“We are the media now”

Summary: The inaugural New Media Conference at the Emmanual Centre in Westminster, hosted by Mahyar Tousi, brought together influential independent media figures to promote transparency, accountability, and free speech. Several hundred attendees enjoyed panel sessions and networking opportunities with a real “who’s who” list of new media personalities including like Tousi, Carl Benjamin, Dan Wootton, Andrew Gold, Andy Ngo, Peter Whittle, Andre Walker and many others. There was controversy and humour and, although the formal Q&A sessions were rather limited, the event went down very well with attendees. Inevitably, despite its size and high-profile participants, the “old” (mainstream) media ignored the event. So, it remains to be seen just how much the conference will contribute to the death of old media that Mahyar Tousi has been predicting.

Mahyar Tousi is a conservative British-Iranian new media commentator whose YouTube channel TousiTV has over a million subscribers, with the numbers rapidly growing. His daily news updates tackle subjects and perspectives ignored by the mainstream media and regularly gain more viewers than TV news bulletins from the likes of the BBC and Sky News. That’s why he seems justified in claiming that “We are the media now”.

On 9 August 2025 Mahyar hosted the U.K.’s largest gathering of new media personalities and supporters. Several hundred people paid £35 to attend the conference, with many (including myself) paying a further £20 for an invite to an impressive VIP breakfast before the conference started. I was there reporting for TCW.

The venue was the Emmanuel Centre in SW1. This was not the original choice but, as Mahyar Tousi had reported in one of his news bulletins, two previous venues he had booked for the event had cancelled due to their owners capitulating to threats from the likes of Antifa. Indeed, despite the Emmanuel Centre venue only being disclosed to paid ticket holders one day in advance, a small number of Antifa did still arrive outside – such is the regular intimidation of those who believe in free speech face whenever they simply want to gather and speak. Fortunately, the police dealt with the demonstrators effectively.

The day-long conference consisted primarily of a series of panel sessions with Q&A, addressing different aspects of new media and its challenges.

The first panel titled “Legacy versus new media: Who is winning the war for influence?” turned out to be the most entertaining and controversial of the day. The panel consisted of Dan Wootton (former Sun editor and GB News presenter), Andre Walker (Talk TV), and someone who most regarded as the token woke Leftie Benjamin Butterworth (GB News and the i- Paper). It was chaired by Danielle Terry.

The first flashpoint came when Benjamin asserted – to loud boos from the audience – that it was right that Tommy Robinson should be banned from being interviewed by any mainstream media including GB News. He later defended the statement by asserting that we certainly wouldn’t interview dangerous people like the Taliban or Isis. To enormous amusement Dan pointed out that Benjamin had, in fact, interviewed the Taliban.

The real fireworks came in the Q&A session. Speaking as a member of the audience Andrew Gold (former BBC employee, who presents the well known podcast Heretics) asked Dan to explain why he had posted an angry statement on X about Andrew two days before. This resulted in a quite vicious verbal confrontation between the two which was only ended when Andre said to Andrew, mischievously, “look, I don’t know who you are, but this is not the place for this discussion so F*ck off.” The remarkable interaction was captured on video by young new media star Emma Dunwell:

The second panel was titled “Should Media be openly biased? Is transparent bias more honest than pretending to be neutral?”. This panel, moderated by Mahyar Tousi, had a very impressive line-up of Andy Ngo (The Post Millenial), Stefan Tompson (Visegrad 24), Rebecca Mistereggen (Document Media) and Emily Schrader (JNS, Ynet News).

Emily made some excellent points about the anti-Israel bias and blatant lies promoted by the mainstream media over Gaza, stating that their claim to be unbiased is what has fuelled worldwide antisemitism. She pointed to the claim that 200 reporters had been killed, even though most of these were proven to be active members of Hamas. In contrast, she pointed out that Israeli reporters on the ground like her, who were actually in Gaza, were either ignored by the mainstream commentators sitting in their foreign studios or told that she doesn’t know what this is all about.

Tousi made the important point that there was nothing wrong with being biased (most channels and reporters are) as long as we are open about it, but the problem is that most of the mainstream pretend to be unbiased. Both Stephan and Andy made the point that we are still dependent on mainstream media for many stories and access to sources and felt that much of what the new media do is simply comment on what the mainstream report. Mahyar agreed saying that new media people needed to do more filming rather than simply focusing on commentary about the mainstream media. He also made the important point that the real bias of mainstream media comes from agencies like Reuters.

There was some discussion about the dependence on the tech companies and their algorithms, with the ever-present danger that they could simply shut new media sites down at any point. In a brief discussion about their concerns about increasing use (and potential danger) of AI, there seemed to be a consensus that AI was simply dependent on the data input to it, namely the news which was dominated by left-wing mainstream sources. But this underestimates the sophistication of the AI biases; so, I was hoping to get a question in asking if they were aware that almost all the considerable research funding in AI has been dedicated to inventing increasingly clever algorithms to sensor and/or demonise people like us. These algorithms are created almost exclusively by far-left academics and researchers who have their own biased view about what constitutes ‘misinformation’.

Following this panel, we had the first of two sessions which were intended to be light entertainment, but which I felt did not work well and went on far too long. This was a session entitled: “Is it News or Nonsense” where panel members Benjamin Butterworth, Ridvan Aydemir (Apostate Prophet), and Andrew Gold were provided with amusing headlines and they were asked to determine whether this was news or nonsense.

