The veteran newsreader Alastair Stewart has become the latest presenter to sign for the forthcoming GB News channel, as the new rightwing station prepares to launch later this year.
He will host a weekend news and current affairs programme, joining a growing number of well-known older male presenters who have joined GB News in recent weeks. The station is pitching itself towards disaffected viewers who feel television news currently skews to the left.
Stewart is a familiar face in the nation’s homes after his decades hosting bulletins for ITN, as well as reporting from around the world. However, his career came to an abrupt end last year after he was sacked from his role presenting occasional bulletins.
It was widely reported that Stewart was let go by ITN after he tweeted the phrase “angry ape” at a black political campaigner, but sources at the company insisted that his contract was terminated over multiple “errors of judgment”.
“It was never about a single tweet, it was always errors plural,” an ITN source said at the time.
However, this did not stop the individual who was the subject of Stewart’s comment from receiving a barrage of racist abuse from angry members of the public, who blamed the individual for taking Stewart off air.