GB News mocked after mixing up Llandovery and Birmingham
The new GB News channel has been mocked online after placing Llandovery in the middle of Birmingham.
The TV station’s chyron claimed a segment ‘from our GB News reporters nationwide’ was filmed in the rural Carmarthenshire market town.
In reality, the background was Alum Road in Saltley, an inner-city area of Birmingham east of the city centre.
There was no evidence that the right-wing news channel, which has already been plagued by technical errors, intended to mislead. However, the mistake was the subject of much amusement on social media.
Llandovery is in Wales. But she’s clearly stood in Birmingham. As VERIFIED on Google Street View! https://t.co/jD01s8020L – From the premier news station for geography. #GBNews pic.twitter.com/S5CpkkyNUV
— GBNews Fails (@GBNewsFails) June 16, 2021
“Born and bred in Birmingham, proud now to be Welsh due entirely to GBnews,” said John Moss.
“Also a clue on the shopfront with the 0121 telephone number,” added Nick Gill.
“Birmingham must have its very own Welsh enclave,” suggested Dominic Eaves. “More Druid Quarter than Latin Quarter?”
“Well, it’s a new Great British variation on the old ‘for Wales, see England’ we suppose!” YesCymru said.
Another user noted that they have made a similar mistake a few days earlier as Linlithgow in West Lothian, Scotland was reported as being in Doncaster, England.
‘Suspended’
The mix-up is the latest to draw the scorn of viewers after the channel’s launch was plagued by problems, including an unclear picture, audio echo and microphones that did not work.
The channel has also run into an advertising boycott after Ikea, Kopparberg and Octopus Energy withdrew their ads from the network after it was launched on Sunday.
IKEA said: “We are in the process of investigating how this may have occurred to ensure it won’t happen again in future, and have suspended paid display advertising in the meantime.”
The boycott relates to the channel’s partisan content, with veteran broadcaster Andrew Neil claiming that the channel would not be “another echo chamber for the metropolitan mindset that already dominates so much of the media”.
Campaign group Stop Funding Hate, meanwhile, has challenged advertisers on social media to stop funding the channel.
Support our Nation today
For the price of a cup of coffee a month you can help us create an independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by the people of Wales.
I guess we can’t expect too much from British Nationalists, they think everywhere is England.
The problem is the channel targets a pretty thick audience just like Fox/Trump and we all now where that went.
More free advertising for a news network that has nothing to do with Cymru. Could we get some positive stories, articles that exemplify how and why Wales could succeed as an independent state? Some opinion pieces get there, more so in the culture pieces, but the news section seems to be covering twitter spats, a thing someone said (sometimes on Twitter) and how bad our perceived opponents are. There’s bright, intelligent people working here – please don’t become BuzzFeed Cymru. We don’t need that. It’s fun to play sh*t-slinging, but it doesn’t achieve much, save getting your hands filthy, attracting… Read more »
Would like to see house designs, could we house our people co-op fashion, could Cymru be largely self sufficient in food production, how much electricity does Cymru produce? State ownership of recourses; does it make sense? Where to put the north-south forest (along the border, of course!)
Would charter schools be the better option?
Would a capital, as a hub with own airport, north-south linked be better located in Midwest Wales?
And let us be more diplomatic. Big countries will do what they will. Small countries must do what they can.
Predetermined goals for an independent Wales are the job of political parties. Its fun but ultimately a fruitless persuit for regular people like us (given your list above, I don’t want a few of those, integued enough to consider some and obviously want a border forest!) We, and certainly media like Nation, need to show an independent Wales is viable and desirable. Once you say ‘we need indy because *enter policy preference*’, people who are interested in indy in principle tend to become more sceptical/apathetic/against it if they don’t like the policy. For many in our movement, it’s all but… Read more »
Numpties, this Chanel will not be up long…
I’ve written to a few companies asking them to boycott GBNews by not using it for advertising, we don’t need more right wing nuttery being promoted in the media.