If you want a reason for Channel 4 to exist, it’s Unreported World, says Krishnan Guru-Murthy

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I’ll never forget what my first editor at BBC’s Newsround told me, nearly 35 years ago, about our job as journalists. He explained that we should present important, but potentially difficult, stories by placing them between more appealing content – essentially, making sure viewers received the news they *needed* to see alongside the stories they *wanted* to watch.

We aimed to cover a wide range of news stories, even those people weren’t used to seeing, and to truly inform and explain issues, rather than just confirming what viewers already believed.

By 2025, the idea of viewers passively watching a scheduled program seems almost old-fashioned. Today, people decide exactly what they want to watch, and much of what we create for traditional TV is instead experienced in short clips on social media or quickly skipped over.

Instead of offering a wider range of viewpoints, the increasing number of news sources has actually made our focus narrower. News broadcasts and online feeds now concentrate on fewer stories. We saw this during the Covid pandemic, when everyone became an expert on a single topic, and during the years leading up to Brexit, when the debate consumed all media. Currently, stories about Gaza, Ukraine, Trump, and issues like immigration are the ones we see most often.

While getting the facts right and reaching a wide audience are crucial, the focus on clicks and viral content has come at a price. Many important global stories are being ignored because news organizations often follow the same trends. That’s why I appreciate working at Channel 4 – we’re committed to covering unique and underreported stories as part of our public service mission.

With news coverage becoming increasingly limited, the long-running series *Unreported World* feels more important than ever. For those unfamiliar with the show – which has aired 300 episodes over the past 25 years, since its debut on September 8, 2000 – its title says it all. The program sends reporters around the globe to uncover stories that often go unnoticed, such as preparations for a potential Chinese invasion in Taiwan, a town in Mexico heavily reliant on Coca-Cola, the intense world of K-Pop, and the early stages of uprisings in Syria and Myanmar – stories that eventually made headlines, though often briefly.

Soon after I started working on Unreported World in 2011, I ran into Alan Yentob, who was then the BBC’s creative director. He told me he wished the BBC could acquire Unreported World from Channel 4. At the time, I was heading to South Africa to investigate the reasons behind the unrest in the townships.

Fourteen years into my career, I was sent to Sudan in February to cover a truly devastating and hard-to-reach conflict. It took days just to gain access and report on the stories of people facing unimaginable hardship, completely cut off from outside assistance after fleeing brutal fighting and mass killings. Reporting from places like Sudan is costly and demands significant time and dedication, resources that are becoming increasingly scarce for many news organizations.

Visiting Yemen in 2016 to report on the civil war felt tragically familiar. We saw heartbreaking scenes – babies and children suffering from starvation, and mothers so weak they couldn’t nurse their children. Despite the severity of the situation, it barely registered with the British public, as news coverage was overwhelmingly focused on Brexit.

Our latest series explores several urgent issues, including the rise of ‘slay queens’ in South Africa, the devastating human cost of the drug war in Colombia, and reports of US agents improperly detaining migrants. I recently reported from Israel, where I investigated a surge in unsolved murders within Israeli Arab communities. These communities are plagued by powerful criminal groups, and residents accuse the far-right policing minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, of failing to protect them.

With so much focus on Gaza, important stories are often overlooked. Programs like Channel 4’s Unreported World demonstrate the vital role of public service broadcasting – they bring attention to these neglected issues.

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2025-10-14 03:04