Green Party leader Zack Polanski held a conversation with journalist Mehdi Hasan for over an hour on Monday to celebrate Zeteo UK’s launch.
The late-evening interview at the Barbican Centre was a sold-out event, with 1,200 in-person attendees and a further 540 paying to stream online.
Polanski was met with clapping from Hasan’s audience after establishing candidacy in the Holborn and St. Pancras by-election to hold Labour and Prime Minister Andy Burnham to account.
The politician added that the need for robust independent media in Britain was “urgent”, endorsing Zeteo UK, which will now regularly bring out content – articles, podcasts and shows – for British audiences.
Zeteo UK is an offshoot of American media platform Zeteo, founded by Hasan.
The company accumulated 31,000 paid subscribers on Substack, more than 370,000 YouTube subscribers and around $3 million in annual revenue in the space of four months.
This made Zeteo one of the fastest-growing companies on Substack after launch and Hasan hopes to replicate this success with the UK version.
Hasan had previously said that British media was “broken” that “people are so fed up”, using this as a reason to bring Zeteo to the UK.
On Monday he said: “People believe the British political system is corrupt.”
Polanski made his view known and said: “What we’re seeing from Andy Burnham is more and more rhetoric.
“We are putting pressure on the Labour government to move in a better direction.”
Shehab Khan – Zeteo UK’s political editor – who moderated the conversation, asked Polanski if he was concerned about his net approval rating of -29 in the face of the by-election on October 8.
He said he was fighting to win and attributed the slip to natural peaks and troughs in public opinion of party leaders.
Asked what Green Party strategy for the by-election was, Polanski said: “We’re basically throwing the whole bloody kitchen at it.”
The event was also attended by other journalists with national profiles who are joining the Zeteo UK team.
This included former LBC presenter Sangita Myska, former Spectator editor Peter Oborne and Guardian columnist Owen Jones.
In keeping with Polanski’s interview, Hasan picked contributors to support a left-leaning output for Zeteo’s brand.
Aaron Bissex, 45, and his wife Shelly, 48, both work for the government and had followed Mehdi for a while before attending the launch.
Aaron was in support of the position Mehdi had taken and said: “Zeteo’s there to shake up the establishment, and give honest journalistic views, because some of the mainstream providers don’t give you that.
“I feel like things are kind of shifting in the UK at the moment, it does feel like there’s a greater challenge to the dominant parties.
“There’s new parties that are challenging the ones that have been in power for so long.”
He said following the interview he followed the Greens on social media and sought out more information.
Time will tell whether Hasan’s US success is replicable for a UK audience.
Featured image taken from Zeteo livestream on Substack
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