GB News: a thread so you never have to watch it

[CH1]

Initially I thought "women with balls" was some transgender debate clickbait
I'm sure the inventor of that slogan realised it has two interpretations.

I know there isn't a lot of love here for these new upstart news providers like GBNews, but surely people accept the standard bearers - like the BBC - have blown it in the neutrality stakes and these new channels simply at worst counter balance them.

That's not it at all, that's not it at all.
- The Love Song of J Alfred Profrock - TS Eliot 1915

Are you saying that the BBC is somehow "woke" or left-wing? You post reads so.
I would say that on the contrary the BBC is seriously right wing populist right now - like an fully-fiunded version of GB News and Talk TV.

They certainly undermine their woke credibility by having Novara Media people on. People paid as token extremists.
It's BBC laziness. Just like Verdi's Requiem at the first night of the Proms this year which had two Korean soloists - buy one get one free.

Aside from Novara media they only have insurgent activists like Lady Clare Fox, Anne Widdecombe, Richard Tice, Isobel Oakshot etc etc on programmes such as Question Time, Any Questions, Daily Politics, Today Programme etc etc.

I attended Question Time once around 1985 when it was done properly. Chaired by Robin Day from the Greenwood Theatre at Guy's Hospital. All the panel were MPs including a minister. The current show is pure shit compared with that.

The BBC have in fact blazed the way for Brexit and GB News. The right-wing takeover has been a slow process, starting with Sir John Birt appointed in 1992 by the Major government. He was brought in from Granada on a self-employed zero tax contract to dumb-down the BBC. The worm in the bud.

 

[Dystopiary]

Initially I thought "women with balls" was some transgender debate clickbait
I'm sure the inventor of that slogan realised it has two interpretations.

I know there isn't a lot of love here for these new upstart news providers like GBNews, but surely people accept the standard bearers - like the BBC - have blown it in the neutrality stakes and these new channels simply at worst counter balance them.

The host is called Katy Balls.

 

[Thesaint]

That's not it at all, that's not it at all.
- The Love Song of J Alfred Profrock - TS Eliot 1915

Are you saying that the BBC is somehow "woke" or left-wing? You post reads so.
I would say that on the contrary the BBC is seriously right wing populist right now - like an fully-fiunded version of GB News and Talk TV.

They certainly undermine their woke credibility by having Novara Media people on. People paid as token extremists.
It's BBC laziness. Just like Verdi's Requiem at the first night of the Proms this year which had two Korean soloists - buy one get one free.

Aside from Novara media they only have insurgent activists like Lady Clare Fox, Anne Widdecombe, Richard Tice, Isobel Oakshot etc etc on programmes such as Question Time, Any Questions, Daily Politics, Today Programme etc etc.

I attended Question Time once around 1985 when it was done properly. Chaired by Robin Day from the Greenwood Theatre at Guy's Hospital. All the panel were MPs including a minister. The current show is pure shit compared with that.

The BBC have in fact blazed the way for Brexit and GB News. The right-wing takeover has been a slow process, starting with Sir John Birt appointed in 1992 by the Major government. He was brought in from Granada on a self-employed zero tax contract to dumb-down the BBC. The worm in the bud.

First up I haven't really seen that much BBC news or newsnight over the last few years so can't comment on it today, but events such as Trump and Brexit threw the BBC somewhat.

It's not so much these issues are really left or right as these labels are outdated, but the BBC fears change (not surprising how they're funded) or dealing anything unexpected.

The DG I'm sure always has one eye on who is in No10 to protect the fee, but the rest of the organisation is on another path.

 

[krtek a houby]

First up I haven't really seen that much BBC news or newsnight over the last few years so can't comment on it today, but events such as Trump and Brexit threw the BBC somewhat.

It's not so much these issues are really left or right as these labels are outdated, but the BBC fears change (not surprising how they're funded) or dealing anything unexpected.

The DG I'm sure always has one eye on who is in No10 to protect the fee, but the rest of the organisation is on another path.

What path, specifically?

 

[existentialist]

Initially I thought "women with balls" was some transgender debate clickbait
I'm sure the inventor of that slogan realised it has two interpretations.

I know there isn't a lot of love here for these new upstart news providers like GBNews, but surely people accept the standard bearers - like the BBC - have blown it in the neutrality stakes and these new channels simply at worst counter balance them.

Nah. They're just taking the partisanship to greater, more ludicrous, levels.

 

[CH1]

First up I haven't really seen that much BBC news or newsnight over the last few years so can't comment on it today, but events such as Trump and Brexit threw the BBC somewhat.

It's not so much these issues are really left or right as these labels are outdated, but the BBC fears change (not surprising how they're funded) or dealing anything unexpected.

