Appointing Matt Brittin, a former Google executive, as BBC director general is smarter than critics admit. Although he was on the board of the Guardian’s publisher, Brittin is no journalist. He does understand platforms, scale and digital audiences.
Director generals come under scrutiny when crises hit, like last week’s sacking of Scott Mills over his “personal conduct.” It then emerged that police previously questioned the Radio 2 DJ over separate allegations of serious sexual offenses, closing the case due to lack of evidence. However, the role’s underlying challenge is facing future threats to the corporation’s audience.
On one measure, YouTube reaches more Britons than the BBC’s channels combined. However, hovering into view is AI, which facilitates misinformation, error and ignorance. It is already beginning to mediate the news and how it is understood. The UK’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) says about 30 percent of searches display AI summaries, seen regularly by more than half of adults. The BBC has tried, for good reasons, to stop its journalism being extracted by AI without payment. However, it risks excluding itself from a technology where many now get information. The Reuters Insititute for the Study of Journalism found that only about 6 percent of users turn to AI for news. However, as summaries embed in search, journalism becomes raw material, not the finished product.
A paper by Kai-Cheng Yang of Binghamton University last year showed that AI-generated answers draw on a narrow band of sources: OpenAI models rest on wire services; Google’s on search-driven global media; Perplexity on respected brands such as the BBC. The same question produces a different response depending on the system used. Despite the BBC being the UK’s most trusted news source, only two of four AI tools drew on its content, said a study from the Brthe UK’s Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). The UK’s most popular AI tool — OpenAI’s ChatGPT — cited GB News more often. ChatGPT’s top citations often align with OpenAI’s publisher deals, including the Guardian’s. The lack of transparency around how AI’s sources are selected and weighted is problematic.
Audiences once chose between narratives. Social media made them navigate or trapped them in filter bubbles. Now, AI distills a single response. Nuance and plurality are at risk. Journalists traditionally judged what information to use and which sources to prioritize. Their mental models were built through reporting. AI systems perform those functions through hidden algorithms, privileging what is most common, not what is most true.
Control lies not just in owning information, but in structuring, modeling and understnading it. The IPPR rightly argues that the UK must combine transparency over how AI answers are generated, fair licensing frameworks to ensure publishers are paid and intervention to curb platform dominance over information. Public service media, especially the BBC, should anchor this strategy. Impartial, accurate news is essential for democratic stability.
The BBC’s charter review must secure funding and end the cycle of “existential” resets with a permanent settlement protecting its independence. The BBC has the scale, data and mandate to underpin a trustworthy “orchestration” layer for news. Its journalism must be machine-readable, queryable and interpretable on its own terms. Letting companies like Palantir, co-founded by the Trump-backing billionaire Peter Thiel, do this would be a mistake. The BBC has traditionally fused innovation with public purpose. It must do so again and ensure news stays contestable, transparent and accountable.
What began on Feb. 28 as a military campaign against Iran quickly became the largest energy-supply disruption in modern times. Unlike the oil crises of the 1970s, which stemmed from producer-led embargoes, US President Donald Trump is the first leader in modern history to trigger a cascading global energy crisis through direct military action. In the process, Trump has also laid bare Taiwan’s strategic and economic fragilities, offering Beijing a real-time tutorial in how to exploit them. Repairing the damage to Persian Gulf oil and gas infrastructure could take years, suggesting that elevated energy prices are likely to persist. But the most
In late January, Taiwan’s first indigenous submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), completed its first submerged dive, reaching a depth of roughly 50m during trials in the waters off Kaohsiung. By March, it had managed a fifth dive, still well short of the deep-water and endurance tests required before the navy could accept the vessel. The original delivery deadline of November last year passed months ago. CSBC Corp, Taiwan, the lead contractor, now targets June and the Ministry of National Defense is levying daily penalties for every day the submarine remains unfinished. The Hai Kun was supposed to be
Most schoolchildren learn that the circumference of the Earth is about 40,000km. They do not learn that the global economy depends on just 160 of those kilometers. Blocking two narrow waterways — the Strait of Hormuz and the Taiwan Strait — could send the economy back in time, if not to the Stone Age that US President Donald Trump has been threatening to bomb Iran back to, then at least to the mid-20th century, before the Rolling Stones first hit the airwaves. Over the past month and a half, Iran has turned the Strait of Hormuz, which is about 39km wide at
There is a peculiar kind of political theater unfolding in East Asia — one that would be laughable if its consequences were not so dangerous. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) on April 12 returned from Beijing, where she met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and spoke earnestly about preserving “peace” and maintaining the “status quo.” It is a position that sounds responsible, even prudent. It is also a fiction. Taiwan is, by any honest definition, an independent country. It governs itself, defends itself, elects its leaders, and functions as a free and sovereign democracy. Independence is not a
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