If you want some socialist chat on a Sunday, this new show is for you

A new weekly show aims to bring some socialist chat to people’s Sunday evenings. And with a fresh and exciting line-up for its first episode, the signs are already looking good.

Socialist Chat Room

The Socialist Chat Room is a new, live YouTube political show. It’s been created by RD Hale, who’s behind Council Estate Media. It’s a website and YouTube channel dedicated to amplifying the voices of working class writers. The first episode of Socialist Chat Room is at 8pm on Sunday 17 October:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R6qc_swpy4

Hale wrote that:

I am hoping my equipment and very old PC are up to scratch, but I can’t properly test them until I can purchase the streaming software I need in the coming days. Once I have more funding, I will upgrade to a more professional setup, but expect day one to be ultra low budget!

Not that that should bother most viewers. Because the Socialist Chat Room’s first panel is worth listening to, regardless of any tech issues.

Meet the panel

As Hale tweeted, it features:

https://twitter.com/RD_HaIe_/status/1449119854649389382

The guests are:

• Lisa – who describes themselves as a “Woke Leftie” and “Zero Covid Zealot”.
• No Justice  – a left-wing gaming video creator.
• Popey Variant 616 – whose Twitter description is “chaotic good”.
• Freddie Bailey – a Labour councillor from Preston.
• Samuel K – a broadcaster and musician who’s well known for his video shorts like this one about Boris Johnson:

https://twitter.com/SamuelKOfficial/status/1353425502392836097

Breaking barriers

Hale wrote that the Socialist Chat room format will be:

a six-person panel to discuss recent events and the issues that matter to us in a friendly and accessible manner. It will not be a place to argue and divide the working class, because God knows there is too much division already! I would like our panels to be as diverse as possible, and most of the people who’ve approached me so far are straight white men like myself! Nothing wrong with that, of course, but if you are female, non-binary, LGBT, or from an ethnic minority, I would love to hear from you. Let’s represent a wide range of people.

He told The Canary:

I’m launching the Socialist Chat Room because the mainstream media, and even left wing media, is too often dominated by middle class voices. I want to create something where regular people can actively participate in the live chat, or even join our panel and discuss issues that matter to them in a fun and accessible way. I particularly would like to engage younger viewers and show them that politics doesn’t have to be dull.

It’s an entrenched problem that middle class, university-educated voices control the corporate media and some of its independent counterparts.

Not classy

As Sam Gilfillan wrote for DiEM25, research throws up the scale of the problem:

journalists are almost twice as likely to have at least one parent from the highest earning work classification than the average worker, with over half of the UK’s top journalists privately-educated. In fact, it is thought that only around 11% of UK journalists come from a working-class background.

Gilfillan also noted how the industry has brought about the “academisation” of journalism too. In other words, he says that to get into journalism you more often than not need to have a degree and work through an unpaid internship. So, Council Estate Media and the Socialist Chat Room aim to redress the balance.

End the ventriloquisation

As Hale noted:

The key difference between this show and most other leftist content in the UK is that I aim to primarily platform ordinary working-class people. Many on the left are expressing frustration that the working-class are rarely given a voice and more often than not, we are ventriloquised by (often well-meaning) middle-class people. I would like this to change.

So, all power to Hale and his guests – and make sure you tune in on 17 October at 8pm.

Featured image via Council Estate Media