The DG I'm sure always has one eye on who is in No10 to protect the fee, but the rest of the organisation is on another path.

The news is mainly alright - although Laura Kuennsnsberg was incredibly intrusive between 2015-2021 - she was like her very own spin doctor telling us what the news meant. And her commentaries and those of others like her made Corbyn's position untenable. It never died down, day after day. Labour being Labour they would rather watch their MPs defect than get the leader to resign.

If Laura Keunneberg were here would she be reminding everyone of this?


THAT is the problem. Its the comment people the BBC have on. They are both uniquely unqualified to discuss most stuff, and heavily biased. Partly it's because Boris purged all the sensible Tory MPs (Grieve etc - about 30 of them I believe).

If you select bots as MPs you get bots on BBC Two at lunchtime. I was really shocked when Bim Afolami resigned his junior government position in protest at Boris - I never ever heard him say anything against the party or the PM before that.

 

[Thesaint]

The news is mainly alright - although Laura Kuennsnsberg was incredibly intrusive between 2015-2021 - she was like her very own spin doctor telling us what the news meant. And her commentaries and those of others like her made Corbyn's position untenable. It never died down, day after day. Labour being Labour they would rather watch their MPs defect than get the leader to resign.

If Laura Keunneberg were here would she be reminding everyone of this?


THAT is the problem. Its the comment people the BBC have on. They are both uniquely unqualified to discuss most stuff, and heavily biased. Partly it's because Boris purged all the sensible Tory MPs (Grieve etc - about 30 of them I believe).

If you select bots as MPs you get bots on BBC Two at lunchtime. I was really shocked when Bim Afolami resigned his junior government position in protest at Boris - I never ever heard him say anything against the party or the PM before that.

Does the BBC news need to be party political aligned? To me, BBC politics does have this London/progressive liberal angle which doesn't automatically suit any party of the old fashioned left or right sense.
GBNews I think has been critical of present party of governments conduct over the pandemic years especially so not not sure how they are then right wing in that case.
I just don't see the world is left or right by the way and it's not easy to describe how the world is now split.

 

[CH1]

The DG I'm sure always has one eye on who is in No10 to protect the fee, but the rest of the organisation is on another path.

Sir Hugh Carleton Greene (brother of novelist and spy Graham Greene basically told them all to fuck off - like Lord Reith he was a powerful independent DG. Even Mary Whitehouse used to stick pins in his effigy.
That is the sort of DG they need.
Greg Dycke at least made an attempt - but he was forced to resign over the death of David Kelly.
"Inadequate act checking" said Lord Hutton. Well now inadequate fact checking is the norm at the BBC.

 

[existentialist]

Does the BBC news need to be party political aligned? To me, BBC politics does have this London/progressive liberal angle which doesn't automatically suit any party of the old fashioned left or right sense.
GBNews I think has been critical of present party of governments conduct over the pandemic years especially so not not sure how they are then right wing in that case.
I just don't see the world is left or right by the way and it's not easy to describe how the world is now split.

Ah. You're one of those.

 

[two sheds]

I just don't see the world is left or right by the way and it's not easy to describe how the world is now split.

More up and down you'd think?

 

[cupid_stunt]

GBNews I think has been critical of present party of governments conduct over the pandemic years especially so not not sure how they are then right wing in that case.

GB News has attacked the government from the right, with many of presenters & guests speaking out against lockdowns and even the smallest of restrictions such as mask wearing, they have regularly questioned if Johnson is even a Tory, because he's not right-wing enough, their poster boy and biggest mouth on a stick is Nigel fucking Farage, and ironically he's not even the worst of them.

And, you're not sure how they are then right-wing. wow.

 

[krtek a houby]

GBNews I think

You probably do

 

[existentialist]

You probably do

Not absolutely sure about the "thinking" bit...

 

[CH1]

I've just been involved in producing a book. We only got 1500 copies (all we could afford) of a 150 page journal-ish size (slightly bigger than A5) spine bound book with only the cover in colour, and it's cost us a bit over £3,500 just for the printing and the layout/design person. None of the writers got paid as it's a political project. Plus then they'll be other costs like ISBN number, etc. that I haven't stuck in there. We're working on it being about £4,500 when everything is in.

It's been done at a decent printers that pay well, and there might have been cheaper options (although looked at plenty of print-on-demand stuff and they never worked out significantly cheaper tbh) but from others experience they often come out of poorer quality and have other issues often, so wasn't keen to go down that route to save £200 or so. Someone I know lost a whole print run of a book as the print-on-demand company fucked it up.

Raw materials and production costs have massively gone up for books in the last bit of time. It'll cost us about £3.00 per copy to print in the end, but then you give some away (writers, reviews, etc.) a few get damaged or lost. We're charging £4.50 a copy to cover some of those losses/free copies, but then distros and bookshops take a cut, and it ends up being £12 or more on the shelves. Then you have postage costs, envelopes, a website if you want to do that, etc etc. I'll be surprised if we break even in a year.

