Reporting America: From Alistair Cooke to the age of outrage

Eighty years ago this month, Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America was launched on BBC radio, seeking to explain to different classes and generations, from ‘shrewd bishops [to] honest carpenters’ what life in the US was like. The programme ran for six decades through 11 presidents, McCarthyism, the civil rights era, the Vietnam war, Watergate, Roe vs Wade, the ending of the Cold War as well as the changes in culture – from Elvis to the Summer of Love.

But when Cooke was broadcasting, one man could set the tone for how the British public understood America. That certainty has long gone. How on earth do we report America today in a fragmented media system, with misinformation and disinformation rife and a US president who has weaponised social media and attacked the fourth estate?   To mark this anniversary, we discuss the challenges and opportunities in reporting the US with expert journalists.

Panel:

Dr Glenda Cooper, Reader in Journalism who, together with Professor Howard Tumber, has carried out the first major academic research into Alistair Cooke’s work

Jonathan Freedland, Guardian columnist and host of the Guardian's Politics Weekly America podcast

Professor Inderjeet Parmar  who writes the American Imperium column for The Wire, and author of several books, including the forthcoming Ten Years That Shook the World: Trump and the Crisis of America and the American Empire

Jon Sopel, presenter of The News Agents, former BBC US editor and author of a trilogy of books on Trump’s America, including If Only They Didn’t Speak English

Marianna Spring, BBC’s social media investigations correspondent and presenter of the BBC’s Americast

Katie Tarrant, 2025 Washington Post Stern-Bryan Fellow and Sunday Times reporter

Chaired by Professor Karen Fowler-Watt, Head of the Department of Journalism

HEIF-Funded project inspired by Cooke's work

Dr Cooper is also heading up a HEIF-funded project inspired by Cooke's work entitled 'Letters from Us' in collaboration with Koro, a charity specialising in grassroots immersive, interactive, and site-specific theatre. For more information please see: https://www.koro.org.uk/lettersfromus