After receiving a trophy at the National Reality TV Awards on Monday night, Charlene White gave advise to her fellow news reporters.
The Loose Women panellist and 43-year-old ITV news presenter was honoured at Porchester Hall in London for her work on the network’s News at Six with Mary Nightingale.
The celebrity pondered on the situation of the news industry after the evening’s presentation and urged stations to give “trustworthy” behaviours priority.
The former I’m A Celebrity contestant acknowledged that it was a “tough period” for the news industry and exclusively discussed with Metro.co.uk how she thought businesses should best avoid putting themselves in a “hazardous situation.”
It’s a challenging moment for our industry, Charlene said. Although technology has drastically altered and disrupted our profession, the foundations remain the same.
‘We have to be there for those that watch us and engage with us and read what it is that we do.
‘We have to be behaving in a way that’s trustworthy, people trusting what we do because being blind to what else is happening in the world can be a really dangerous position to be in.
‘Having a service that can be trustworthy, that can tell people the truth, that can give both sides perhaps of an argument allows people to come to their own conclusion about what’s happening in the world and I think that’s really, really important.’
The news expert proclaimed that young people utilising the app for information gathering was “amazing,” not avoiding a future TikTok migration.
‘Wherever young people can get a trusted news source, the better. We can’t run away from technology, that’s not the way to deal with it,’ she pointed out.
Charlene continued: ‘The way to deal with it is so-called old school news services engaging with people wherever they are. I think, yes, it’s great and it’s our responsibility to go to where they are.
‘It’s very, very destructive to be in an environment where young people are taking on news from non-trusted sources and perhaps, they are skewing the way they’re looking at the world as opposed to a really balanced collection of news stories.’
The newsreader was firmly convinced that the old newsroom would endure despite her support for a new digital era.
‘I don’t think anyone can wipe out news studios. You have to adapt and change, it’s no that we have to worry about being obsolete – we just have to be relevant, there’s no wrong or right way.’