Another self-publisher here

Upfront Publishing

Upfront Publishing. 86 likes. Upfront Publishing is a dynamic and constantly-evolving brand specialising in affordable publishing services for authors worldwide.

www.facebook.com

Only found it because a former fellow Decca (Navigator) employee has just died aged 97 - and I saw he wrtote his memoirs in 2007

An extraordinary life, recorded for posterity, by a man who beat adversity in his earlier days to fulfil his ambition to succeed in the commercial world. John Lucken tells the story of his time from an old-style naval school of the 1930s, thorugh WW11 and the Korean War to entering the field of hydrographic survey and exploration worldwide. He recalls working in Borneo and in the former Dutch New Guinea before the arrival there of the powerful mining companies and the influx of thousands of immigrants from other parts of Indonesia. He was present in Nigeria when the first oil well was discovered and stayed in contact throughout the Biafran civil war. Emotional recollections that are a real eye-opener and a lesson to anyone sat behind a desk in Britain about just how different a life can be.

Not quite Red Rum Lisa - but you can guess which I'd rather read!

 

[AmateurAgitator]

GB News has attacked the government from the right, with many of presenters & guests speaking out against lockdowns and even the smallest of restrictions such as mask wearing, they have regularly questioned if Johnson is even a Tory, because he's not right-wing enough, their poster boy and biggest mouth on a stick is Nigel fucking Farage, and ironically he's not even the worst of them.

And, you're not sure how they are then right-wing. wow.

They are clearly right wing but also present a very broad range of views. For example they've had Mick Lynch on I believe and certainly others on the left and ofcourse they have Lisa McKenzie on there who is an anarchist.

 

[LDC]

They are clearly right wing but also present a very broad range of views. For example they've had Mick Lynch on I believe and certainly others on the left and ofcourse they have Lisa McKenzie on there who is an anarchist.

You do get that's not for some 'balance' or because they agree or have sympathy with those left wing views, but it's a manipulative right wing/authoritarian Statist strategy?

 

[AmateurAgitator]

You do get that's not for some 'balance' or because they agree or have sympathy with those left wing views, but it's a manipulative right wing/authoritarian Statist strategy?

Most (if not all) news channels have a statist and authoritarian bias in some form

 

[CH1]

My 83 year old osteopath friend in Wimbledon says GB News are the ONLY people investigating the after effects of vaccines. He himself has had 4 so far - maybe GB News excites his (free-on-the-NHS) buyers remorse?

 

[8ball]

They’re talking right now about why Rishi Sunak is too aggressive to be PM.

 

[CH1]

They’re talking right now about why Rishi Sunak is too aggressive to be PM.

At least he isn't passive aggressive.

 

[cupid_stunt]

GB News faces Ofcom investigation over host’s Covid booster claims

Mark Steyn’s misleading claim that jab was killing Britons was based on ‘inaccurate reading’ of report, says Full Fact

www.theguardian.com

GB News is being investigated by the media regulator Ofcom after one of its hosts made misleading claims about the side-effects of Covid booster vaccines.

The presenter Mark Steyn wrongly alleged that having the extra dose was killing Britons and alleged there was a media silence on the issue.

The independent factchecking website Full Fact said his claim, made in a broadcast on 21 April, was based “on an inaccurate reading of a vaccine surveillance report, which specifically includes a caveat warning that the data can’t be used to determine vaccine effectiveness”.

Steyn is probably the most toxic on GBN, let's hope OFCOM finds their teeth and bite him, time and time again, GBN would probably claim they were being bullied by OFCOM at first, but if the fines start adding up, he would soon be gone.

I put a complaint in about Steyn, after tim made the post below earlier this month, I've had the standard auto-reply just saying I would hear further, but they do take ages, this case is about a broadcast back in April!

I assume this might have been made before the Durham announcement, but how do they manage to keep their licence when Mark Steyn, one of their main presenters, comes out with this conspiraloon stuff

 

[Thesaint]

Looking back through Steyns recent stuff one thing is common....he has championed the plight of sexual abuse victims of Telford and vaccine victims.
Both have in common they were dismissed and ignored by the authorities and established media because it was politically akward to recognise them and resulting issues.
Good for him for giving them a voice.

 

[existentialist]

Looking back through Steyns recent stuff one thing is common....he has championed the plight of sexual abuse victims of Telford and vaccine victims.
Both have in common they were dismissed and ignored by the authorities and established media because it was politically akward to recognise them and resulting issues.
Good for him for giving them a voice.

