Image: Envato
By Peter Kearney, Communications Manager at SPUC
Legacy media, the mainstream media, old media, establishment media – whatever you call it, I think there is reason to believe that it’s in its death throes. Conversely, we’re seeing the rapid ascent of new media. Now, as something of a self-proclaimed reactionary, ordinarily I would see such a change as potentially bad news. But that’s most certainly not the case here. I’m here to tell you why I think the overdue death of legacy media is a good thing, not just for us pro-lifers, but for people of goodwill in general.
For those of us in the UK, the BBC’s prolonged fall from grace has been quite something to witness. From providing the nation with vital information and arguably helping to maintain morale during World War II, to now, in 2025, potentially having to cough up $1bn to the most powerful man in the world after making some terrible editorial decisions, the BBC has well and truly nosedived when it comes to credibility. When the BBC, in November of 2025, essentially admitted to making misleading edits to a Trump speech which featured on both Newsnight and Panorama, for many of us this was evidence of what we had been alleging for a long time: that the BBC is fundamentally biased and fundamentally flawed.
The fact that the nation’s so-called public-service broadcaster is partisan is bad enough, but this is compounded by the fact that if you want to consume their deception which passes as news, and their trashy soaps, you must pay them a whopping £174.50 a year! It’s no wonder then that licence fee evasion this year hit a record high, with 1 in 8 UK households dodging the fee. So, what does this fee-dodging mean for the BBC? Well, it means they are now losing £1bn a year from households either evading the fee or deciding they don’t need one.
And it’s not just in the UK where people are waving goodbye to legacy media. We’re seeing big changes in the US too. Shortly before Trump’s re-election in November 2024, CNN reported that an anonymous TV executive had said the following:
“If half the country has decided that Trump is qualified to be president, that means they’re not reading any of this media, and we’ve lost this audience completely. A Trump victory means mainstream media is dead in its current form.”
How prophetic they were – not only did Trump win, but he won with a landslide victory!
And legacy media also faces stiff competition when it comes to print media too. Gone are the days when consumers of news heard the latest solely from established writers. With digital platforms like Substack, which allows for free blogging and article-creation, people are now also getting their news and opinion from whomever they choose to. This allows for literally anyone to consider themselves a journalist.
So, whilst legacy media is falling, new media is rising. Shortly after Trump’s re-election in November 2024, Elon Musk – who had purchased Twitter 2 years prior – posted 5 simple words: “You are the media now.” This post garnered over 107 million views, proving Musk right in the clearest way possible.
Joe Rogan, host of the most successful podcast in the world, is widely considered as the poster boy of new media. And you can see why. In October 2024, as the US presidential election was drawing closer, Trump chose to appear on Joe Rogan’s podcast. That episode now sits on 60 million views on YouTube. These are viewing figures that many legacy media outlets could only dream of. And with the podcast lasting for almost 3 hours, this is also access that many legacy media outlets could only dream of as well!
And in the UK, new media platforms representing both left-leaning and right-leaning politics are also gaining traction. Novara Media, very much on the Left, boasts over 1.13m subscribers on YouTube, whilst The Lotus Eaters, very much on the Right, has over 517k subscribers.
You’ve even now got former legacy media stars jumping ship to new media! Former BBC darlings, Jon Sopel and Emily Maitlis, left the BBC in 2022 to front the very successful The News Agents podcast.
So, why is the death of legacy media a good thing for us pro-lifers? Well, put simply, because at best, they ignore us, and at worst, they actively despise us. Very recently we saw an example of this. Recently, SPUC had the privilege of interviewing Sir Brian Souter, who quite frankly spoke the unfiltered truth about abortion and the duplicitousness of the Scottish political establishment. On the back of this, the colourful rag otherwise known as the Scottish Daily Record, called out Souter for being honest enough to refer to abortion at 39 weeks as “infanticide”. And not only did the author of the article, Paul Hutcheon, not ask either Sir Brian Souter or SPUC TV for comment, he asked two of the most virulently pro-abortion members of the Scottish Parliament instead; Monica Lennon and Gillian Mackay.
The same tabloid has a history of taking shots at SPUC: in 2022 they released a story where the headline read: Controversial anti-abortion group visited several Lanarkshire schools. You’d be forgiven for reading this headline and thinking – as I did – so what! This is literally the extent of the story. Now, if SPUC had been giving talks at these schools without their permission, then they may have had a story on their hands. But no, SPUC, responding to invites from schools, surprise surprise, then proceeded to go into these schools and give talks. This is the mainstream media, ladies and gentlemen…
And now back to the BBC: in 2023, BBC’s Panorama released a documentary titled, Crisis Pregnancy Centres Uncovered. In what was a disgraceful attempt to smear pro-life groups, the documentary included an interview with abortion provider, Dr Jonathan Lord. Lord denied that there was any such thing as post-abortive syndrome or adverse mental health effects after abortion – despite evidence to the contrary, agreed on by many pro-life and pro-abortion researchers. They also interviewed counsellor, Jo Holmes, who, in response to a reference by centre staff to “the baby”, had the gall to say: “It’s not a baby when you’ve got a choice, it’s a pregnancy, an unplanned pregnancy or an unwanted pregnancy.”
The legacy media in Ireland is no better. In the run up to the Irish referendum on abortion in 2018, the national broadcaster, RTE, exploited the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar, creating the idea in the electorate’s mind that her death was as a result of her being denied an abortion, and that abortion must therefore be legalised to prevent other maternal deaths. In reality, Savita died of sepsis in Galway University Hospital because her miscarriage was not correctly monitored and there was a failure to intervene after signs of sepsis were missed. However, sadly the media spin worked, as 66% of voters decided that their country – once a haven for the unborn child – now needed legal abortion.
Whilst it’s not quite dead yet, I really do think that legacy media is dying. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not all starry-eyed about the new media which will replace it. There are plenty of new media outlets whose message is one I would vehemently disagree with. But there are just as many that I can get behind. And at the very least, new media takes some of the power away from big, greedy corporations like the BBC, and for me that is cause to celebrate.
And clearly for us at SPUC, the rise of new media is a good thing, and we’re already reaping the benefits of this. Power is slowly but surely shifting from the establishment media to people like us, who choose to use our platform to speak out for the vulnerable, the marginalised and the downright ignored. It is the unborn child who best fits this description, and for our part, we are going to make sure it’s they who are front and centre of the conversation.
