Why Didn't Netflix Do More To Avoid The Baby Reindeer Furore?

What will happen next in the Baby Reindeer saga? Probably one or more bad things.

- Marina Hyde

Latest bad thing to happen (at time of writing) was Piers Morgan's decision to pay the so-called "real life Martha"-reportedly the inspiration for the show's stalker character - what she claims was £250 ($313) to interview her on his YouTube show. I always feel the most disingenuous gambit in journalism is the one that goes: "We just want to give you the chance to tell your side of the story..."

Clearly mindful of the criticisms that would be levelled at him for featuring someone UK news outlets had largely avoided even naming, Morgan approached his interviewee wearing a veneer of empathy. Ultimately, though, the Martha character's enterprise would surely seem low-grade to all the people who edited tabloid newspapers in the not-too-distant past. After all, if you want someone relentlessly pursued, you just get the news desk to do it. Or a private detective. Or - but no. We daren't all operate under the "uncensored" banner.

Baby Reindeer is the hit Netflix show written by and starring Richard Gadd, telling his story of being stalked, as well as his abuse at the hands of an exploitative TV figure, and is prefaced with the words: "This is a true story". Not "based on a true story", or "inspired by real events", or all the other get-outs/get-ins that have made "based-on" crime a genre all of its own.