe it is ironic, maybe you think it is hilarious. I certainly do. But it sure as hell is not a splash on a paper with any credibility. Somewhere around page 11 would have been fine.
Or is the Cheddar Valley Gazette a comic?
Report this comment
cheese on toast is right about it being given such high profile as “splash” used on web. I suspect this was an attempt to catch a few web hits with the name Clarkson. Never mind the cred of the printed paper. But coming from grimy Midlands maybe I got it all wrong and I just don’t get the local sense of humour.
Report this comment
If that was a joke, I don’t share the humour. Sorry.
Report this comment
If it WAS intended in a deliberate, tongue-in-cheek, let’s poke fun at ourselves kind of way, then it’s pretty poorly written actually – the copy should have done a much better job at pointing that out.
My guess is that after they became a bit of a laughing stock on social media etc, the Gazette did a quick ‘about face’ and pretended it was one big joke all along.
The story was a cynical attempt to gain web hits, nothing more, nothing less.
And as for the ‘we have many serious and in-depth articles on our website” claim in the follow-up, presumably they mean the Germanwings plane crash story that appears a little further down the news feed. Just the kind of story a local paper in Somerset needs to be covering. More web hits!
Report this comment
Sorry Bede, data protection prevents me revealing my own name. I can only think hacks down Cheddar way have too much time on their hands. Most others in country do not. Good luck counting the web hits. Sure advertisers will be impressed.
Report this comment
Everyone wants a piece of Clarkson – even the equally irritating Piers Moron.
Are these two bosom pals? They’re certainly the two biggest tits on the planet.
Report this comment
It’s not the splash. It’s not even going to make it to print.
It took three minutes to create from conception to publication and was intended as a light-hearted gag for the entertainment our readers, taking the rise out of the nationals. But journalists on the nationals and the TV companies loved it. There’s no harm in being light-hearted – we all have more than enough to be serious about.
As for the web traffic being amazing, it was. But surely that’s the point? Nobody comes up with a good idea for anything from a web story to a splash and thinks “Ooh better not publish that. People might read it”
Report this comment
God it’s miserable on here
Report this comment
Cheer up Bede. Some of us like a laugh.
In a fit of boredom at having to fill our crappy website every five minutes I once put the most mindless banal story up on the web. It was a massive hit, which tells you all you need to know about the public’s taste on websites.
By the way though, if the Clarkson piece was such a great idea why was it not in the paper? Just asking.
Report this comment
Cheeseontoast and Midlandsmisery seem to miss the point that there is no such thing as a ‘splash’ on web – bit of old world thinking based on the assumption that most people come to news via a website’s homepage and not links and shares.
Report this comment
Good to know all us journalists stick together….
Report this comment
“sense of humour”. Criticism is actually part of the load as a journalist. Grow a thick skin on that cheese of yours or you will be toasted.
Report this comment