The Jeremy Kyle Show is unethical

I would like to begin by thanking my con for taking this debate. Jeremy Kyle As An Unethical PresenterBiasedMy first contention is that Jeremy Kyle is not ethical because of the way he frequently unloads his political views on the guests as well as the viewers. His strongly conservative views can be seen by his appearance at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham in October 2010, in which he chaired a segment aptly named "Getting Britain Back To Work." (1) This title is so fitting because the welfare state at which it references the end of is one of the issues which Jeremy repeatedly expressed his personal opinion on, a clear bias. This is made all the more easy for him as his guests generally comprise of the young end of the underclass of British society, many are unemployed and Jeremy is therefore given an opportunity to crowbar in his opinion about how they are "sponging off the system." Often, this is coupled with a reference to the fact that the current government allow this and should not do. Despite the very sparse selection of clips of the show on Youtube I have managed to find one where he expresses this particular bone of Tory contempt...http://www.youtube.com...He describes the guest as a "drunken bum sponging off the tax payers of this country" and elaborates that "people like you should be put out on the street," despite the fact that in this clip he doesn't descend into specific political parties he certainly does reference the issue which he, as a Tory, has such a strong position on.This conveys the strong bias that Jeremy Kyle holds and unethically passes on to his viewers, which, as a talk show presenter he has no right to do. His JudgementIn The Times newspaper, columnist Martin Samuel described the show as "a tragic, self-serving procession of freaks, misfits, sad sacks and hopelessly damaged human beings" and its guests as "a collection of angry, tearful and broken people, whose inexperience of talking through painful, contentious, volatile issues leaves them unprepared and inadequate for a confrontation of this nature" whilst noting that they "can only appear intellectually inferior to the host, too, with his sharp suit and well-rehearsed confidence". (2) This rings very true to the nature and dynamic of this show, Jeremy Kyle serves as the judge, jury and executioner. He can condemn, praise, dismiss or help any guest on his own whim. He puts on an incredibly judgemental and superior air, often denunciating an individual to the point of screaming in their face, if you need proof of this then you clearly have not watched the show. When this oppressive approach fails to garner the right response and the guests, who are often very unintelligent, get defensive Jeremy simply dismisses them as he did in the clip above in which he simply stated that he's "not bothered" about the young man. Instead of trying to understand his alcoholism he spent much more time denigrating him for laughs from the audience, an activity which is seemingly more to fuel his own ego than to help anyone. After watching a few episodes of this show one would think that, from Kyle's judgement of these individuals he must be a saint, but nothing couldn be further from the truth. In 1988 Kyle married his first wife Kirsty Rowley, during their 15 month marriage, Kyle weaved an intricate web of lies in an attempt to cover his own destructive and expensive gambling habit. He concealed a £4,500 overdraft that he'd run up on his then pregnant wife's bank account, the mail to Rowley informing her of this had been intercepted by Kyle. His other offences during this volatile marriage include fraudulently claiming he had inherited £70,000 from a grandmother, manipulating his wife by telling her he was suffering from a terminal illness and consistently verbally/mentally abusing her. When Kyle finally did leave her she described her situation as with "a five-month-old daughter to look after on my own, no job and debts to pay." Then, in 2007, when Rowley finally spoke up publicly about her marriage to Kyle he used solicitors Swan Turton to threaten to silence his wife with an injunction, a threat which was later withdrawn. (3)I hardly need to point out the depth of this hypocrisy and dishonesty, such a back story would be grounds to besmirch the reputation of a normal individual, but for Kyle, who spends his career judging people on much lesser crimes, it is highly unethical. It is made all the more so due to his silence towards his past misdeeds, they are occasionally flippantly referred to but the fact that he attempted to silence his wife with solicitors shows that his deceit is ongoing. The Polygraph TestOne of the foundations of The Jeremy Kyle show is the reliance on the "Lie Detector Test" to show whether the accusations one guest has made of another guest are correct or not. These can run from anything from infidelity to burglary and will have a very real impact on the lives of the guests as it can determine the dissolutions of marriages and relationships. According to Wikipedia the Lie Detector is reported by The Jeremy Kyle show to be 96.5% accurate. Lie detectors are therefore regarded as pretty much indisputable on the show. However, in reality scientists regard the polygraph very poorly. "Attorney General John Ashcroft estimated the false-positive rate of polygraphs at 15%, about a one-in-six chance." (4) While, a "1997 survey of 421 psychologists estimated the tests average validity at about 61%, a little better than chance. And University of Utah psychologists published a 1994 report that suggested biting your tongue, pressing your toes to the floor and counting backwards by 7's during control questions would screw up the accuracy of polygraphs." (4) If you look into it you can find a great many cases of spies, serial killers and innocent men all given the polygraph and being convicted or alleviated of suspicion based on its misreading. This shows that The Jeremy Kyle Show is highly unethical both in its advertising of the polygraph as having such a high success rate and its dependence on it. Who knows how many misreadings it has given in the Jeremy Kyle Shows over 1,000 episodes. An Anticipated ResponseI believe that your response to this will be the very marginal point that The Jeremy Kyle show also offers free rehab and DNA test services. Although this is a plus point, it is a very lonely plus point in a sea of negatives. It does not correct all of the negatives and certainly does not make the show ethical. The guests are still paying the cost of appearing, warts and all, in front of a 'Holier than thou' style presenter who screams, mocks and belittles their shortfalls in front of millions. With his practiced confidence and their typical naivety/ignorance he can verbally strip them down, sometimes revealing overly intimate details. This is something I imagine would be profoundly embarrassing and would certainly annihilate any self-esteem. I often find the show comparable to the old fashioned Victorian freak shows in which people gathered to laugh at those with physical abnormalities, except now it is their mental deficiencies which are being mocked and the freak show has been rebranded "The Jeremy Kyle Show." Sources (1) http://www.guardian.co.uk...(2) Gray, Sadie. "Tune in tomorrow for more freaks, misfits and saddos". London: Times Online. Retrieved 2007-10-30(3) http://www.dailymail.co.uk... (4) http://www.usatoday.com...