The risible launch of ‘Britain’s Fox News’

Last week, Guto Harri, an anchor on GB News, in the United Kingdom, addressed a pressing news story: the racist abuse that Black English players faced following the final of the European soccer championships, which England lost, and the broader debate around the players’ practice of taking a knee before games. Some fans have booed the anti-racist gesture, and many more Brits see it as evidence of an insidious liberal agenda: Boris Johnson, the prime minister, initially refused to condemn the booing; one lawmaker from Johnson’s Conservative Party boycotted England’s games altogether. Harri—who, in a past life, was an adviser to Johnson when he was mayor of London—had himself previously questioned the gesture, but he said on GB News that his perspective had changed. “I may have underestimated how close to the surface the racism still was,” he said. “I actually now get it—so much so that I think we should all take the knee. In fact, why not take the knee now?” With that, he got up off a couch, and kneeled on the studio floor. “It’s a gesture,” he said, “but it’s an important gesture.” On its face, this was a surprising thing to witness on GB News. Ahead of its launch, last month, the network promised to broadcast serious journalism from around the country, but also to prioritize protecting free speech against the dual threats of “cancel culture” and “wokeness”—so much so that the network was quickly dubbed “the British Fox News.” (This was never really accurate, but more on... Continue reading at 'Columbia Journalism Review'

[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2021-07-20 12:38:46 UTC ]

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