Current is the peer-to-peer network famously founded, in 2005, by Al Gore and US businessman and politician Joel Hyatt to specifically target 18 to 34 year-old with news and information.
The UK wing of the business was launched in March last year on Sky and Virgin cable channels and online.
Du Bern claims that the channel gets into half the homes (11 million) in the UK and that in just 15 months its UK-specific website is receiving over half-a-million monthly unique users.
Current plucked Du Bern from his job as head of programming at the Extreme Sports channel to help transplant its open source TV platform ethos to the UK and engage a young, socially aware audience to build their own news agenda.
"We felt there was nobody delivering news and information in a way that was really adapted to how young people are ready to consume media," Du Bern said.
"We felt the delivery of news wasn't actually working for young people because the format hasn't changed essentially in decades. It was ready for a radical reinvention, taking on some of the values that the internet generation is used to - greater levels of interactivity and choice."
It's wrong to assume that young people aren't interested in news, Du Bern added, it's just a matter of approaching them in new ways.
"Current was founded on the basis that people have given up making news for young people and assumed that they just weren’t interested, where the facts are that young people are as engaged as ever, probably more than ever, in knowing what's going on in their world. I just think that it wasn't being delivered in a way that was compelling."
The critical factor in engaging younger audiences, he says, is interactivity.
Current encourages members of its community to submit bite-sized documentaries 'news pods' to its website. This VC2 - viewer-created content - strand is available online and used to make ups programmes for the cable TV channel.
Current's dedicated news show broadcasts every hour, taking suggestions from users about news pieces from the web they are interested in. Sources can be traditional news publishers or blog and video sharing sites.
Users submit the news pieces to the site, vote on them, and the most highly rated stories each hour go to make up the show.
"The whole of Current is open to participation. We have so may different ways of making news and information interactive…we're being more honest, I think, about what people are interested in reading, rather than just having a room full of people determining that just by looking at the news feeds."
It also uses UK web search data and delivers news programmes based on those search results. The Google Current show updates with three new 90 second broadcast everyday.
"We open ourselves up to being much more interactive and by doing that we feel we can be much more relevant and authentic because it's the audience that creates it," he added.
"We literally let the audience determine what the news of the day is."
The peer-to-peer ethos is even reflected in Current's investigative journalism show Vanguard, added Du Bern.
Vanguard is put together by staff producers/reporters - rather than amateur members of its community - armed with lightweight video equipment to cover global events.
The results are snappy, heavily stylised films. All part of making them accessible to a young audience, says Du Bern.
"We try to make them honest and real, we try to get away from the reporter telling you the story, our Vanguard reporters will say 'I'm terrified there are bullets going off all around me' rather than trying to be ultra disciplined and po-faced," he said.
"It's an extension of the idea that the viewer would think 'that person is just like me, if I was in their position I'd be scared' and showing it…rather than the traditional relationship the BBC would have with their audience where the reporter is the authority figure and the viewer the submissive user of that news."
Current constantly adapts its programming to suit the whim of the audience. Du Bern sees no problem with remaining entirely market driven and dismisses the idea that younger audiences may be web-literate but might not be as accomplished at discerning trustworthy sources of news online.
"We're brought up with the internet as a school resource, we're used to the mass of information. I actually think that younger people aren't given enough credit for being able to discern what media to trust and what not to trust. I would think that it was actually more problematic for the older generation on the web."
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