Brainwipe

Newswipe is a bit of a shock, isn't it? The news media is so absurd these days that you'd think it was beyond satire. But then Newswipe is beyond being satirical in the conventional John Stewart sense. Instead it's more despairing and philosophical. Yes, there's the odd montage of cheap jokes at the expense of animal-based news stories, etc., but the thing that makes it particularly good is that Charlie Brooker never takes the easy line on anything. He's quite happy to run long pieces which discuss serious and complex issues without cheapening them with gags and gimmicks. Which is more than you get on Newsnight these days.

His Jade Goody piece this evening was fantastic, highlighting the ugly spite and sycophancy which has come tumbling out on news reports and message boards throughout her career, and the difficulty of processing the story of her death amid the sheer overload of polarised information. I know that when people have asked me what I think about Jade I feel sad and then I feel confused. He captured that odd, conflicted feeling so well, when he needn't have bothered, because there was tons of more obvious jokes to be had about it if he'd wanted to do them. There's something much more humane going on here, and that seems to be the idea behind Newswipe, to contrast the hysterical stylised news agenda with real human thought and experience. And how wonderful and unexpected is that as a project?

His reminder that Gordon Brown only commented on the Jade Goody story because he was asked by journalists was the kind of thoughtful little aside that makes his analysis so interesting. The easy Have I Got News For You win would have been to slag Gordon – you can hear Ian Hislop trotting out his usual line in eye-rolling and sneering to much smug applause. It's so refreshing to have someone not do that, to point out the construction behind the soundbite and not just regurgitate a second hand news story as fact.

I'm really interested to see where this show goes. I reckon Brooker's going to end up as the new A. J. Ayer and Newswipe will be replaced with Brainwipe, where he deconstructs the very fabric of our being. Or maybe he'll just do some more jokes about Hole in the Wall.