LSST SU President invited to debate on BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show

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LSST’s Students’ Union President, Renata Carvalho and LSST’s Press Office were invited to participate in a live debate on BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show.

In the first of a series of programmes exploring the media revolution, Amol Rajan, the BBC’s Media Editor and Fran Unsworth, the BBC’s Director of News, panelled a debate with Peter Henegan from social media company LADBible and Madhumita Murgia, European Tech Correspondent of the FT.

Whilst at the debate, LSST’s SU President and Press Office staff were faced with controversial questions that revolved around the notions of the relationship between the media and its sources. Such questions included asking whether they thought journalism can still trust its traditional sources whilst successfully differentiating between truth, myth and lies.

Being pushed by host Amol Rajan to justify assumptions and conclusions, attention-grabbing debates ascended with different perspectives arising as to what the ideal approach should be by the BBC to ensure its own survival in a competitive media landscape.

Speaking with LSST, Richard Hooper, Producer for BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show, thanked LSST for its participation and added: ‘We often feature the media CEOs and newspaper editors on The Media Show but we don’t often meet the consumers. This was an opportunity to bring the two together and we were delighted to welcome a full house for the broadcast.’

Renata Carvalho, LSST’s SU President said: ‘Smart phones have made us all instant-reporters and journalism often loses out on this form of citizen-journalism. Also, after hearing from the panellists, I am sure that the future of news consumption is likely to involve AI-driven voice interfaces.’

Kunal Chan Mehta, LSST’s Senior Lecturer and Press Officer said: ‘Being part of this much needed discussion with a diverse group of people and guided by a leading figure in this area was a great experience, probing deeper into some of the major challenges faced by the media revolution’.

Listen online on the BBC Radio 4 website

Please email the author of this article kunal.mehta@lsst.ac for any questions or comments or if you would like to take part in future interviews with industry leaders.

LSST students, join the debate and comment below: Do you find the BBC trustworthy?