Channel 4 boss Alex Mahon has urged UK intervention on public service news to help resist “sliding into an American news swamp.”
The network commissioned research into Gen-Z news consumption habits and uncovered a wealth of what it deems concerning findings, although Channel 4 said the UK regulatory environment is equipped to attempt to resolve the problem.
“First of all, it is important to remember that the UK is in a better situation than most other countries,” said Mahon at a Channel 4-RTS event unveiling the research. “Let’s compare to somewhere else. The simplest case would be the USA, where many people get their information from non-verified platforms or from those with a vested economic interest in the algorithms set to promote popularity rather than factuality. Here, in the UK, we can still resist sliding into an American news swamp.”
Mahon was talking tough on American news and its lack of regulation, coming in the week that BFI Chair Jay Hunt warned against “very protectionist language around Hollywood” from the new Donald Trump administration.
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“Increasing shift towards authoritarianism”
Channel 4’s research found “clear evidence of democratic disengagement and an increasing shift towards authoritarianism,” according to Mahon. Among those aged 13 to 27 in the UK, Channel 4 found that 52% say they think the UK would be better with a strong leader, unfettered by Parliament and elections. This compares to 40% of those aged 45 to 65.
“This should not surprise us,” added Mahon. “Today’s young people have faced a ‘polycrisis’: growing up with concerns about climate change, as well as increased economic, technological and geopolitical turmoil.”
She cited the influence on young people, especially men, from popular figures such as Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson. Mahon said that for the first time “we have seen gender rather than education drive an ideological split where young women hold more liberal views on gender politics, immigration and racial justice than their male peers.” According to the research, 45% of young men said they feel that promoting women’s equality has now led to discrimination against men.
Mahon described young people’s relationship with news as “social, ubiquitous, ambient and contested.”
“We see confusing and conflicting signals about information consumption,” she said. “Students don’t want to read books at university when they can get AI extracted clips. But three-hour podcast episodes are something we quite gladly commit to.”
She cited the Trump interview with Joe Rogan during the election campaign, which amassed 54 million views on YouTube alone and is 179 minutes long.” “For many, the more dyspeptic or noisy the politician, the easier they were to engage with,” she added. “We are moving to engaging more with how people say things than what they say.”
Mahon was positive about the UK’s ability to wrestle with the issues at play. Her solutions include introducing trustmarks, extending regulation so that public service news can be more prominent on social media platforms and training large language models to identify public service news.
“We must start thinking about objective truth and validated news as a public good,” Mahon concluded. “We need to ensure they are present on new platforms, rather than see them as compensating for a market failure that we regulate for on the old platforms.”
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