“I watched GB News so you don’t have to” – Gavin Esler on his TV nightmare

The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Podmasters

News, Government, Politics, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2024

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Could you watch GB News for a whole month? Gavin Esler did, in the name of research. What he experienced was a nightmare mix of confected anger, wild conspiracy and resentment designed to make its viewers feel like victims. GB News might be a joke but its growing social media presence is spreading and detoxifying the hard right views of some very powerful people. Gavin tells Andrew Harrison why we need to start taking Britain’s most absurd TV channel much more seriously. • “I am a recovering GB News watcher. I have to say, it was an ordeal - it was awful.” - Gavin Esler • “Some of the appeal is that ‘we give voice to people who aren’t heard’… But it is an attempt to normalise things that are fundamentally linked to the far right.” - Gavin Esler • “GB News plays into our social divisions, it plays into culture wars, it plays into people who wish to create problems and not solve them. - Gavin Esler Read Gavin’s highly entertaining story GB Spews – What I learned watching Britain’s most ghastly television news channel in Prospect magazine. www.patreon.com/bunkercast We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored credit. Written and presented by Podmasters Group Editor Andrew Harrison. Producer: Eliza Davis Beard. Audio editor: Simon Williams. Managing editor: Jacob Jarvis. Music by Kenny Dickinson and artwork by James Parrett. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. Instagram | Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:11.8	Well college. I loved going to college. It's good you can retry. I'm enrolled on the day course. But college?
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1:14.8	been through an ordeal few of us could withstand. That man is Gavin Ersla,
1:19.3	former Newsnight anchor and BBC Washington correspondent and presenter of our partner
1:23.4	podcast this is not a drill. His ordeal for the whole month of February
1:27.8	Gavin watched GB News, the combative at right-wing channel that claims it's a
1:32.0	news broadcaster until its output
1:33.8	falls foul of off-com whereupon it says it's an entertainment channel since it's
1:37.6	launched in June 2021 GB News which is chiefly funded by hedge-fund
1:42.1	entrepreneur Sir Paul Marshall and the
1:44.4	investment arm of the pro free market think tank Legatum has generated a
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