Broadcasters must react to threat from ‘creator journalism’, says ex-head of BBC News

Deborah Turness, who resigned last year, says traditional news in danger of being replaced by personality-led content Broadcasters must urgently adapt to an existential threat from “creator journalism” that is causing audiences to shun traditional television news, the former boss of BBC News has said. Deborah Turness, who resigned from the BBC alongside the then director general, Tim Davie, last year, said consumption was “collapsing” for traditional television news, which was facing “a profound moment of disruption”. She said that a new habit of following personality-led journalism on digital platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Substack was now in the process of replacing traditional news. She said the impact of the shift may be “greater than the advent of the digital age, or the arrival of social media”. In her first intervention since stepping down from the BBC after the corporation’s edit of a Donald Trump speech, Turness said traditional broadcasters had to quickly react to the “existential nature” of the revolution taking place. Turness pointed to a major decline in TV news audiences, stating that nearly 4 million fewer people had been sourcing their n