A comedian illustrated the way words have changed meaning over the years; a 'legend' used to be King Arthur drawing the mystical sword Excalibur from the stone.

Now, he says if I arrive home with surprise wine and crisps, my delighted wife calls me a legend!

Years ago in this part of the world explosive meant something awful. Now, Steven Nolan thinks it’s an appropriate word to describe a television interview given by Eamonn Holmes about his former This Morning colleague Phillip Schofield. It doesn’t just say something about the media today, it also reveals a social change in society.

The language of hyperbole is, of course, Nolan’s forte. Everything’s trailed as big….coming up, a big story, a major issue, a significant political development which quite often turns out, er, not as BIG as predicted.

Old school journalism suggested you didn’t need to tell the reader, listener or viewer that it was controversial, or sensational or whatever loaded term you’d feel like using. They’d work that out for themselves if you told the story properly.

As someone whose profession for so many years involved the use of words, I get confused sometimes. The f word is shoehorned into life now, often without need but just for emphasis and as regards political correctness and offence being taken, we often have to think twice before we speak. Yet, other harsh language is now common in public discourse.

I didn’t watch the 'bombshell' interview by Eamonn, but the coverage of the Phillip Schofield story has been widespread and disproportionate (I know, and now I’m writing about it!). The biggest scandal since Jimmy Savile, according to one outlet which really would be something.

And speaking of Savile, how ironic that Nolan and the BBC jump on the Schofield bandwagon’s pile-on, considering the organisation’s own lack of accountability in exposing him and other instances of toxicity behind the scenes at the Corporation.

It’s just three years ago since Schofield came out as gay, live on air, and deservedly received a lot of support from his fellow presenters and the general public. But now a seedier side of his life has emerged, and many people feel let down that he lied to them about his relationship with a much younger vulnerable man.

“Unwise but not illegal”, according to Schofield in another manipulative use of words.

Well, serious questions are being asked and it was inappropriate to say the least. And as ever in so many cases, it was the lying and deceit that did for him in the end. You’ve really got to wonder if something was about to emerge in the press which prompted Schofield to fess up first.

I have to admit, I never really warmed to Schofield, but never expected anything quite like this to emerge, even though everyone seems to now claim they knew it was an open secret.

I remember watching 'Going Live' with the kids on Saturday mornings in the mid-1980s when he was alongside Gordon the Gopher, a puppet whose only sound was a squeaking noise but he still managed to have more personality than his human sidekick.

Still, Schofield went on to greater things and even as a second-rate presenter a few mornings a week on daytime television was picking up about £700,000 a year, according to one estimate.

He certainly didn’t have the charisma and likeability of Eamonn Holmes and his contact with the audience. Yet it was Holmes who was hard done by in his treatment by ITV bosses in getting rid of him.

I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed to see Eamonn join the politically partisan polemic of GB News which damaged his reputation for me personally. And, not that he would need or take any of my opinions seriously, I wondered about the wisdom of getting into a social media spat with his erstwhile colleague and going full on with the GB News interview.

Why not maintain a dignified silence and enjoy the schadenfreude as Schofield and ITV implode?

His sexuality and second-rate abilities are irrelevant. What has emerged has finished Schofield and calls into question the accountability of ITV bosses, with a public service broadcasting remit remember; and indeed, the turning of a blind eye to inappropriate relationships with vulnerable young people is a failure of duty of care by far too many organisations.

Is anybody, even now, worried about the effect all this is having on the young man. Another development in today’s world is that even if the papers don’t name him, social media means his identity is widely circulated.

There’s now talk that ITV paid the young man a financial settlement; if true it suggests they knew all along and were trying to protect Schofield, which is a disgrace. Fine for the young man to get compensated financially, but what other support is he getting?

Important questions are being asked, but they’re being lost in the feeding frenzy that is now commonplace and draws us into an angry world where objectivity is a rare commodity.

In 2017, 'Objectivity is dead, and I’m fine with it' was the header of a blog by an American, Lewis Raven Wallace, and the title rather sums up where journalism in the United States had moved to after Trump’s victory. Now politically partisan journalism is a fact of life in the UK too.

Whatever happened to journalism’s role in speaking truth to power, fighting for the vulnerable and standing up for their communities in a balanced and responsible way?

The pile-on to Schofield reveals more than a desire to satisfy a public thirst for sensationalism; it goes deeper. The fact that GB News is leading the way with day after day coverage is no coincidence. They regularly attack the BBC, Sky and now smell blood when it comes to ITV, all the while pushing their “anti-woke” right wing agenda. They’re gaslighting us by saying it’s they who are balanced, and it’s working well for them.

Schofield is a disgrace and it’s hard to feel sympathy for him, and indeed it’s hard to feel sympathy for ITV management who need to answer the hard questions.

Schofield is toast and ITV has lost credibility and probably lost financially in terms of advertising and share price.

Maybe as part of their recovery strategy they could bring back Gordon the Gopher to host a revamped This Morning. Now that would be a bombshell!