My view on a 'Reality TV' star defending Jeremy Kyle Show against supposed 'middle class hypocrisy'

Having watched part of an episode of 'Judge Rinder' recently while switching channels by on-TV-set button controls, I am not surprised at his support for the Jeremy Kyle Show.

Judge Rinder Blasts ‘Hypocritical’ Jeremy Kyle Show Critics Who Suggested Guests Were A ‘Feral Underclass'

....
“I know the people who made the programme and they really cared about it,” he tells the magazine.

“I have a real problem with hypocrisy. I mind the fact that when you are middle class and you discuss your emotional life or your marriage on Instagram with shiny teeth and a degree of eloquence, you’re considered to be brave.

“But if you’re from a socioeconomically challenged background you’re deemed not to have agency. So, I really mind it when some commentators describe people who were on the show as a feral underclass.”....

An Internet search linking keywords

Jeremy Kyle feral underclass

reveals a New Statesman May 2019 article by Anoosh Chakelian, The human bear-baiting of The Jeremy Kyle Show:

Jeremy Kyle has ... been deplored for its reliance on poverty porn.
It curates a morbidly chaotic picture of a British underclass – for those watching at home to scoff and sneer at – with the veneer of helping them. In her Guardian piece, Williams writes that the show “created the cultural spectre of this feral underclass”, saying the trope “wouldn’t exist without this programme”.

The results of this kind of characterisation have a real-life impact, and not just for those who appear on TV.

In pursuit of Kyle-style conflict and heartache, parts of the country are regularly mined by producers for their most eccentric and guileless residents – for welfare info-tainment formats such as Benefits Street, or the most recent Skint Britain. (When I visited the northeast coastal town that hosted the latter earlier this year, residents complained that the programme had picked notorious local characters well-known for their quirks who were unrepresentative of the town.)....

The axe finally fell on The Jeremy Kyle show as a result of how appearing on The Jeremy Kyle Show and being subjected to a 'lie detector' test resulted in the death of a participant:

Steve Dymond, 63, was found dead a week after he took a lie-detector test during the recording of the show in May.

He had appeared on the programme to convince fiancée Jane Callaghan he had not been unfaithful, but they split after it was deemed he had failed the test.

I believe it should be argued that so-called 'lie detector' tests measure stress symptoms rather than truthfulness/honesty, as an Internet search using keywords

lie detector false positive

can reveal. Along similar lines, welfare rights adviser Gary Vaux previously spoke against the use of 'Voice Risk Analysis' software in detecting prospective benefit fraud, arguing Voice risk analysis makes claiming benefits more stressful:

We ... don’t know what effect it will have on genuine claimants – the “if they’re honest, they’ve nothing to worry about” line of argument misses the point. The fact that every call and every claimant may ultimately have to be screened in this way, with the assumption that you might be accused of being fraudulent on the say-so of suspect technology is enough to deter many genuine claimants. This is especially true of those who find claiming benefits stressful enough already.

There has also been no disability impact assessment so far either. As Andy Rickell, executive director of Scope, said: “We would want assurances that this software gives accurate results when used for people with communication impairments, mental health conditions and learning difficulties and we would also like to see a disability impact assessment carried out to make sure this software does not disproportionately disadvantage disabled people.”

In fact, the use of VRA in the insurance world is far from universal. “Use is down to individual insurers’ discretion,” said an Association of British Insurers spokesperson in an article in the Observer in January. “We say, and this is echoed by the few insurers that use it, that it has to come with a lot of caveats. No insurers are going to rely on it solely because it measures irregularities and stress patterns – and when you claim, you have a certain degree of stress anyway.”

Steve Dymond's televised 'lie detector' test, had been instigated after his fiancé had responded to the Jeremy Kyle Show offer of a 'free lie detector test' by making him the subject of that test. That was highly unlikely to be a 'walk in the park', was it? Those ads were targeted at people wanting to prove their honesty; for their accuser to make the 'offer' a demand that he appear on daytime tv to settle an interpersonal dispute is something else entirely. Let alone the shock he must have experienced at the distrust meted out to him by a person he had plans of sharing his life with!

In closing, I shall just mention that what I observed in a viewing of 'Judge Rinder' could also be described as a form of 'human bear baiting', while its lead-in comment from the show's sponsor is, "It's about time someone heard my side."

Q: And what is the entity that sponsors the 'Judge Rinder' programme?

A: Patient Claim Line. 'medical negligence claim company',

Might supporting a 'Judge Rinder' show participant's prospective claim of stress related damages on account of treatment received on 'Judge Rinder' be an uncomfortable prospect for the show's sponsors?