Steve Bannon is an abhorrent bigot whose worldview is absent of intellectual or moral fibre. Nevertheless, one has to admire the skill with which Donald Trump’s former chief strategist manipulates the media. The man is adept at deriding “liberal global elites” and the “mainstream media” while using them to amplify and legitimise his repulsive ideas.

Exhibit one: the infuriating events that transpired on 3 September, when Bannon (who in March told supporters of the National Front in France to wear the term “racist” as a “badge of honour”) was announced as the headliner of the New Yorker’s annual festival. David Remnick, the magazine’s editor, explained he had “every intention of asking him difficult questions and engaging in a serious and even combative conversation”.

Despite Remnick’s promise, people were not impressed. A number of high-profile personalities booked to speak at the festival, including Patton Oswalt, Jimmy Fallon and Jim Carrey, announced their intention to withdraw from the October event. Some New Yorker staff writers publicly announced their dismay. Less than 24 hours after the invitation was made public, it was rescinded.

At that point, Remnick would have done well to acknowledge that he had made the wrong decision and use the opportunity to underscore why it is so dangerous to normalise people such as Bannon. Instead, he issued a defensive statement countering the criticism that the New Yorker was providing Bannon with a platform for his noxious views. “By conducting an interview with one of Trumpism’s leading creators and organizers, we are hardly pulling him out of obscurity.” While that may be correct, it ignores the fact that providing Bannon with the oxygen of publicity pushes him even further into the mainstream.

No doubt extremists everywhere are ​dashing off opinion pieces about how conservative views are being censored

The New Yorker’s decision to give Bannon a platform was irresponsible and immoral. While it has rescinded the invitation, harm has already been done. Indeed, I imagine that getting invited and then uninvited from the festival was Bannon’s dream scenario. First he gained intellectual legitimacy by having the New Yorker announce him as a headliner. Then he got to do what the far right seems to enjoy doing the most: play the victim. No doubt extremists everywhere are dashing off opinion pieces about how conservative views are being censored by the liberal media.

What makes Remnick’s sorry-not-sorry statement even more infuriating is that he ended it by saying that the New Yorker is still open to providing a platform for Bannon. He wrote: “Our writers have interviewed Bannon for the New Yorker before, and if the opportunity presents itself I’ll interview him in a more traditionally journalist setting.” Remnick seems to have missed the point of the criticism levelled against him – that it is perfectly possible to discuss Bannon without giving him a platform. Indeed, Remnick would do well to listen to Bannon’s own statements about the dangers of amplifying people with abhorrent views. During a recent appearance on ABC’s Four Corners, an Australian current affairs programme, Bannon noted that “[racists are] an infinitesimal percentage of people and they’re only made important because the left media gives them a microphone”.

If anything good is to come from this fiasco, I hope it is that other media outlets think twice about handing the likes of Bannon a microphone. I speak, in particular, of the Economist. Bannon is scheduled to appear at its Open Future festival later this month.

Making ends meet in a creative career is hard. Just ask Geoffrey Owens

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Geoffrey Owens. Photograph: Steve Mack/FilmMagic

A customer at a Trader Joe’s supermarket in New Jersey last week spotted Geoffrey Owens, an actor who appeared in The Cosby Show, bagging groceries. The customer could have thought: “Cool!” and carried on with her day. Instead, she took a photograph of Owens and called the Daily Mail, which proceeded to job-shame Owens. An actor from a famous TV show, reduced to the ignominy of working as a common cashier – can you imagine?

A lot of people could imagine. Terry Crews, the actor and former American football player, tweeted: “I swept floors AFTER the @NFL. If need be, I’d do it again. Good honest work is nothing to be ashamed of.” The American Screen Actors Guild urged “the hard-working actors who work 1, 2, 3 day jobs in order to pay the bills” to share their day jobs. The hashtag #ActorsWithDayJobs soon went viral.

We are constantly sold the idea that we should follow our passion. However, it can be hard to make ends meet by doing what you love. I enjoy freelance writing, for example, but I can’t make a living from it, so I do a variety of gigs. I haven’t worked as a cashier at Trader Joe’s, but I wouldn’t be above it. The supermarket is known for offering great benefits to part-time workers, including health insurance.

This, I think, is an important point to take out of the Owens conversation. It is difficult to make ends meet doing a creative career anywhere, but it may be particularly difficult in the US, where there is no universal healthcare system. Being able to pursue a creative career without having to worry that getting sick will bankrupt you is yet another reason Britons should be eternally grateful for the NHS.

Smells like teen spirit (and burning asphalt)

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘The pungent smell of adolescent desperation’ ... Axe, AKA Lynx. Photograph: Alamy

A truck carrying Axe body spray (known in the UK as Lynx) overturned in Texas last week. The highly flammable cans of aerosol deodorant exploded and the pungent smell of adolescent desperation filled the night air. Thanks to years of the brand’s advertising, you will know what happened next: every woman within a 50-mile radius stripped naked and threw themselves on to the smouldering truck. Oh, hang on a sec. I have double-checked and it seems the Axe fire did not unleash an impromptu orgy. Rather, it just destroyed a large chunk of the road. There is a warning about toxic masculinity in there somewhere.