Cable Live - Gary Younge talks journalism, race and power

The Bristol Cable

Join the renowned writer, broadcaster and academic for a powerful talk exploring his childhood and journalism career, and how his experiences have shaped his work.

Gary Younge is a renowned, award-winning journalist, author and broadcaster, and now a professor of sociology at the University of Manchester.

In the latest episode of our new Cable Live podcast strand – where we sit down with writers, academics and activists from across the UK, putting the Cable’s work in the national conversation – Gary delivers a fascinating speech reflecting on racism, journalism and power.

Gary takes us back to his working-class childhood in Stevenage, the youngest of three children raised by his Barbadian mother, his path into journalism after winning a bursary from the Guardian, and how his experiences have shaped his work.

“I entered journalism with a healthy contempt, embedded from childhood, for the dominant narrative,” he recalls. “I grew up assuming the official count of everything was at best suspect and most likely a downright lie – in part because I was being lied about constantly, who I was, where I was from, why I was here.”

What then does it mean for the journalism industry that many top jobs are still filled not with people who have grown up with such a “gimlet-eyed” worldview but instead have shared class and educational privilege with those likely to be running the country? How do journalists’ backgrounds influence their perspectives and what is reported on – and what needs to change?

Join Gary for a powerful and personal exploration of these questions and many others, in the most recent recording of the Cable’s ongoing speaker series. This podcast also contains edited highlights of the Q&A session that followed.

The talk took place at the Station in central Bristol where the Cable also has its office, and was hosted by our events coordinator Gigi El-Halaby.

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