Three political journalists shared their views on the importance of news for readers and advertisers in a year of ‘Punch and Judy’ politics
When asked by The Media Leader’s Jack Benjamin what advertisers at Adwanted’s Future of Media London event should take away, The Telegraph’s associate editor Camilla Tominey was stridently in favour of modern news brands’ multiplatform model: “When it comes to disseminating news, we’re doing it in such a comprehensive way… [that] in that regard we’re at the peak of our powers.”
She also praised the growing interest in journalism among younger readers, who were more interested in what “actual journalists are actually finding out about these actual facts” compared to people “pretending” to be journalists online.
The Mirror’s political editor Lizzy Buchan agreed, saying that journalists were well accustomed to reporting across every platform their audiences were consuming them. However, one thing was at its essence the same across every format: “[Journalists] are asking questions.”
The Times’ chief political correspondent Aubrey Allegretti concurred, pointing out that unverified content creators often take news reporting as a basis of their own content — the sourcing of which constitutes up to 80% of a journalist’s job. He also said he was “very confident” that AI would be unable to perform a journalist’s core role: to uncover the uncovered.
The panel’s thoughts came as part of a wider panel on the ‘Punch and Judy’ state of politics on both sides of the Atlantic in 2026. Benjamin opened the session with the journalists’ views on a thumping midterm defeat for US president Donald Trump, before turning their gaze to prime minister Andy Burnham’s own prospects following the Budget.
Also up for discussion were the journalists’ favourite interview (Buchan’s was “Keir Starmer on a submarine”), best gossip (“It might be defamatory”, a cryptic Tominey conceded) and what they expect to write about in a year’s time (“Brexit”, Allegretti said, hoping for better memories this time around).
As part of the conference’s day two opener, the session followed Newsworks insight director Heather Dansie’s presentation of Newswork’s ‘Cultural relevance’ research.
Introducing the study to Adwanted’s London audience, Dansie hoped it would serve as a “rallying cry” for advertisers to harness the economic power of cultural relevance to brands’ bottom line.
