Symeon Brown

Symeon Brown (born 1987/88)[1] is an English journalist and non-fiction author from Tottenham, reporting for Channel 4 News[2] as home affairs correspondent.[3] He was a youth community activist.

Early life and education

Brown grew up in social housing in Tottenham, his parents both British Jamaicans, his father involved in crime and his mother a child carer.[4] He has a degree from LSE.[5] He identifies as "A working class, black Afro-proletariat"[6] and "multi-class".[4] He was at primary school with David Lammy.[4]

Activism

He was a community organiser, founding Haringey Young People Empowered (HYPE)[7] as a teenager with friends, organising 500 volunteers and winning the Young Haringey Heroes award.[8] With HYPE he organised a youth football tournament in Wood Green in July 2010 in memory of a teenager murdered earlier that year and against postcode rivalry.[9][8] In 2010 and 2011 he lobbied Haringey Borough Council for Save Haringey Youth Centres against cuts in the youth services budget.[5][10] He said the 2011 London riots were due to a loss of trust between young people and the police.[11]

Career

Brown interned with David Lammy MP in 2010.[4] In 2011 he was an assistant archivist at the Black Cultural Archives[4] and a senior researcher on a The Guardian investigative unit on the 2011 England riots[7] on a Scott Trust bursary.[4] He discussed the riots on Radio 4's Today programme in August 2011.[12] He was a panellist on BBC Three's Free Speech Olympics Special in July 2012.[13] He was a panellist at a debate on the criminalization of Drill music held by Diane Abbott MP at the Houses of Parliament in June 2019.[14]

Brown has reported for Channel 4 News since July 2014.[15] The owner of Cereal Killer Cafe in Tower Hamlets cut short an interview for Channel 4 News in December 2014 when Brown asked "Do you think local people will be able to afford £3.20 cereal?"[16] and complained about the report in an open letter.[17]

Brown was a fellow of the John Schofield Trust in 2015[18] and a Churchill Fellow in 2023.[19] His journalism has appeared on CNN, The Guardian, Huffington Post, New Statesman, Vice, and The Voice.[18] He has reported for Unreported World[20][21] and was a commissioning executive on the series Untold.[22] He was a judge for the Desmond Elliott Prize in 2022.[23]

Recognition

He was named among "30 to Watch: Journalism" by MHP Group in 2018.[24][25] He was shortlisted for the 2018 British Journalism Awards, the 2019 Orwell Prize[18] for his piece "The Wolves of Instagram"[26] and a 2022 BAFTA Award for his editorial work with presenter Ayshah Tull on Channel 4's Black to Front day.[27] He won Random Acts Live Pitch Award at the 2016 Edinburgh TV Festival,[28] and the Medical Journalists' Association award for News Story of the Year (broadcast) in 2018 for his Channel 4 report on knife crime in hospitals.[29]

Books

Brown contributed an essay to Derek Owusu's 2019 anthology, Safe: On Black British Men Reclaiming Space.[30]

He published "Get Rich or Lie Trying: Ambition and Deceit in the New Influencer Economy" (ISBN 9781838950279) with Atlantic Books in March 2022, on the losers of the influencer economy[2][31] and what The Big Issue called "the undercurrent of fraud, exploitation, bribery and dishonesty behind the glamour."[6] Subjects include his school friends falling for cryptocurrency pyramid schemes, cosmetic surgery failures of LA influencers,[32] and a man paid to be racially abused on social media.[33] In the book, Brown "dismisses individualized, commercialized activism".[34] The IET's E+T magazine said it is "not an in-depth dissection... [h]owever, as an eye-opening, human-focused cruise through the influencer economy, it is a triumph."[2] New Statesman called it "the first serious attempt to expose the hidden darker side of the economy of influencing".[31] The i Paper called it a "well-researched polemic ... wonderfully expansive but moves slightly too quickly through some topics."[35] Chris Stokel-Walker in New Scientist likewise said "At times, Brown hurtles through first-person stories so fast that there is hardly a chance to blink ... The book's stronger sections are those that bring the action closer to home and address some deeper, more systemic issues."[32] John Maier writing in Literary Review was critical: "a depressing book to read, and not just because it is uncomprehending, lacking in irony and rather poorly written ... One problem seems to be the rather detached, documentary style Brown is committed to, one that leaves no room for serious or sustained analysis".[36] It was reviewed by The Times,[37] Times Literary Supplement,[33] and Financial Times.[38]

