10am Monday: So what should the Channel 4 bosses do today? And what about the rest of us? Should we forgive, forget and move on? Or make sure that Jade Goody never works again?
6.30pm update: Channel 4 almost says "sorry".
10.30am Tuesday: The Heat verdict...
scroll down for updates
The Channel 4 board are meeting today (Monday) and are not short of advice. The Daily Mirror boldly gives them a one-word suggestion: "Resign".
Matt Wells today argues that this affair - and chief executive Andy Duncan and chairman Luke Johnson's roles in particular - has exposed a creative hole at the heart of the broadcaster, just as it is looking for extra Government cash.
And there are those who suggest that Big Brother should be axed - some because it is offensive and cheap, others because it has been discredited.
Even those that love the show feel that it has been tarnished by the clear breaching of its own rules - the (secret but obvious) briefing of Jade before her exit, the coaching of the participants to apologise, kiss and make up, to deny that there was anything "racist" going on.
And then there is what next for Jade? Is she a racist or just a bully? She has certainly embarked on a tear-fest over the weekend: The Sun and the News of the World in particular focusing on just how upset she is (and now playing the motherhood card and how scared she is for her two children's futures). Personally I think she is crying the tears of someone who has been found out, who is feeling sorry for themselves without truly admitting that this is all her own fault. But, then again, I've never liked her.
An interesting litmus test will be the Heat magazine take on all of this. More than any other publication, Heat has benefited from Big Brother, turning every halfwit and talentless fool on the show into a star. We could even blame them for Jade Goody's fortune (although Living TV must take some share of the blame too - has any show ever sunk any lower than Jade's PA, the search for an assistant for a reality TV loser). What will this week's Heat have to say about Jade?
For me, the most intriguing - and scary - moment of the weekend's Celebrity Big Brother developments was the fact that one in five viewers voted FOR Jade (or against Shilpa, to be precise, but the result is the same).
There is some truth in Andy Duncan's defence that:
"The debate has been heated, the viewing has at times been uncomfortable but, in my view, it is unquestionably a good thing that the programme has raised these issues and provoked such a debate. These attitudes, however distasteful, do persist - we need to confront that truth."
There are still many out there - Jade among them - who think that picking on somebody because they are from a different culture is not racism.
As Anushka Asthana argued in the Observer:
To me, Danielle, Jo and Jade are guilty of bullying and bitching, of cultural misunderstanding and ignorance. A small part of that was unacceptable racist comments, that they were not ever aware that they were making...
'This programme has made me question what is racism,' a friend said yesterday. 'At first I thought this was not it, but the more I thought about it I changed my mind. It is racist to bully someone because they are culturally different.
'But comments like those are made every day, in every town and every city across Britain. It is amazing that people saying them on television has created a global frenzy but I am glad that people are talking about it.'
6.30pm update: Channel 4's board says it is to look at its "editorial and compliance processes".
Johnson added: "Clearly many people were worried and offended by what they saw. We profoundly regret any offence that may have been caused."
Now, when I say that to my missus during an argument, I am told that that doesn't count as an apology. And Channel 4 don't really sound sorry. They will probably get some stick for that in the morning.
It might even have made things easier with Ofcom if they had gone for the wholehearted apology. But this seems to be a sign that they are sticking by their guns and by Duncan. And by Big Brother. They have to, really, as it is their biggest ratings winner for a quarter of the year (between the celeb and "real people" versions) and their biggest money-spinner. And, so as not to sound too cynical about it, as I said above, I think Duncan was right to say that we should be debating these issues. It is not pleasant, but it is important.
Mr Johnson added: "All board members abhor racism." Glad to hear it.
10.30am Tuesday: Heat is out: "The fall of Jade. The FULL behind-the-scenes story of the week that wrecked her career." Well, actually, just a load of stuff that you could have read on this website or in the papers or on the TV news channels or, most obviously, watched on C4/E4 last week.
As I described Heat as an interesting Litmus test: we have two "fall of Jade" headlines, two "wrecked her career" headlines and one "how her world fell apart" headline. No mention of Shilpa in any of the headlines. And certainly no mention of racism.
The mag says "there was no denying she'd been a bully", but adds "the outcry over her apparently racist behaviour snowballed to surreal proportions". Lots of those parroted quotes from Jade that "I am not a racist person."
How long before the first Heat interview with Jade? How long before the racist elements of Jade's behaviour have been written out of history? Will the rest of us forget? Or are the 46,500 complaints to Ofcom and Channel 4 just the tip of an iceberg?
