News Article 8

Jeremy Clarkson reveals that he probably had cancer at the time of hitting a Top Gear producer 



Two days before physically attacking Top Gear producer, Oisin Tymon, Jeremy Clarkson had been told by his doctor that a lump on his tongue was most likely to be cancer. He then told the paper that he later got the 'all clear'. 

He wrote in his Sunday Times column that the incident occurred on his "most stressful day...in 27 years at the BBC" but that other people facing stress "manage to cope better than I did". Regarding being told that he had to get the lump on his tongue checked out immediately, he also wrote in his column: "but I couldn't do that. We were in the middle of a Top Gear series. And Top Gear always came first." 

He also told the paper about his obsession of having Top Gear as his job and he claims to have felt an "enormous" sense of loss after finding out that his contract was not going to be renewed and he wrote: "it was an all-consuming entity, a many-tentacled global monster that was dysfunctional and awkward and mad but I loved it with a passion. I loved it like my own child. I felt sick because after I'd lost my home and my mother, I'd thrown myself even more vigorously into my job and now, idiotically, I'd managed to lose that too." 

The BBC suspended Jeremy Clarkson on the 10th March which caused a very large amount of support from the fans of Top Gear who, over a million of them, signed an online petition to reinstate him. However, this still did not work and Tony Hall, BBC's director general made a confirmation regarding how Clarkson's contract would not be renewed. 

How I feel about the news article:
This information came from the BBC News website and from this article, it seems as if they are siding towards him slightly because they do not say anything negative about him and they include quotes that may cause audiences to feel sympathy towards him. A newspaper such as The Sun may have taken a more dramatic approach to catch the attention of their audience, and they may be likely to express the story either completely negatively or positively on Clarkson's part. I personally think that Jeremy Clarkson is only bringing up the fact he thought he had cancer on the day of the attack as an excuse for himself and to make people feel sorry for him. By expressing his 'sob stories' in more detail now, he is making it clear how much he really loved his job and it is as if he is still trying to get his contract renewed.