A year inside GB News: "what the hell have we done?"

Audio Long Reads, from the New Statesman

It launched with a promise to shake up the staid world of television news – to challenge broadcasting’s perceived liberal, left-wing bias. One year on, and faced with a new rival in TalkTV, how is GB News’s revolution going?

Freelance writer Stuart McGurk spent several months reporting the inside story, as told by staffers past and present: those who were there for a chaotic June 2021 launch, those who quit, and those who stayed.

In this deeply researched and often very funny long read, McGurk charts the highs and lows of Britain’s first new rolling news channel in 30 years. Whose idea was it to interview a Winston Churchill impersonator? Why did producers start booking their own parents as guests? And who thought driving a former Soviet police car into Ukraine’s front line was a good idea? All this, and much more, is revealed.

This article was first published on newstatesman.com on 29 April, and in the magazine on 5 May. You can read the text version here.

Read by Chris Stone.

Podcast listeners can subscribe to the New Statesman for just £1 a week for 12 weeks using our special offer. Just visit newstatesman.com/podcastoffer.

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