While Ruben Reuter of Channel 4 News has not yet felt able to exercise his democratic right to vote, he may have a significant part to play in the next general election.
Reuter, 23, is one the UK’s most groundbreaking young reporters. He has Down’s syndrome yet has been able to produce films that generate alternative perspectives on pressing issues of our times, including the pandemic and climate change. Channel 4 News has now selected him as a member of its reporting team for the forthcoming election.
It is recognition of Reuter’s engaging reporting style and his ability to ask direct questions that elicit frank responses that more hard-nosed journalists are often denied.
In a campaign where we can expect politicians to hide behind rehearsed answers authorised by party headquarters, any candour from candidates will be welcome. “I like to ask simple and to-the-point questions, it helps to put people in a more relaxed mood,” he says on a video call from his home in West Yorkshire.
“A simple question often brings out the most truthful and emotional answers.”
Media training will not have prepared interviewees for the experience of being interrogated by Reuter, making it harder for them to stonewall his questions.
“People don’t understand we are humans, we have got hearts and we have got feelings,” he says of the widespread ignorance of the effects of learning disabilities, even in 2023.
Reuter’s achievement in stepping out of the margins of television and entering mainstream news cannot be understated. “TV should include everyone and the more learning disabled people on TV the better,” he says. “We have a lot to give and share, we just need more opportunities and support.”
Reuter spoke with the COP26 president Alok Sharma at the Glasgow climate summit. He questioned the Electoral Commission this year over the shockingly low voting turnout among the 1.5 million people with a learning disability.
“We’ve seen the strength of his reporting mirrored in the huge audience for his packages online, driving millions of views for new and returning viewers,” says the Channel 4 News editor Esme Wren.
Yet there are some in the TV industry who have reacted to his presence as a correspondent on a news bulletin by dismissing it as tokenism.
Louise Turner, who runs Channel 4’s film fund, describes the response as “really rude” and notes that even the most experienced broadcast reporter depends on support from production colleagues. “Ruben has this energy and empathy and screen presence many don’t have after doing it for a long time.”
Reuter, who has developed a close working relationship with producer Rosie Baldwin, joined Channel 4 News in 2021 after earlier work as an actor and a presenter on CBBC documentaries.
The BBC has a dedicated disability correspondent, Nikki Fox, who has muscular dystrophy. Tommy Jessop, an actor with Down’s syndrome, has presented documentaries for the BBC. But Reuter’s presence on a daily bulletin is unprecedented. “He has become a Channel 4 face” says Turner.
He has done his first pre-recorded “two-way” with a presenter and aims to go “live” with his reporting soon. He is likely to appear in the Channel 4 News studio in Leeds, near his home in Huddersfield.
“If I am filming live I just need to keep my coolness,” he says. “I love new challenges, to improve my speaking and to make my eyeline better for pieces to camera.”
His work is getting recognised. He was awarded a Journalism of the Year prize by the disability charity Sense last month. He is nominated in this year’s Grierson Trust British Documentary Awards for a film he made about disability and abortion. Broadcast, the television industry publisher, named him one of its 2023 “Hot Shots”.
Channel 4 News wants to give the learning disabled community genuine representation in news by elevating Reuter to a broad reporting remit, beyond his role covering disability.
“We have been moving him away from [disability] being the only thing he does, otherwise it feels like he is pigeonholed,” says Turner.
With his background in acting and dance, Reuter is taking on culture stories, and his interest in environmental issues.
“We are trying to use Ruben to do more accountability interviews,” says Turner, “because they are not expecting anything from him and then he is able to ask questions in a way maybe another reporter would not be able to.”
Politics is the next step. “I would like to talk to the Green Party first, then Rishi Sunak,” he says.
It will also be the first election at which he feels confident enough to cast his vote.