Americans are flocking to British news publications – this is the reason why

The UK media have impressively exploited some gaps in the US news market – and it’s paying off

British news titles are punching way above their weight (Getty Images)

One of the few compensatory satisfactions of the decline of print – inevitable but distressing – is the rise and rise of British news brands on the web across the globe, particularly in the United States. With all the gloom about news provision, it is too little remarked upon that British titles are now read by more people in more places than ever before. In one area, at any rate, the UK is punching far above its weight, and should continue to do so after Brexit.

Why? Well, there are very obvious advantages. There’s the English language, the world’s lingo these days. Plus of course, the web, though that is available to all titles in all languages. And we producers of content – journalists to use the quaint term – don’t have to pay for the means of production and distribution.

Being a loyal reader of The Independent, I’d always try and seek out a copy when abroad. Before the internet, when on holiday in the States, Thailand, Morocco or Finland, say, I managed, with effort, to find a paper version – vastly expensive, in black and white only, a day or two out of date, and with a reduced number of pages, but I could read what The Independent editorial had to say. Now it is much easier, as we know.

None of that, though, is sufficient to guarantee and fully explain the phenomenal success of MailOnline, BBC News and indeed The Independent. That success is much more to do with these titles providing things the American media – for all its excellence – didn’t have a tradition of doing. Thus, MailOnline’s sidebar of shame symbolised a whole new way of doing celeb and showbiz news (yes, I am being polite).

The BBC gives the Americans the style of strictly neutral fact-based news services that only a public service organisation with global resources can make work on such a scale (just as it does and always has for its audiences everywhere, including under occupation and dictatorship). The Independent, like others, offers a trusted liberal and progressive outlook that is plainly valued by a certain audience in America as it is across the world, and we are proud of that. The British media have impressively exploited some gaps in the US news market, in a way other countries have not.

It is rather like the way hard-pressed British motor companies exported their little sports cars to the US after the Second World War. The US firms made famously magnificent saloons, station wagons and pickups, but left that niche of compact sports cars to the British with their MGs, Sunbeams, Lotuses and Triumphs. The British brands offered something fun and different, and enjoyed great success (and vital dollar earnings). It was a small example of the mutual advantages of international trade. Now we have another one, and you’re reading it.

Yours

Sean O’Grady

Associate editor