More info about GB News shows.

[buttgammon]

Andrew Neil is proof that the right's dominance of the British media is nothing to do with their propagandists having any skill, but merely the brute force of having so much money to throw at it.

[bomb_dog]

The acrimonious fallout from GB News continues to amuse, and we very much enjoyed the detail that one of the crunch points was Andrew Neil pissily complaining that the plane the channel had put on for him to fly from his home in the South of France to London was "the smallest private jet in the world."

Andrew should count his blessings. Not everyone at GB News gets treated to such luxury. In-house legend has it that instead of arranging cabs for producers and crew who work the unsocial shifts, they've got a single minivan that winds its way through London dropping off and picking up workers like an airport shuttle.

A service that staff refer to as the 'GB Cruise'.

[steveh]

Is it some sort of tax dodge?

There's sure to be some 'tax management' going on but it's more extremely wealthy people with a political axe to grind for whom the costs are chump change.

Worth noting that the two hedge fund guys, Paul Marshall (LibDem Orange Book author, Leave campaign and Conservative funder, Unherd main investor and ex-Mumford bloke's dad) and Christopher Chandler (Vote Leave funder, founder of Legatum Institute which has a lot of influence with current govt) both seem very happy to take the side of the CEO Angelos Frangopoulos in the channel's move to anti-woke outrage rather than Andrew Neil's. They're paying for what they want.

[jobotic]

yeah, i'm sure they'd like the production quality to be better but as long as their revolting message is getting out there it's fine.

Not just GB News either - I doubt Koch pays Brendan O'Niell to write his shit because he thinks he's a talented writer.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Really. REALLY. We're supposed to believe that Andrew Neil, with all his experience in broadcast news, had no fucking idea that "GB News" was always going to be reactionary right-wing trash from the beginning. Fuck off. He was enticed by the idea of having total control over a news channel and then walked away when he realised he wasn't gonna get that and also the production values were total shit. He's only going on about how he never wanted Foxhunt News, never at all, because he's angling for another job.

Yeah the one thing I don't think long term Murdoch lieutenant Andrew Neil is is naive, but he's trying to make us think he is!

[Sebastian Cobb]

He is however, quite fragile and thin-skinned it would seem.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

I think he's also stung by discovering that BBC-level staffing and BBC quality tech and BBC quality engineers cost a lot of money. After they stumped up the cash to get the thing on air it turned out these rightwing ghouls didn't, in fact, have the money to take on six producers or whatever it was to do Neil's research like he had at the BBC. Pity.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I assumed, being the talent, they'd massively underestimated how many unseen 'little people' there are behind the scenes doing stuff, they may well have mostly only interacted with producers and runners, but for things like the false names - most proper operations will have given some  admin staff the thankless task of screening that sort of thing prior to the presenters reading it.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Very probable that because of his twenty different jobs, Neil showed up at the BBC half an hour before he went on air and was out of the door minutes after he finished so had no real idea of what actually went in to making any of the programs he worked on.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

There's sure to be some 'tax management' going on but it's more extremely wealthy people with a political axe to grind for whom the costs are chump change.

Worth noting that the two hedge fund guys, Paul Marshall (LibDem Orange Book author, Leave campaign and Conservative funder, Unherd main investor and ex-Mumford bloke's dad)

This is what I mean. Andrew Neil is a journalist. That, that bit in bold, that should've been his first fucking clue that GB News was going to be sensationalist, jingoistic propaganda. And we're expected to believe he just blindly took the job, never looked into who was funding it, never even did a cursory google of their names.

[monkfromhavana]

He didn't give a fuck about any of that, he'd probably have been happy to spout all that crap (though probably more carefully worded than other people on the channel), he just left cos they were inept and he was being laughed at. Also, he was aware that the people laughing were correct, so couldn't even pass it off as "Woke-Marxists". He should be reminded of his stint on GB News at every future opportunity.

[The Culture Bunker]

The word 'hubris' has been used and that's a lot of it for me: Neil has had years of having his arse kissed, hailed as one of the country's leading journalists, a giant in the field etc etc. I do think he thought he could just roll up to GB News and the viewers would flood in, he'd be hailed as a pioneer - "crusading a new age of independent journalism" - all that shit. If he looked deep inside his soul, he'd realise his success has been built on the backs of numerous never-known staff members, but as seen, he just blames everyone else. I've no doubt at some point there will be a damage-limitation book that lays out the causes of GB News' failures, and Neil will be ever-so-keen to give it plenty of "I told them this, I warned them that, but they didn't listen. If only they had..."

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Also, he was aware that the people laughing were correct, so couldn't even pass it off as "Woke-Marxists".

Yes also a crucial point. It must really hurt when your critics are right and you know they're right because you agree.

[imitationleather]

My brain is refusing to generate a mental image of Andrew Neil crying.

[Mr Trumpet]

Hot, greasy tears

[Sebastian Cobb]

Hot, greasy tears

the consistency of pork pie jelly

[Huxleys Babkins]

My brain is refusing to generate a mental image of Andrew Neil crying.

It's 2021. Why not let an AI do it instead?

[kalowski]

Close up of Kendra Lust has let itself go.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I can't be bothered even finding the article, it's never living up to this.

[Icehaven]

I haven't seen EastEnders in about 15 years, but what exactly does ''embracing wokeism'' in this context mean? There's been plenty of non-white characters and gay characters in it since the 1980s and I wasn't aware of it being a hotbed of right wing comment and humour that's suddenly been silenced either. 

[Ferris]

"It's almost like the Taliban" haha fuckin hell

[Sebastian Cobb]

I haven't seen EastEnders in about 15 years, but what exactly does ''embracing wokeism'' in this context mean? There's been plenty of non-white characters and gay characters in it since the 1980s and I wasn't aware of it being a hotbed of right wing comment and humour that's been silenced either.

It almost certainly means 'they won't give me a job on there again'.

It looks like he's making ends meet as a Peter Stringfellow impersonator.

[Icehaven]

If he can't get work in some capers about cockney gangsters in the Costa del Crime looking like that then there's no hope for him.

[Ferris]

"What is it like working on a soap opera that is broadcasted by the BBC?"

"It is almost like the Taliban"

"Well that seems a perfectly reasonable take and definitely the kind of interviewee (and opinion!) we should have on our channel"

[gilbertharding]

What's 'like the Taliban'?





Honestly, these utter, utter cunts.

[jobotic]

Awight Ma?

Not this time son. We've gorn woke. Int that right Ethel?

Where's my Willy?

[Sebastian Cobb]

Just noticed that he's got that trump/farage thing where his mouth looks like his eyes.

[Catalogue Trousers]

'They won't let me murder old geezers in their own flats any more, in case a Pakistani sees it...It's political correctness gone mad, Stew...they've banned Christmas now.'

[Kankurette]

I must have imagined all the black and Asian characters I saw on Eastenders in the '90s. Not to mention Tony and Simon. And there are women walking around with their faces uncovered, so they missed the memo about it being the Taliban. Besides, i thought the far right liked the Taliban? Or are they too brown?

[kalowski]

Robert De Niro has let himself go.