Channel 4 News at 25: Benjamin Cohen
Updated on 01 November 2007
When Channel 4 News first aired, our technology correspondent Benjamin Cohen was just two and a half months old.
One of the strangest things about being the baby of the newsroom is that I'm the same age as Channel 4 News.
I'm actually two and a half months older, but that doesn't really count.
Last night, I was watching the wobbly, grainy copy of the second edition of Channel 4 News and the referrals to notes and the slight nervousness of Peter Sissons and Trevor Mcdonald reminded me of my first appearances on the programme.
It was really Krishnan Guru-Murthy on the BBC's Newsround that was my source of news when growing up. I remember entering a series of "Press Pack" competitions - where children got to make their own reports. I consistently failed to win.
Of course, I am far to young to really remember the days when Peter Sissons anchored the programme.
My earliest memories are of Jon Snow with his wacky ties and the orange "4" in the early 1990s.
But I do have to admit that as a pre-teen, I didn't really watch the programme out of choice. It tended to be when I was staying at my
grandparents- my grandfather is a regular viewer.
It was really Krishnan Guru-Murthy on the BBC's Newsround that was my source of news when growing up. I remember entering a series of "Press Pack" competitions - where children got to make their own reports. I consistently failed to win.
I still feel a tingle of excitement when I'm sitting opposite Krish for a live on News at Noon. The little kid inside of me still sometimes wants to blurt out: "it's the bloke off Newsround."
I did of course graduate to "real news" when I was in my early teens- switching over to Channel 4 News (when it didn't clash with EastEnders).
Jon used to come to my school, JFS (Jews Free School), regularly to speak to the sixth form. He now claims that I asked him a question but I can't remember. What I do remember is him cycling past me on his way into work as I was trudging up the road to the school.
The day I joined - a couple of weeks before I turned 24 - was exciting and terrifying. I'd spent the last 10 years or so watching greats like Jon Snow, Nicholas Glass and Lindsay Taylor reporting from across the world. Joining them in the newsroom was exhilarating and nerve racking.
Twenty five years after it was launched, Channel 4 News has really changed the face of British television news. It has pioneered specialist journalism on screen- something that was extended to cover the emerging technology industry when my role was created.
The programme takes risks, big ones on a regular basis. It's probably the risk taking that makes it such an enjoyable, addictive watch. It took a risk when it took me on.
But my generation - the children of Thatcher and the 1980s - pose a new problem for a traditional news broadcast like Channel 4 News. We've grown up in multi-channel homes, with mobile phones and the internet.
While an older generation was happy not knowing the news until the evening (or even the morning's newspapers), we want it now and on demand.
Channel 4 has adapted to this by having a constantly updating website and the ability to stream on demand reports from the last few years.
In theory, this allows the viewer to become the editor to decide the running order and which stories are too boring to watch.
But a website that derives its content from a twice daily news programme, is necessarily limited. But it's not hard to imagine that in the future, broadcasters like Channel 4 News may chose to upload all the interviews we shot but didn't use on our news bulletin, as well as the vast array of agency footage covering every subject under the sun from just about every country.
Viewers could then simply point and click to create their own customised bulletin, unconstrained by the time limitations we fight against in our nightly programme.
However, some in the industry argue that regardless of the progress of 24 hour news channels and websites like Google News, there is still a place for appointment to view television news programmes like ours.
The fact that we produce original, investigative, sometimes off the wall reports will probably help us somewhat.
But the future for this and every news programme is largely in the hands of you. Will we survive? In the mantra of another Channel 4 institution, Big Brother, "You decide."
