News / Marvin Rees
Rees says media fails to cover less ‘glamorous’ stories
Marvin Rees has blamed the missing “glamour” from the Colston Hall’s renaming as a primary reason for its lack of media coverage compared to the toppling of the Colston statue.
According to the former journalist and former mayor, who continues to promote his recently published memoir, media coverage dictates what the public is more likely to be interested in which usually means “the story is the drama”.
In a radio interview, Rees said that he and his administration saw a wave of “attention” coming their way when the Edward Colston statue was toppled in June 2020 by Black Live Matter protesters. But he told BBC Radio Five Live listeners that things were considerably different when the Colston Hall was renamed Bristol Beacon.
is needed now More than ever
Former mayor Marvin Rees and former deputy mayors Asher Craig and Craig Cheney with former Beacon CEO Louise Mitchell at the unveiling of a plaque marking the city council’s contribution to the reopening of the Beacon – photo: Ellie Pipe
Joining Matt Chorley on Monday afternoon, Rees said: “We got a lot of attention because the statue was pulled down, rolled through the city and thrown into the harbour.
“And a number of people said: ‘Look at this we’re getting rid of the name of the slave trader.’
“But very few stories at that time were told about the Colston Hall being named Bristol Beacon.
“There was no one telling the story of the Bristol Beacon, well because it did not happen in a very glamorous, dramatic way…
“The story was not about the name – whether or not we were making progress on race and race equality and our complex history – but the story was the drama.”
Rees was followed by a camera crew in the days following the toppling of the Colston statue resulting in the BBC Two documentary, Statue Wars.
During his interview with Chorley, Bristol’s last-ever mayor also compared his time in governance to boxing, saying that “being in the line of fire” always makes it more difficult than viewing it as an outsider.
He said: “There is no substitute for doing it.
“I used to box. You can all watch a boxing match, and understand that it’s hard.
“But when you step in the ring, you understand how hard it actually is.”
Talking about his recently released book, Let’s See What Happens, that chronicles his journey to being the first elected mayor of a Black-African heritage of a major European city, Rees said: “I carry a number of things at the same time. I carry an impostor syndrome but at the same time, I have quite a belligerence.
“And part of it comes from feeling an outrage of not being welcomed in some places. Even if it is not me, people like me.
“I was talking to a friend of mine a few years ago – I did put in the book – that when I got to university some of the white kids, called the ‘posh kids’ from the ‘posh schools’, would make Black jokes.
“I used to feel inferior to some of these kids.
“That kind of experience and indignation leaves me to hold an impostor syndrome, alongside of a kind of belligerence around, ‘no I can be here’, and I have evidence and resilience in overcoming to be here.”
Main photo: Betty Woolerton
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