Black Mirror writer and Screen Wipe presenter Charlie Brooker appeared on Newsnightwhere he spoke to presenter Emily Maitlis about the problem with watching too much news.
Matlis asked whether the coronavirus had seen him glued to the news. “Well yes and no,” Brooker replied. “For the first couple of weeks of this I was sort of glued to the news, reading everything I could, radio was constantly on and…”
He paused before continuing: “It’s like eating fruit, isn’t it? If you watch a lot of the news, it’s good for you up to a point, but then it gives you the s***s. You have to limit it, you have to eat it in small portions.”
Matlis also asked him whether he had any scripts written about pandemics that were now ruined due to the coronavirus. “Well, now that would be a first world problem” Brooker joked.
“It’s certainly weird,” he continued. “And it’s the sort of thing I have long worried about happening and now its happened so in that respect not a script and more it’s like the world has reached into my head and stolen some of my nightmare fuel that’s probably kept me awake for years.”
Matlis also asked whether Brooker thought it was important in these difficult times for the media to be patriotic.
In response, the 49-year-old said: “There’s a role in discriminating accurate information and there’s a role in providing comfort and a sense of community. That doesn’t necessarily have to be: ‘We’re great because we’re British.’
“There’s not much point in banging on about what island we’re on. But it’s a perfectly valid thing to want escapism at this time, it’s valid, it’s important. But that’s not the same thing as blindly supporting the government or blindly opposing it either.”
Viewers were left in stitches after hearing Brooker’s comments about watching the news.
“@charltonbrooker saying fruit gives you the s***s on #Newsnight has really brightened up my day”, said one.
