Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #439 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-07
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

The Oldie
'Flat Earth News surprises... and shocks'

Metro
'this timely rallying call is essential reading - for those who write newspapers as well as those who read them'

Metro
`this timely rallying call is essential reading - for those who write newspapers as well as those who read them'

Customer Reviews

Who stole our journalism?
The answer to that question and many others you didn't think you needed to know are all in this fantastic book. It is both illumintaing and at the same time depressing to realise that even the most trusted brands of journalism have become victim, like so much of our media, to the forces of money-making, fast-turnaround and nonsense PR. This book is an startling education for anyone who reads or watches 'news', not just those connected to the industry.

Brave Man
Nick Davies must be a brave man... He has launched a devastating attack on not only the state of modern journalism, but also on the basic integrity of many of those involved in the profession. And this from a major paper journalist who must now have made a lot of enemies within his industry.

I'm sure you have noticed how very similar versions of the same stories are posted online by apparently independent and well funded news organisations - especially in America for news outside the US. This book explains why, and how the facts of these clone stories are often unchecked by the trusted organisations putting them into the public domain.

The book also covers the pernicious effects and influence of PR and also, perhaps most depressingly, the outright lying of major newspapers who are left barely challenged by the Press Complaints Commission and whom average people cannot afford to defend themselves against.

All of it seems to root back to money. Selling more papers through sensationalism, pandering to racism and lying; cost cutting exercises that have reduced the number of journalists available to cover an ever increasing number of stories, leaving them without the time to check their sources properly.

Very depressing, but a fantastic inoculation against the effects of this 'disease'. The book will help you take a more critical view of what you read, see and hear and understand the motivations that lie behind much of the news we are fed. The final summary provides some ideas about where good journalism can still be found - basically it exists where advertising does not - or where reporting is guided (or protected) by highly ethical 'old school' editorial policies.

Generalisations, deletions, distortions
I'm partway through this book. Enjoying it thoroughly. I'm learning a lot from it.

I used to think journalists were lazy and would just publish any rubbish, or government spin they were fed.

I now know that Phil Space is the great journalistic archetype, and that he or she will indeed publish any rubbish sent their way. More usefully I now know why they have to do this, and the pressures of time and resource they are forced to operate under.

The great themes of capitalism- destroy professions, deskill, reduce terms and conditions, demand more for less, pretend it's all getting better, confuse change with progress, display themselves.

Sadly as consumers we do not demand enough of our newspapers so the grocer proprietors get away with churnalism, and a lower quality product.

This book is excellent, and it helps me understand the pressures journalists are working under. We have the connected world wide web but papers are getting narrower in their sourcing and coverage. Something's wrong, and maybe the blogs are the way out of this.

Whatever the answer this book will help you understand the problem.