Her chance to do so came on Piers Morgan Uncensored last night, where Harvey made a distinctly shaky case. She bizarrely admitted to having had four phones, six email addresses and, most implausibly, a photographic memory. Gadd, she said, was mentally unwell, and Netflix was “making money out of untrue facts.” The interview amassed nearly four million views in just 12 hours. If you’re looking for a winner out of the whole sorry saga, it’s probably Piers Morgan.

Meanwhile, the veteran broadcaster somewhat pompously pointed out, “at the very least, Netflix’ duty of care, and Richard Gadd’s duty of care, has been a spectacular failure”. His own responsibility, to both Harvey and her alleged victims, remained moot.

Nonetheless, it was great televisual material. Morgan’s interrogation of Harvey was every bit as gripping and compulsive as the Netflix series, though arguably it was not guilt-free. Just as with his interview of the pro-Palestine activist and performance artist Crackhead Barney, Morgan’s instruction to Harvey to “stare down the barrel of the camera” to put her side to the audience was a shabby exercise in click-chasing. And I admit, I was one of the millions who clicked.

There is something undeniably voyeuristic in the media exposure of people who would be better off ignored. Perhaps it shows a need in an atomised society for sincerity, for connection, for a glimpse into people’s inner lives. But ultimately, whatever truth lies outside the minds of Gadd, Harvey, and even Crackhead Barney, none of them are helped by being made into entertainment. It not only reflects poorly on broadcasters like Morgan but on us, the viewers, who make profits for such prurient programmes.

Barney’s performance just a week earlier was particularly grotesque. Wearing a nappy, white body paint and nipple tape, she ranted incoherently. In response to criticism Morgan explained that his show had “got what was a very competitive booking — the first interview with this woman”. He went on, with about as much plausibility as some of his guests, to defend his decision as an attempt to expose the narcissistic motivations of activists as part of his journalistic duty to the national conversation.

The suffering artist stereotype holds because it is undeniable that trauma can be transformed into great works. But unlike the perfectly rendered revenge taken by Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, in today’s dislocated but hyperconnected world the victims and perpetrators portrayed in creative works can and will be tracked down. Broadcasters ought not to feed this.

There was a time when psychiatric hospitals welcomed tourists. Victorian visitors would gawp at Bedlam’s inmates for their own entertainment. Sometimes, it’s clear we’ve not come that far.

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Josephine Bartosch is a freelance writer and assistant editor at The Critic.

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