There is a revolution reshaping how people want and get their information, and a warning has been issued to the news industry: act now or the Joe Rogan and Piers Morgan ecosystem will leave you far behind. Deborah Turness, former head of BBC News, ITN, and NBC News, delivered this message in the Sir David Nicholas memorial lecture in London on Tuesday evening.
The Scale of Disruption
No one can dispute that the news industry is experiencing a revolution that is reshaping news for a new generation of consumers. This disruption transcends all news brands and impacts all journalists and journalism everywhere. Turness, an optimist, believes there are good reasons for a bright future for established news providers, but only if they are willing to adapt.
The tidal wave of disruption often begins across the Atlantic, hitting the UK and US simultaneously. It goes to the heart of how the relationship between news provider and consumer is shifting: from institutions to individuals, from big media brands to personalities, from public service broadcasters to independent journalists. The consequences are dramatic, with news consumption collapsing in some areas and growing rapidly in others.
TV news audiences have declined by nearly 4 million in the past five years, including streaming. Meanwhile, the number of people getting news from YouTube has trebled, and from TikTok has increased tenfold. Turness argues that established media has not confronted the hard truth that this revolution is not just about consumers moving to different platforms, but choosing more direct forms of journalism.
The Rise of Creator Journalism
There has been an explosion of independent journalists and commentators hosting podcasts, creating YouTube channels, and writing Substack feeds where they can monetise their work directly. Examples include Piers Morgan's Uncensored YouTube channel, Emily Maitlis, Jon Sopel, and Lewis Goodall's The News Agents podcast, the hugely successful The Rest Is brand, and Jim Waterson's London Centric on Substack. In the US, Tina Brown's Fresh Hell and new brands like Puck and The Ankler are thriving.
This creator journalism is not a sideshow; it is fast becoming the main event. The biggest independent journalists in the US have built massive audiences on YouTube alone: Joe Rogan with 20.9 million subscribers, Tucker Carlson with 5.6 million, Megyn Kelly with 4.2 million, and Mehdi Hasan with 1.96 million. The wholesale shift from one established information ecosystem to another is underway.
These new forms of content are driving growth in audiences and revenues. The global podcast market is projected to quadruple from $32 billion last year to $114 billion by 2030. The UK is Substack's second-largest and fastest-growing market after the US, with over half a million people paying subscriptions directly to writers.
The Fragmented Landscape
The move away from mass reach towards a fragmented media landscape is a long-term irreversible shift that is completely reshaping the industry. Turness illustrated this with a personal anecdote about a nurse named Sarah, who treats her after a hand injury. Despite a busy life, Sarah never misses episodes of The Rest Is Politics or The News Agents, listens to Pod Save America and The Rachel Maddow Show, and has just downloaded Substack. When asked why, she said, “I trust them. I feel like I know them.” She did not mention any traditional news provider. “We have lost Sarah,” Turness said.
This matters because the new media diet is mainly driven by commentary and conversation. Established media has not yet broken into this new world at scale, so it is not yet the home of frontline reporting by courageous journalists from dangerous places or risky undercover investigations. The question is how consumers will access vital journalism in the future and how it will be funded.
Three Priorities for Survival
Turness believes the established news media has everything it needs to succeed: talented, experienced journalists, brands with meaning, and a legacy of trust. However, optimism is conditional on deploying these assets to win. She outlined three clear priorities: restore trust, reconnect through authenticity, and reinvent the newsroom.
Restore Trust
Trust in news has fallen from 51% in 2015 to 35% last year in the UK, according to Reuters. The 2008 financial crash, when banks were bailed out but ordinary people lost homes and livelihoods, caused a rupture in trust. When Turness joined BBC News in late 2022, she made reversing the trust decline her top priority. Through radical interventions, trust in BBC News increased from 57% to 62% in the year to 2024/2025.
Listening to audiences revealed they need clarity in chaos, courage in reporting, fairness and respect, and transparency. This led to the creation of BBC Verify.
Reconnect Through Authenticity
Established media must face the shift of trust and attention from institutions to individuals. Consumers desire authentic, independent voices. News providers must accept that the connection with consumers must flow through a more direct relationship with talent, feeling less controlled, formal, and corporate. This might mean allowing audiences to follow individual correspondents on the website and enabling journalists to build relationships on platforms like YouTube, Spotify, Substack, and TikTok. A “new deal” should be struck to liberate talent and offer compelling value over going it alone.
Reinvent the Newsroom
Most large news organisations remain structured around broadcast, but they need to start from where the consumer is. A digital and social production studio should produce content in formats and on platforms consumers want: visualised podcasts, short clips, newsletters, live streams, analysis articles, long reads, documentaries, and live events. This “flywheel newsroom” turns today’s model upside down, making the digital output the building blocks of the broadcast offer. Turness is not suggesting killing off the evening news bulletin, but making it differently.
A Provocative Thought
Debate and opinion have always been critical to broadcast news, but replicating this digitally has proven difficult. Online spaces have become echo chambers reinforcing polarisation. Established media has an opportunity to become the town square, creating digital spaces where people are exposed to different ideas. Turness asks whether freedom of speech should become a companion to impartiality. Why not have a walled op-ed section online, clearly signposted, curating a range of voices and linking to other news providers? Why not curate podcasts from different perspectives? For public service broadcasters, this poses challenges, but audiences are well versed in navigating the difference between news and opinion.
Turness believes we are in a new golden age of journalism. The explosion of new platforms has opened up routes for journalists to reach consumers with original, thoughtful, intelligent writing and storytelling. In a world of AI slop and exploitative algorithms, consumers seek human-to-human connections. Her dispatch is rooted in optimism and confidence, provided the established news media is willing to do what it takes to not just survive, but thrive as an essential part of the revolution reshaping news.
