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 Younge 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 edition of the 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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