Nick Robinson

Steve Hewlett Memorial Lecture 2017

Steve Hewlett, the distinguished media commentator and programme maker, passed away on 20 February this year after a very public battle with cancer.  He lived his last days through memorable encounters with Eddie Mair on PM and BBC Radio Four and his cancer diary in the Observer.

His good friend Nick Robinson, BBC Radio Four Today presenter and former Political Editor for the BBC, will give the inaugural Steve Hewlett Memorial Lecture on 28 September at the University of Westminster.

BBC's Nick Robinson calls for a new style of journalism in Steve Hewlett Lecture

Nick Robinson delivering the inaugural Steve Hewlett Memorial Lecture (Credit: RTS/Paul Hampartsoumian)

The evidence is already clear that millennials largely ignore the news coverage of the traditional UK TV networks, said the Radio 4 Today presenter.

Unless broadcasters raise their game, Robinson said, there was a risk that quality news organisations like the BBC, ITN and Sky News would lose future generations of listeners and viewers.

Robinson, a former BBC and ITN political editor, said that erosion of trust in public institutions and the rise of alternative sources of news meant that traditional broadcasters needed to try harder.

What is the future for honest journalism in an era of Fake News?

Robinson, a presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, argued for “impartiality as a legal requirement for television news”. Without it, as in the US where “right wingers watch Fox News and liberals watch MSNBC”, he continued, “there are no shared facts. Good public policy decision-making requires shared facts.”

“What Facebook does, and what separate news channels for different opinions do, is give people the possibility to have their own facts,” added Robinson, a former political editor at both ITV News and the BBC.