I’m part of the out-of-touch elite, admits C4’s Jon Snow
veteran broadcaster Jon Snow has admitted he belongs to a metropolitan ‘elite’ that is out of touch with the public.
the Channel 4 news anchor said he was ‘comfortably with the elite’ and had ‘little awareness’ of those who are not part of the same club. He also admitted he had ‘got it wrong’ on Brexit.
the famously liberal journalist admitted: ‘Over this past year, we – me included – mostly London-based media pundits, pollsters and socalled experts got it wrong.
‘the Brexit referendum, we got that wrong. trump defied completely so-called experts, pundits and journalists alike.’
addressing executives at the edinburgh tv Festival, he added: ‘We had better accept [that] all of us in this room are by definition part of the elite.
‘We have, by the nature of our business, an obligation to be aware of, connect with and understand the lives, concerns and needs of those who are not.
‘I believe we are in breach of that obligation – that in increasingly fractured Britain, we are comfortably with the elite, with little awareness, contact or connection with those who are not of the elite.’
the comments from the 69-yearold come after he was caught saying ‘F*** the tories’ at the Glastonbury festival.
He received a dressing-down from Channel 4 bosses for breaking impartiality rules, while Conservative MPs called for him to be sacked. He allegedly told revellers at the music festival: ‘I’m supposed to be neutral’ after his comments. However, he later claimed he had no recollection of the episode.
Yesterday, Mr Snow made light of the incident as he told his audience: ‘Oh, Glastonbury... like they say about the 60s – if you remember it, you just weren’t there.’
He also called Facebook a ‘dark, cancerous’ force which threatens democracy by prioritising ‘fakery on a massive scale’.
the broadcaster accused the social media site of shirking its ‘moral duty’ to promote truth over popularity and claimed it is destroying journalism by ‘feasting’ on news reports without paying a fair price. He also savaged Google, claiming that the two technology giants have a ‘monopoly over the world’s information’ but do not pay enough tax.
He called on governments to force Facebook and Google to part with more money. He said: ‘Facebook feasts on our products and pays all but nothing for them. this cannot last.
‘never since the rise of the printing press have two companies held such a monopoly over the world’s information. and never have such organisations taken so little responsibility for it.’
Mr Snow has made his liberal leanings clear before.
On remembrance Day, he refused to wear a poppy, claiming he did not want to bow to ‘unpleasant… poppy fascism’, and he called last year’s Brexit vote a ‘ridiculous thing’ which could lead to something ‘terrifying to behold’.
‘Over this past year, we got it wrong’