The final panel session of the morning was titled “From Views to Votes: can you mobilise voters through new media?” The panel members were Darren Grimes (former GB News presenter), Jack Ross (Turning Point UK) and Mahyar Tousi, with Andre Walker moderating. One of the problems with this and all the sessions was that insufficient time was left for Q&A. Most of the many wanting to ask a question were unable to do so, and almost invariably those who did get to do so, were intent on making speeches rather than asking a question. I was particularly keen to ask what I thought was a particularly relevant question for this session, namely “why do new media people with the biggest followings (such as Tousi himself) rarely, if ever, repost or promote smaller new media accounts (like TCW)?”

During the lunch break several of us walked to Parliament Square where we watched the enormous police presence allowing supporters of the newly proscribed terrorist group “Palestine Action” to demonstrate:

The afternoon began with a session titled “Free speech includes saying things that are wrong”. The panel were: Carl Benjamin (Lotus Eaters), Peter Whittle (The New Culture Forum), Andrew Gold (Heretics) and Ridvan Aydemir (Apostate Prophet), with Tousi as moderator.

Given the heavyweights on this panel, it was again a shame that so little time was left for Q&A (I was especially keen to direct a question to Carl). With so many unable to get their questions in, Tousi announced that there would be a dedicated open Q&A session at the end of the day (when I did get my question in – see below – but Carl was no longer around!). However, one audience member asked the important question about whether promoting proven lies was acceptable free speech and hence free from litigation. She provided the worrying example of a former British MP who had been one of the bravest and most outspoken opponents of the covid tyranny, but who has been posting blood libels against Israel that are widely known to be Hamas lies. This person had been informed of the errors privately through pleas from his friends to retract these statements, and publicly through social media. Despite the enormous damage caused with people assuming that somebody who took great risks in order to speak the truth about covid must be speaking the truth about Israel, he would not retract. No panel member answered the question.

There were no further panel sessions but there were two interesting individual presentations. The first was Barrister Stephen Barrett on “Policing the Internet: Can free speech survive the Online Safety Act”. He spoke about the massive over-complexity of acts of Parliament (“They are book length”) and said that, while intended to “protect children” the online safety act “will not keep a single child safe”. He slammed Ofcom and said that most regulatory acts are worthless, giving the example of the Data Protection Act which “does not protect data but just creates employment for the many who work as data protection personnel”.

The other presentation was by Alp Mehmet of Migration Watch who were one of the sponsors of the event. He did a good job of cutting through much of the mainstream narrative and warned about the dangers of the rapidly increasing number of Sharia counsels. But the most surprising thing he said was the real problem was the massive increase in legal immigration, since illegal immigration was proportionally very small.

What most participants assumed would be the final session of the day was the promised open Q&A session. As many of those who had been on panels had left, only Tousi, Andre Walker and Stephen Barrett were on stage to answer questions. I finally managed to ask the question I’d specifically wanted to put to Carl Benjamin. It was:

“Can anybody explain why so many excellent, critical-thinking new media influencers who saw through all the mainstream media and globalists’ lies over covid and climate change swallow without questioning the much blatant lies (pushed by exactly the same media and globalists) demonizing Israel over Gaza?”

Fortunately, this criticism does not seem to apply to any of the speakers at this event, with the possible exception of Carl. However, it is a major problem since so many influencers who saw the light during covid came out as Israel-haters (and even antisemites) over Gaza and it has fragmented the ‘freedom movement’. Only Walker responded, but he did not answer the question (he just made a very good point about how bad it was the British Government seemed quite happy to leave Hamas in power after a ceasefire and ’recognition of Palestine’).

Just as it seemed the Q&A session was warming up (it had only been going 10 minutes) Walker and Tousi announced that there was now going to be some light entertainment in the form of a satirical game show called “Spin the narrative”. This did not work out well, and even with many of the audience leaving, it went on far too long.

When it was finally terminated Tousi announced that this was the formal end of the programme. He thanked everyone for coming – including Ben Habib – who arrived in the afternoon – and invited people to continue networking in the public areas as some of the speakers were still there.

Afterwards, a large group of us including young new media stars Emma Dunwell, James Harvey and Will Coleshill (Resistance GB) went to a nearby pub which became the scene of a horrific incident.

While waiting outside the pub for a cab to go to the after-party Emma and James were attacked by a man (allegedly a migrant). Fortunately, a police van was nearby and one of the officers tasered the attacker. Emma managed to film most of the incident. This has since been viewed by millions worldwide:

Fortunately, everybody eventually made it without serious injury to the after party.

Despite the nastier dramas, limitations of the Q&A sessions, and pointless light entertainment sessions, it was a very enjoyable day. I met many old friends and made quite a few new ones. Will participants have learned much new? Probably not, because it seemed that most attendees were already well tuned in to the narratives of most speakers. But, although it could be argued that this was just an echo chamber for those who already reject the old media biases and lies, it was a superb networking event, especially for the many young new media creators seeking to expand their reach. This will surely lead to increased collaboration and promotion of their work which will chip away at the dominance of the old mainstream media …. even though the imminent death of the old media, as predicted by Mahyar Tousi, still seems depressingly too far away.