He's not championing the plight of ANYONE. He's grandstanding for his own benefit, and his "championing" is likely making the situation worse for the victims, because what he's really interested in is painting Muslims as predators, and nothing to do with the victims.

And what the fuck is a "vaccine victim"?

 

[Thesaint]

He's not championing the plight of ANYONE. He's grandstanding for his own benefit, and his "championing" is likely making the situation worse for the victims, because what he's really interested in is painting Muslims as predators, and nothing to do with the victims.

And what the fuck is a "vaccine victim"?

He surely has confidence in his ego I will give you that and has a dry hard wit - and what tv journo doesn't see themselves as the star anyway.
The authorities ignored the gang rape victims and it's the authorities he is angry against and how they didnt intervene. The legacy media were dead quiet about this injustice.
People have died of causes attributed to vaccines and compensation payouts have now started to be honoured, but only year later.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Looking back through Steyns recent stuff one thing is common....he has championed the plight of sexual abuse victims of Telford and vaccine victims.
Both have in common they were dismissed and ignored by the authorities and established media because it was politically akward to recognise them and resulting issues.
Good for him for giving them a voice.

They have not been ignored by established media, I've seen & read reports on 'vaccine victims', but the numbers of those poor people that suffered severe adverse reactions are tiny compared to the million of lives saved, whereas he claimed the 'vaccine victims' he had in the studio represent hundreds of thousands across the UK, and many millions across the world, which is nonsense. He also claimed people getting the booster jab were three times more likely to die from covid, I could go on, but basically he's spreading dangerous bullshit.

And, with regards to Telford, it was established media that first broke the story resulting the convictions and inquiry, it's had extensive coverage over the years, especially during 2012 & 2019 when there were court cases and convictions, and more recent coverage because of the inquiry's report being published. Steyn is using this to push his Islamophobia agenda, he's doing it for his benefit, not the victims.

America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It is a 2006 non-fiction book by the Canadian newspaper columnist and writer Mark Steyn. It forecasts the downfall of Western civilization due to internal weaknesses and Muslim population growth in Western countries and the world generally. Wiki

Out of the top three loons on GBN, he's the number one cunt in my book, followed but by Wootton, and Farage.

 

[existentialist]

He surely has confidence in his ego I will give you that and has a dry hard wit - and what tv journo doesn't see themselves as the star anyway.
The authorities ignored the gang rape victims and it's the authorities he is angry against and how they didnt intervene. The legacy media were dead quiet about this injustice.
People have died of causes attributed to vaccines and compensation payouts have now started to be honoured, but only year later.

But he ignores the gang rape victims. Their only use to him is as a stick to beat Muslims with.

As for the vaccines thing - that's a tired old trope which has been serially disproven. Yes, a very small number of people have had things happen as a result of vaccines, but it is down in the noise as far as prevalence is concerned. Reactions to vaccines are very uncommon, but an inevitable part of vaccination. I notice that the kind of people who bang on about "vaccine victims" rarely have anything to say about the vast number of lives saved or improved by the existence of those same vaccines.

You are either very, very naive, or you're some kind of right-wing racist-supporting antivaxx enabler. You choose.

 

[elbows]

The 'vaccine victims' stuff would only have come with much greater political ramifications and backlash if the authorities in this country had completely buried their heads in the sand when it became clear that there was a real issue with the oxford astrazenica vaccines and blood clots. But what actually happened with that one was that the authorities acknowledged it and adjusted their plans, avoiding a total collapse in confidence in covid vaccination. It is true that aspects of media coverage of that stuff was a tad muted overall, but thats normal when you are trying to do 'the responsible thing' by not totally undermining the broader vaccination programme via reporting that was unbalanced in a different direction.

The vaccine harms compensation programme isnt perfect, and as usual criticisms can be made about how slowly it functions. Ideally it should be reformed. By the way the reason we first got that system of compensation in the first place was in response to a 1970s vaccine scare, it was one of the things authorities did to rebalance faith in vaccination and to show that the establishment was not going to be a total ostrich about the fact that vaccines can cause health problems in a small number of cases.

 

[two sheds]

Convinced Thesaint ? You're not are you.

 

[existentialist]

Convinced Thesaint ? You're not are you.

They're (ooh, pronouns) not here to be convinced. I think they are either a True Believer, or someone who thinks it might be funny to be a bit contrarian on Urban. That'll go well, given that they're hopelessly outclassed, contrarianism-wise, out of the gate

 

[CH1]

Shocked to see the Arts Council funding these posters in Southwark. And they were designed by a black Frenchman apparently. What were they thinking of?
Naturally the GB News solution is "de-fund the Arts Council"

Art company behind 'straight white men pass the power' posters given £3million of taxpayers' money

A poster pictured in London with the sentiment went viral after being shared on Twitter

www.gbnews.uk