Published: 11:00 am, 18 July 2023
I’m excited to be working with a top team for this podcast, helping our listeners to understand, and feel a bit better, about the world around them.— Hannah GelbartThe BBC World Service today (18 July) announces the launch of a new daily news podcast primarily aimed at 16 to 24 year olds across the globe. The podcast, titled What in the World, launches on 31 July. The podcast will be available daily, Mondays to Fridays, and each episode will ask “What in the world is going on?”
Hosted by Hannah Gelbart, What in the World will explain global news stories and events for those with curious minds, helping listeners to make sense of what’s happening. It will explore news stories with the aim of increasing listeners’ understanding and knowledge across a range of topics. For example, episodes might ask, “What can we learn from the extreme weather in India?” or “What is happening with migrants in Tunisia?”.
Around a quarter of the BBC World Service English audience is aged between 16 to 24 and, according to the UN, 16% of the world’s population (around 1.2 billion people) are in this age bracket. When it comes to getting information, young people have more choices than ever, but distinguishing the facts - especially with the increasing amount of misinformation online – is a challenge.
With the BBC as the world’s most trusted news provider, the podcast will feature BBC journalists from our 42 language services around the world as frequent guests, providing a view of the world from where they live, the stories they’re covering and the questions they keep getting asked.
Episodes will be shaped by the questions our audience are asking and the content they are sharing and will also explore possible solutions. They will be easily accessible, at 9 to 15 minutes long, and available each weekday.
Before signing up to present the podcast, Hannah was the BBC’s global disinformation reporter.
Hannah Gelbart says: “I’m excited to be working with a top team for this podcast, helping our listeners to understand, and feel a bit better, about the world around them. I am looking forward to chatting each day with our BBC reporters across the globe, giving you what you need to make sense of the information out there.”
Jon Zilkha, Controller, World Service English, says: “What in the World is tailored to young audiences and will provide a source of trusted news and information for these listeners globally. Using the expertise of our journalists around the world, we will examine the stories that matter most and focus on positive solutions, something we know young audiences are longing to hear.”
What in the World will be available on BBC Sounds (in the UK) and on most podcast apps, every afternoon GMT.
ES
About Hannah Gelbart:
Hannah Gelbart is a presenter, reporter, and investigative journalist for BBC News, where she’s hosted podcasts including BBC Trending, 5 Minutes On, and People Fixing the World.
She joined the BBC as a trainee journalist in 2015 and has always been keen to make the news more accessible to young people. She worked on My World, a news programme for teenagers executively produced by Angelina Jolie and, after learning to film and edit social media news videos, she increasingly found that the social platforms themselves were part of the story. She began researching and presenting documentaries about disinformation trends online, focussing on human stories such as children in Syria begging on TikTok, women whose nudes are shared on Telegram without their consent, and victims of crypto scammers profiting from the Russia-Ukraine war. She has also told her own family’s story for the BBC: about her grandfather, an orphaned child Holocaust survivor, who came to the UK in 1945.
With What in the World, Hannah hopes to cut through the noise online and tell stories in a warm, uplifting way that connects with younger listeners worldwide. She is as an ambassador for the BBC’s Young Reporter scheme, going into schools to talk about what journalists do, and on the BBC’s Next Generation Committee, which advises the BBC Executive Committee on issues including how to engage younger audiences. She also speaks five languages.
About the BBC World Service
BBC World Service reaches a weekly global audience of 318m, on radio, TV, and digital. BBC World Service English is an English-language radio and online network that broadcasts internationally. BBC World Service English reaches a weekly audience of 81.4m (2023), broadcasting news and current affairs programmes such as Newsday, Newshour, The Newsroom, OS and The Inquiry. It also broadcasts a range of documentaries including People Fixing the World, In the Studio, The Documentary, The Forum, Heart and Soul and The Climate Question. Recent popular podcasts delivered by BBC World Service English include Love Janessa, The Lazarus Heist, and Dear Daughter which won the 2022 Podcast of the Year award at the British Podcast Awards. The Global News Podcast had more than 260 million downloads in 2022. For more information, visit bbc.com/worldservice.
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