Centre-Left Disruptor

Zeteo Shakes Up British Media

Still in England. Mehdi Hasan, 2012.

By Josh White

Mehdi Hasan has made waves across the Atlantic by announcing plans to launch Zeteo UK in September.

Predictably, the right-wing response has been dismissive. But it would be more worrying if The Telegraph and Guido Fawkes were cheering for a new centre-left platform.

In other words, Hasan has annoyed all the right people.

A lot has changed in Britain since the journalist left for the United States in 2015. The political atmosphere is far more acrimonious and nihilistic, especially on race relations and immigration.

Far-right talking points have entered mainstream discourse. In 2015, it wasn’t normal for right-wingers to dispute whether black and brown people born in Britain are “truly British”.

Traditionally, the UK media has been dominated by public service broadcasters bound by law to impartiality and partisan newspapers with a strong agenda. The result has been a broadcast culture dominated by centrism.

That has changed dramatically in recent years. GB News and Talk are challenging traditional broadcast culture from the right.

Print media has also entered a new era. Several legacy newspapers and magazines have changed ownership, and the number of alternative podcasts and newsletters continues to grow.

From one perspective, Zeteo UK is just the latest left-of-centre digital media startup. The Nerve launched recently too, itself the project of Carole Cadwalladr and other journalists from The Observer.

What makes Zeteo UK different, though, is that it’s an offshoot of an American platform.

Waiting for Mehdi

There has been speculation that Mehdi Hasan, now a US citizen, might return to Britain.

Hasan has long been vilified by the British right for being a Shia Muslim whose parents – a doctor and an engineer – were born in Hyderabad, India. His opinions and values have been scrutinised in a way no white journalist would be.

Maybe that’s why Hasan insists he will stay in the United States unless the Trump Administration finds a way to deport him. Facing discrimination in his adopted country may seem the lesser of two evils compared with experiencing it in the land where he grew up.

Politically, Hasan is a left-wing social democrat.

As a broadcast journalist, he built his credibility on his public speaking skills. Hasan is a formidable Oxford-educated debater who has the knowledge to outfox right-wing speakers. He was also the political editor of The New Statesman, back when the magazine still had radical credentials.

After years of living in the US, Hasan became more aligned with the liberal consensus at MSNBC (now MS NOW), the Fox News of the Democratic Party.

He once held more conservative Islamic views on abortion and homosexuality than he does now. But Hasan has remained true to his principles on most topics, particularly the defining foreign policy issue of our time: Gaza. That’s what led to his departure from MSNBC in January 2024, where he had once been one of the star hosts.

Few mainstream American journalists were taking on Israeli officials on TV news. Hasan stood out as the one guy willing to do it any day of the week. So it was only a matter of time.

When MSNBC cancelled The Mehdi Hasan Show, he decided to leave and launch his own media startup. Zeteo debuted in the US in April 2024, finding an audience through social channels such as YouTube and the newsletter platform Substack.

Soon after launching, Hasan converted his personal following into a broader audience, platforming the likes of Naomi Klein, Bassem Yousef and Greta Thunberg.

It’s certainly unusual for a US company to launch a branch in Britain, but this is why it’s likely to do well. Zeteo UK has an immediate advantage over other alternative media because the US mothership is growing strong.

Rising Together

Zeteo UK is another example of the shift from news reporting that strove to appear objective to partisan punditry.

The Americanisation of broadcast news has intensified in the UK over the past 30 years, particularly the move towards shock jockery and infotainment. The biggest shift has been the emergence of GB News and Talk, which have broken the narrow centrism of the BBC and Channel 4 News.

With luck, Zeteo UK will offer a more left-wing alternative in the mainstream. It may play a role similar to Al Jazeera English, but with greater potential for expansion.

Zeteo UK is building a roster of mainstream journalists. The company has already appointed Shehab Khan, formerly of ITV, as political editor, and Becky Gardiner, formerly of The Guardian, as opinion editor.

Former LBC presenter Sangita Myska, who left the radio station in 2024 after an interview she conducted with Israeli spokesman Avi Hyman, will also be contributing.

Also aboard is Peter Oborne, once the political editor at The Telegraph. Because of his credentials as a long-time Tory journalist, his scathing criticisms of British foreign policy are much harder to dismiss.

Socialist journalist Owen Jones and former Novara Media regular Grace Blakeley will also be appearing once the news platform is up and running.

As this impressive array of establishment talent demonstrates, Hasan’s plan is for Zeteo UK to challenge the mainstream news industry rather than compete with progressive alternative media for the same audience.

It’s easy to talk about “all boats rising together”, but in the reality of the media industry under capitalism, there will be competition for clicks. There are only so many viewers for progressive platforms.

That’s why it’s encouraging that Hasan doesn’t have his ideological comrades in his sights. Although it’s still possible that Zeteo UK will hurt leftist competitors, the force of the blow should fall more squarely on the centre.

Hasan’s approach should be able to coexist with alternative media without resulting in excessive self-cannibalisation.

Mainstream British media was already facing serious challenges from within and without. But Zeteo UK has an opportunity to do something different.

With its American pedigree and Hasan’s credibility, the new venture has the potential to break the stranglehold of centrist broadcasters and newspapers on the national conversation, in part by circumventing the limits they face.

That’s bad news for the establishment.

Photograph courtesy of Policy Exchange. Published under a Creative Commons license.