Jersey's cutlure of concealment

Patrick Muirhead writes of his time on Jersey under this title in tomorrow's Times:

I was briefly the anchorman of the nightly local ITV news in the Channel Islands, an experience etched in my memory as dismal, embarrassing and shaming. I was shackled from pursuing any punchy journalism in a laughably amateurish TV outfit for fear of upsetting the station's friends, outmanoeuvred by an ambitious co-host and unwelcome in an island where I was an outsider.

He is also very good on the incestuous nature of island life:

In an island of 90,000 souls, one is only removed from another by the smallest step of separation. The island's Chief Minister, Frank Walker, had a cameraman son at the TV channel where I worked; a senior politician's mistress was a TV reporter on the island. My co-host's home became a popular salon for politicians and decision-makers. In such an atmosphere of closeness, any meaningful challenge becomes impossible. “You rub people up the wrong way,” she said, primly dismissing my methods.