Colin Brazier: Like us or not, GB News is a media phenomenon

I have a picture on my computer, a digital version of an old oil painting, which serves as my screensaver. It’s called the Last General Absolution of the Munsters on the Rue du Bois. And for a time there were many homes in Ireland which had a copy of it on the wall. It was painted in world war one and the original was lost during world war two. It depicts a haunting scene of young men, seeking solace in their faith, in the knowledge that many of them would be dead in a few hours.

It’s a depiction of duty, but also a reminder – every time I fire up my laptop – that what many of us think of as a sacrifice is frequently little more than an inconvenience. Life may seem full of hazards - covid, climate change, knife crime – but for the bulk of us, life is no longer what the philosopher Thomas Hobbes said it was: “nasty, brutish and short”.

But it does still throw up choices which demand that we nail our courage to the sticking post. For me – that was joining this news channel, probably the bravest considered decision of my life. That will sound pompous and silly to many ears. But as someone widowed three years ago with six young children to support, I can tell you it took a bit of courage to leave a steady job.

You have to really believe in something, really believe in the need for something, to do that. And tonight I want to explain why I believe, for all there are many who disagree, that our cause is just. I’m saying it now, because it’s exactly a week since I took over this slot, the 8pm Andrew Neil slot as was. And just as Andrew delivered a compelling case for this news channel when it launched, I want to re-state what I believe our purpose is. This is very much my personal opinion, not the company line.

Our critics say we are coarsening public debate. I say we are enlarging that debate. Quid Est Veritas asked Pontius Pilate – what is the truth? I’ll tell you what it isn’t. It’s not a set of opinions that a group of highly-networked people who all agree with each other decide is a consensus that only a lunatic would dispute.

Too often, it seems to me, that’s how the BBC works. And, until we came along, it was broadly how broadcast news worked in this country. But ask yourself that Pontius Pilate question. And think of the other walks of life where people go about establishing the truth of the matter. They do it disputationally. The courts and parliament don’t just agree on how things are, any more than newspapers do. If you want to know how Britain works, you’ve got a better chance of doing so if you read the Telegraph AND the Guardian, the Sun AND the Mirror. But in broadcast Britain, where are the alternatives? It seemed to me that our airwaves were offering too narrow an ideological spectrum.

And the viewers who’ve deserted traditional news broadcasters, where have they gone? Too often to ungoverned spaces online. As Rupert Murdoch pointed out after he closed the News of the World, critics should be careful what they wish for. Trained journalists, working in a regulated environment are often preferable to the wild west of Facebook. You may not always like the stories we choose to run, but they’re put together by people who’ve been trained to think hard about news. Unlike outlets on the internet, we have to answer to a regulator, Ofcom, if things go awry.

Another reason I was prepared to take a big risk on GB News is that we are not Facebook. Or any of those other corporate giants who bolt news on to a bigger corporate entity. We are a channel that looks at the news of the day and nothing else. And because that’s all we do, all we are, there is no huge HR department or corporate affairs directorate. No suits telling journalists which pronouns to use, or which part of their unconscious bias needs filleting.

We are finding our feet. It takes time, it may take years. But I repeat: our cause is just. The hue and cry about us is out of all proportion with our actual influence. And that tells you something. GB News is a media phenomenon. Whether you like it or not, it has touched a nerve. I see it in the messages of support I regularly receive. They come from people who feel they’ve been ignored and marginalised and muffled for years.

They are willing us on with a degree of encouragement I find humbling. Contrary to what some of our detractors might think, they are not swivel-eyed loons. Many of them are thoughtful people who feel large sections of the media hold them in contempt.

The people David Goodhart described as ‘somewheres’; folk who feel attached to Britain, their monarchy, their families, their home-town. People like my sister, who still works on the till at a Co-Op in Bradford and whose daily exertions do more for social cohesion than any number of highly paid academics.

In a world where many people are encouraged to speak ‘their truth’, these are people – these Somewheres - who feel that only one version of the truth is permitted. They are right to yearn for an alternative. I hope we can give it to them.

That's tonight's Brazier Angle.