In 2026 he published "The Good, the Black and the Boujee" with Dialogue Books,[39] based on over 1,500 interviews of Black British perceptions of being middle class[40] and contrasting Black professional success and cultural visibility with the Black Lives Matter movement.[4] He discussed the book on Radio 4's Free Thinking in May 2026.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Topping, Alexandra (29 July 2011). "Farewell youth clubs, hello street life – and gang warfare". The Guardian.
  2. 1 2 3 Lamb, Hilary (23 March 2022). "Book review: 'Get Rich or Lie Trying' by Symeon Brown". E+T. The IET.
  3. 1 2 McElvoy, Anne (8 May 2026). "The Middle". Free Thinking. BBC Radio 4.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Loffhagen, Emma (9 August 2026). "'It's rare to hear: I'm black and middle class' – Symeon Brown on black Britain's enduring 'taboo'". The Guardian.
  5. 1 2 Pears, Elizabeth (2 March 2011). "Haringey Council's budget leaves 'crumbs' for young people". Tottenham & Wood Green Independent.
  6. 1 2 Dimitrijevic, Sophie (13 July 2022). "The dark side of the influencer economy". The Big Issue.
  7. 1 2 Lewis, Paul (10 October 2011). "Meet the research team". Reading the riots. The Guardian.
  8. 1 2 Varley-Winter, Alex (9 July 2010). "How football is helping to tackle teenage 'postcode rivalry' in London".
  9. ↑ Pears, Elizabeth (15 July 2010). "Haringey Young People Empowered (HYPE) host football tournament in honour of murdered teenager Godwin Lawson". Enfield Independent.
  10. ↑ Pears, Elizabeth (25 November 2010). "Haringey chief grilled over youth service budget cuts". Tottenham & Wood Green Independent.
  11. ↑ Hardiman, David (7 August 2011). "Youth leader Symeon Brown links riots to 'breakdown in trust' between Tottenham community and police". Tottenham & Wood Green Independent.
  12. ↑ "'Riots reopen old wounds' in London". Today. BBC Radio 4. 8 August 2011.
  13. ↑ "Symeon Brown". Free Speech. BBC Three.
  14. ↑ "Krept & Konan Just Spoke In Support Of Drill In The UK Parliament". Clash Music. 19 June 2019.
  15. ↑ "Symeon Brown". Channel 4 News.
  16. ↑ Molloy, Antonia (12 December 2014). "Cereal Killer cafe owner cuts interview short after he is grilled about his prices". The Independent.
  17. ↑ Cowburn, Ashley (13 December 2014). "The C4 reporter had a pop. And the Cereal Killer cafe snapped back …". The Observer.
  18. 1 2 3 "Symeon Brown (2015) lifts lid on influencer culture in first book". John Schofield Trust. 9 March 2022.
  19. ↑ "May 2026 Fellows' update: Symeon Brown". Churchill Fellowship. 8 May 2026.
  20. ↑ Richardson, Hollie; Davies, Hannah J; Harrison, Phil; Catterall, Ali; Wardell, Simon (24 October 2025). "TV tonight: Norman Reedus is back battling the zombie apocalypse". The Guardian.
  21. ↑ Gilbert, Gerard (22 November 2024). "What's on TV this weekend: Strictly brings back the dance-a-thon". The i Paper.
  22. ↑ Mohammed, Sagal (3 November 2022). "Why UK rappers are shifting focus to building businesses". Soho House.
  23. ↑ Brown, Symeon (1 July 2022). "What makes a great debut?". The Bookseller.
  24. ↑ "30 to Watch: Journalism". MHP Group.
  25. ↑ Mayhew, Freddy. "Former Press Gazette news editor among top 30 young UK journalists named by awards judges (+full list of winners)". Press Gazette.
  26. ↑ "2019 Exposing Britain's social evils prize finalist". The Orwell Prizes. 2019.
  27. ↑ "Ayshah Tull (2014) and Symeon Brown (2015) shortlisted for BAFTA for Channel 4's Black to Front". John Schofield Trust. 11 April 2022.
  28. ↑ PA News Agency (25 August 2016). "Peter Kay, Reggie Yates and Adele win big at the Edinburgh TV Festival". Glasgow Times.
  29. ↑ Robins, Sallie (20 June 2018). "MJA Award Winners 2018: Sun star Christina Earle, awarded top honour". Medical Journalists Association.
  30. ↑ "The male version of Slay In Your Lane? Lit review: Derek Owusu's SAFE". Melan Magazine. 20 April 2019.
  31. 1 2 Manavis, Sarah (7 March 2022). ""Social media is sentient neoliberalism": Symeon Brown on the exploitative influencer economy". New Statesman.
  32. 1 2 Stokel-Walker, Chris (16 March 2022). "Get Rich or Lie Trying review: A pacy scroll through influencer life". New Scientist.
  33. 1 2 O’Brien, Hettie (18 March 2022). "'I want the Kardashian figure'". TLS.
  34. ↑ Szpyrko, Karolina (14 April 2026). "We are all activists now: activist-washing of labor and marketization of hope in Zalando's #activists of optimism campaign". In Mia Liinason, Onur Kilic, Sama Khosravi Ooryad (ed.). Feminist and Queer Imaginaries of Hope in a Turbulent Era. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 45. doi:10.4337/9781035336845.00009. ISBN 9781035336845.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  35. ↑ Sharma, Ruchira (15 April 2022). "Get Rich or Lie Trying, by Symeon Brown, review: A gut-wrenching exposé of the influencer economy". The i Paper.
  36. ↑ Maier, John (March 2022). "#MoneyForNothing". Literary Review.
  37. ↑ "Get Rich or Lie Trying by Symeon Brown review — most influencers will never be Molly-Mae Hague". The Times. 27 February 2022.
  38. ↑ "Get Rich or Lie Trying — how the influencer industry really works". Financial Times. 1 March 2022.
  39. ↑ Spanoudi, Melissa (21 April 2026). "Dialogue Books acquires Symeon Brown's 'landmark portrait of modern Britain'". The Bookseller.
  40. ↑ Onwuemezi, Natasha (26 June 2026). "With his new book Symeon Brown examines the aspirational Black middle class". The Bookseller.
This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.