Really Useful Knowledge & GB News
A new TV Channel is to be launched- available on Freeview- GB News
It is apparently not a UK version of the hard-right US network Fox News but an alternative to the BBC, ITV and Sky which it says are similar
The Chair will be Andrew Neil, who heads up the Spectator, and Fraser Nelson who edits the magazine has duly welcomed it.
The mission statement is worth a read because it may not be what it seems:
The premise of GB News is fairly simple: that the current players – BBC, Sky, ITV – are so similar in tone and format that there’s space for a bit more diversity. For intelligent, discussion-based show coming from a more independent mindset. Not a British answer to Fox News (the analogy often reached for whenever a rival to the BBC is mentioned) but a station that might broadcast good news a bit more often, or would not be so quick to assume that everything that goes wrong is the fault of the government. One that takes a more even-handed approach to culture wars, and doesn’t see coverage of US politics an exercise in exorcism.
What good news might it broadcast one wonders. A strike victory or a successful anti-racist campaign? After all that is hardly news on the existing channels.
Secondly it won’t assume that if things go wrong it’s the fault of the Government. It is actually, because they are in Office and should own up to mistakes- which they don’t. One suspects they mean however that if there is a problem Jeremy Corbyn is lurking somewhere and Keir Starmer is to blame. Unfortunately one also suspects that ‘Sir’ is already planning his contributions.
Finally it wont see US politics as an exercise in exorcism. So Trump is ok then.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/andrew-neil-to-chair-a-new-british-television-news-network
Many on the left might think that the BBC, ITV and Sky are right-wing enough as it is but at least the first two recognise unions.
Perhaps the first challenge for GB News is whether it will recognise the appropriate unions.
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