Channel 4 News producer Claire Sinka, presenter Cathy Newman and editor Esme Wren after the British Journalism Awards 2025. Picture: Press Gazette/ASV Photography
Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman has said the type of public service investigative journalism the broadcaster does is “more precious than ever” in an “era of AI slop”.
Newman was speaking after winning Journalist of the Year and Interviewer of the Year at the British Journalism Awards for the culmination of years of work on the Church of England abuse scandal.
Newman interviewed Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby in November last year and asked him: “The victims are calling for your resignation…. You’ve just avoided the question, which was the victims want you to resign. Will you resign?” He did so days later – the first forced resignation of an archbishop in history.
Channel 4 News also won News Provider of the Year for the second year in a row , with judges praising the Church investigation and the broadcaster’s reporting from Gaza and Syria.
After receiving her first award, Newman read out a message from Andy Morse, one of the victims of prolific abuser John Smyth, who wrote to her after Channel 4 aired the documentary See No Evil last week.
She said: “Andy tried to take his own life before his 21st birthday where Smyth had threatened him with a special birthday beating. And he messaged me last night and said: ‘For 35 years, like many others, I kept the story of my abuse by John Smyth a secret. My life was spent in silence. Perpetually on the brink of despair.
“‘In 2017, Channel 4 News confronted my abuser, the only time that John Smyth was publicly held to account, and the news team continue to run with the story today. Let me simply say that my life is changed. Life is wonderful.’ And that just meant so much to me to receive that message last night.
“So I dedicated this award to Andy, to the other Smyth victims, some of them have never shown their face or their names but the ones that I know – Graham, Mark Stibbe, Richard Gittins, Rocky and Jason Leanders, Guide Nyachuru who died in mysterious circumstances. Smyth was never brought to justice on that.
“And Smyth’s original victim, his son PJ, who messaged me actually just a few hours ago saying how relieved he is that he finally feels he’s been able to, as he put it, shed shame, support others, and move forward. So thank you, this award is for the victims of John Smyth.”
Smyth story was ‘team effort’
Returning to the stage later in the evening to collect her Journalist of the Year award, Newman brought her producer Claire Sinka.
She said: “In TV it’s all about teamwork, especially public service journalism is all about a big team, a well-resourced team, and thank you to Channel 4 News and my editor Esme Wren…
“I get the glory, being on screen, but behind the scenes people like Claire keep the show on the road. We worked together very much as a team on all the investigations we’ve been doing.
“In this era of AI slop, fake news – you can’t move for disinformation at the moment – it’s just so important, all the journalism that everybody in this room does…”
In an interview with Press Gazette after the ceremony, Newman said it “does feel a real honour to be sort of in the vanguard of that, holding back the tide of AI slop and disinformation”.
Newman noted there “aren’t many organisations doing investigative journalism with the commitment that we do, and in this age of disinformation, that just feels more precious than ever…”
Newman praised former Channel 4 News editor Ben de Pear for saying “great, let’s do it” when he first got the dossier detailing Smyth’s beatings “in black and white”.
“[He] got some investigative producers on board and we ended up putting the story on air a few months later. I don’t see that happening at every broadcaster, without naming names, but we are nimble, and we’re fleet of foot.”
Esme Wren: Cutting budgets ‘clearly the wrong direction’
Editor Esme Wren noted that Channel 4 News is small compared to most broadcast newsrooms, with about 150 people including graphics, technical and design staff.
Wren said this “keeps it streamlined. It keeps it focused. It can’t back every story, but it chooses the ones that it can make impact with.
“It’s a bit like our commitment to Gaza over the last few years, Ukraine: it’s a commitment to get onto the ground. You’ll be front footed about it. We work with a fantastic network of freelance journalists who help support us, fantastic lawyers, and so everyone understands what the purpose and the mission is, and they just keep driving at it…
“We don’t have layers of bureaucracy. We focus on the story, focus on the audience, focus on the stories that we think matter and then everything else just sort of falls into the wayside.”
Wren added: “Also the return on investment on investigations can be quite low. It’s high risk. You’re never sure whether you’ll get the story across the line. You’re never sure you’ll be able to get it published.
“So actually, for newsrooms, they need to be so deeply funded, as Cathy said on the stage, and a lot of newsroom budgets have been cut, and that is clearly the wrong direction for public service journalism.
“It means the type of accountability that’s needed is just evaporating. So we have to guard that.”
Cathy Newman: ‘I’m quite obsessive’
Newman also spoke about how she kept up the momentum on the Smyth story when working on it across eight years.
She said: “I’m quite obsessive. I suppose you don’t let go, because it was just so frustrating that we didn’t manage to bring Smyth to justice during his lifetime but at least we could keep going and get some kind of accountability with the Church.”
She added, however, that it is “a continuing source of frustration” to Smyth’s victims that no-one else who covered up the scandal has lost their jobs.
“But it meant so much to be able to give them a platform to have their stories told and to get some measure of redress for what they’ve been through over so many decades.”
Newman said she “prepared very heavily” for the Welby interview, which she secured after receiving a leak of the Makin Review into the Church’s handling of the Smyth abuse allegations.
“I knew it had to be quite forensic. I didn’t want to let him off the hook. But I really had no idea at that point that he would resign three days later so that felt like an extraordinary turn of events – and the fact that no Archbishop has ever been forced out of office in history has felt really hugely momentous.”
Newman said Channel 4 News will “keep going with this story. We’ve got a couple more investigations on the church more broadly that are coming up, hopefully before Christmas, lawyers willing, so it’s not something that we’ll give up on.”
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