theSIGNAL CULTURE
20 October 2026
"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
NEWSBUSINESSTECHNOLOGYWORLDSCIENCECULTUREENVIRONMENTSPORT
Culture
Photo: Brad Weaver / Unsplash
A television journalist prepares for a live broadcast beneath studio lights, the kind of scene Amanpour's career defined.

Amanpour Leaves CNN After Forty-Three Years

After forty-three years of reporting from Sarajevo, Kigali, Kabul and Kyiv, Christiane Amanpour is leaving CNN, a departure her chief executive, Mark Thompson, described as months in the making and, in the end, right for her. She thanked the field crews and show teams whose camaraderie, she said, carried the work from the Gulf War onward, in pursuit of facts, evidence and humanity. What, one wonders, replaces a voice like that?
  • Can television journalism still produce figures who define a generation of war reporting?
Culture
Photo: Matthew Zheng / Unsplash
A cartoon convenience store counter evokes Springfield's Kwik-E-Mart, where Apu has returned after years of silence.

Apu Speaks Again, in a Different Voice

For nearly a decade, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon drifted through Springfield like a ghost behind the Kwik-E-Mart counter, seen but never heard, until Sunday's episode brought him back with a new voice: Sunil Malhotra, an actor born in India and raised in America. Malhotra calls it a reclamation, though he admits his stomach sank at the audition. Whether a writers' room that once let a white actor mimic an accent can truly atone remains, for many viewers, an open question.
  • Can a long-running show truly atone for stereotypes by simply recasting a voice?
"
In those days you weren't believed as a woman, and it was a lad culture of you wearing this, so you were asking for it.
The complainant, a former MTV employee, giving evidence at Southwark Crown Court
Culture

A Soho Toilet, Two Decades On: The Brand Trial

At Southwark Crown Court, a woman's video testimony about 2004 has become a test of how memory, fame and shifting social attitudes collide.

Behind a blue screen in a London courtroom, a woman who cannot be named described to jurors the moment she says she decided to disappear. In a 2023 video interview with a police officer, played at the trial of Russell Brand, she said she had simply closed her eyes and tried not to be there. The 51-year-old comedian and broadcaster has pleaded not guilty to seven charges, including three counts of rape, three of sexual assault and one of indecent assault, relating to six complainants and a decade between 1999 and 2009. Her account concerns a birthday party at a Soho bar in 2004.

She told the jury she had been discussing the possibility of Brand hosting the Channel 4 programme Big Brother's Big Mouth when he allegedly grabbed her breasts and dragged her into a toilet, where she alleges she was raped. She remembered, she said, a big, weird grin, which she compared to a clown's face. Working at MTV at the time and surrounded by celebrities, she said she never reported it, because the so-called lad culture of the 2000s taught women that they were "asking for it", and because his fame meant it would be his word against hers. The defence offers a very different picture.

Brand's barrister, Ian Winter KC, suggested that the two had gone to the toilet consensually for a kiss and a cuddle, and abandoned the attempt at intimacy because the flooded floor was filthy. He also put it to her that she could easily have struggled or called for help. She rejected both suggestions, explaining, tearfully at times, that she had been held firmly and had thought only of getting it over with so she could leave. It is for the jury, not the public, to weigh these competing versions.

Photo: Haseeb Jamil / Unsplash
Southwark Crown Court in London, where the jury is hearing evidence in the trial of Russell Brand.
Discuss
  • How might the cultural atmosphere of the 2000s have shaped whether women felt able to report alleged assaults to the police?
  • Why do you think the complainant said she waited two decades before speaking to police about what she alleges?
  • What responsibilities do newspapers carry when reporting on a trial that is still being heard by a jury?
AMERICAS · Culture
‘You can’t make this stuff up’: why we remain fascinated by Elizabeth Holmes
EUROPE · Culture
‘A vigorous apologist for a cruel emperor’: Is Caryl Churchill’s explosive new play about Trump and his press officers?
WORLD · Culture
An open book: how to make a great film adaptation, from The Shining to Trainspotting
GLOBAL · Culture
Freud confirms Beatles' songs to star in musical
theSIGNAL IN THE LAB
iVOCABULARY
jurorspleaded not guilty
complainantsconsensuallylad culture
reclamationatone
iiGRAMMAR FOCUS
Modal verbs of deduction and speculation (must have, cannot have, might have)
Use must have + past participle when you are almost certain something happened, cannot have + past participle when you are almost certain it did not happen, and might/could have + past participle when something was possible but uncertain.
must have · cannot have · might have · could have · can't have · must · may have
  1. The woman said she stayed silent for twenty years, so the experience left a deep mark on her.
  2. Brand's barrister argues the couple went to the toilet for a kiss, but the woman insists she agreed to anything, since she was held firmly.
  3. The jurors have heard two very different accounts, so one of the versions been remembered or described inaccurately.
  4. She told the court she did not report the incident because he was famous, so she feared that nobody would believe her.
  5. The floor was flooded and filthy, which the defence says ended the attempt at intimacy, though the complainant denies this.
  6. Christiane Amanpour has been at CNN for forty-three years, so she witnessed countless historic events from Sarajevo to Kyiv.
iiiDEPENDENT PREPOSITIONS
Complete each phrase with the correct preposition. All from today’s articles.
  1. Russell Brand has pleaded not guilty ___ seven charges.
  2. The charges relate ___ six complainants over a decade.
  3. She said she never reported it, because it would be his word ___ hers.
  4. The woman was working ___ MTV at the time of the alleged incident.
  5. Amanpour thanked the crews who carried the work ___ the Gulf War onward.
ivCRITICAL THINKING
All three stories involve institutions (a court, a news network, a television show) that are judged by how they treat the past and the people it affected. Choose two of the stories and compare what each asks the public to do: reserve judgement, honour a legacy, or accept an apology. Which of these seems hardest to do fairly, and why?
vCREATIVE · HEADLINES
Write a headline for the top story in each of the following styles. One line each, no explanation:
  • TABLOID NEWSPAPER
  • LUXURY MAGAZINE
  • ACTIVIST BLOG
viWRITING
Write a short paragraph (80-100 words) from the point of view of a juror, told not to discuss the case, who is trying to explain to a friend why they feel the weight of the responsibility without revealing any details.
viiDEGREES OF EXTREMITY
Complete each ladder from mild to strong.
  • uneasy→→
  • hesitant→→
  • doubtful→→
  • awkward→→
  • unwise→→
  • disappointed→→
viiiSPEAKING
  1. Which is harder to tolerate: a public figure's silence or a loud denial?
  2. Should a witness's tears affect how seriously we take their testimony?
  3. When someone retires after decades, what do we owe them as an audience?
  4. Are today's judgements of past behaviour fair to people who lived then?