Channel 4 launches 4NewsWall, a current affairs platform for the bitesize generation

Wednesday saw the launch of a new form of news presentation by Channel 4. 4NewsWall is website dedicated to the day’s top news stories, listed chronologically, presented as GIFs.

The standalone site is hosted on Tumblr and is targeted at an audience of 16- to 34-year-olds. The GIFs are designed to be displayed and shared prominently on social media such as Twitter. Users can click on the GIFS to read a more detailed summary of each story and access a link to the original source.

Creating GIFS based on serious news stories that will appeal to younger audiences will be a tricky task but the site perfectly captures Channel 4’s irreverent tone of voice, providing humorous and silly imagery alongside more hard hitting content. The site was created by Channel 4’s in-house creative team 4Creative, working with ITN, which produces Channel 4 News.

4NewsWall is only the most recent development in the ongoing evolution of the way we consume news. On the whole news platforms are condensing their stories into digestible nuggets that can be consumed at speed. Clippet is another fast news platform, this time an app that offers sixty second audio summaries of the day’s best news stories.