Debbie Ramsay
Editor, BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat
A decade serving young audiences – and why plain speaking is not ‘dumbing down’
6th June 2019
Debbie Ramsay is editor of BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra Newsbeat. The flagship news programme has been on the air for 45 years and has a weekly audience of eight million 16 to 24-year-olds, with 14 million more online through articles, videos and social media. Since joining the BBC in 2006 she has done “every job in Newsbeat”. In this in-depth interview, Debbie speaks out against critics who claim news must ‘dumb down’ to attract young audiences, describes how the “immediacy” of broadcast lured her away from print, and argues that the secret to Newsbeat’s longevity lies in telling “diverse” and “authentic” stories.
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