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

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. 

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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  

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