Flat Earth News (book)

Flat Earth News: An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media is a 2008 non-fiction book by Nick Davies in which he investigating malpractice on Fleet Street.[4] The Flat Earth News is considered to be the sister book to Davies' 2014 publication, Hack attack: the inside story of how the truth caught up with Rupert Murdoch.[3]

AuthorNick Davies
CountryUnited Kingdom
Genrenon-fiction, journalism, politics
Published2008
PublisherChatto & Windus
Pages408
ISBN978-0-7011-8145-1 0701181451
9780099512684
0099512688
OCLC176826415
Preceded byDark Heart (1998)[1]
The School Report (2000)[2] 
Followed byHack Attack: How the Truth Caught Up with Rupert Murdoch (2014)[3] 

Background

In Flat Earth News, Davies, who has been a journalist since the 1970s,[5] undertook an analysis of daily news media in the United Kingdom from the 1980s to 2008.[4] From funding raised through the Rowntree Foundation, Davies commissioned a Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies research project led by Justin Lewis on the United Kingdom's national news coverage[6] The researchers examined the origins of 2,000 stories that had been carried by The Times, The Daily Telegraph , The Guardian , and The Independent, and in some cases−The Daily Mail.[6] The report found that only 12% of the stories were provably based on material that the reporters had fact-checked and investigated themselves.[6][4]:95 Based on the data, the research showed that "everyday practices of news judgement, fact-checking, balance, criticising and interrogating sources et cetera, that are, in theory, central to routine, day-to-day journalism" were the exception, not the rule.[6] Davies thesis is that journalists themselves are not the reason for the increase in "falsehood, distortion and propaganda"—the problem is structural. Corporations, that operate under a logic of commercialism, have taken over newsrooms.[5] Citing Rupert Murdoch—the founder and CEO of News Corp, as an example, Davies says that under the corporate model, there are fewer journalists working at newspapers and they have increased workloads.[5] Journalists require time to make contacts, find new stories, and fact-check. Under time pressure they resort to recycling press releases and wire news, often without fact-checking.

Reviews

A 6 March 2008 London Review of Books said that Flat Earth News was "a genuinely important book, one which is likely to change, permanently, the way anyone who reads it looks at the British newspaper industry".[7]

Mary Riddell in The Observer said that "Much of Davies's analysis is fair, meticulously researched and fascinating, if gloomy. [8]

Peter Oborne in The Spectator said that Nick Davies has amassed an overwhelming weight of evidence that the British media lies, distorts facts and routinely breaks the law.[9]

The Independent called it a "wide-ranging investigation of the shortcomings of the global and British media."[10]

The Press Gazette cited a number of reviews—including those that were quite critical of the book.[11]

The British journalist, who was criticized in Davies book—Kamal Ahmed−published a response in the Observer on 11 February 2008.[12] Davies said that Ahmed had worked with Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's "spin doctor" and had become a "mouthpiece" for the Blair government, which included the Observer "backing" the Iraq war, which Ahmed denied.[11]

Press Gazette series

In 2008, Press Gazette serialised Flat Earth News "when every national newspaper – including The Guardian – declined to do so."[13][14] Many news media outlets were critical of Davies in 2008. The Press Gazette series included references to details such as the copy of a fax that a Sunday Telegraph reporter had given Davies regarding the weapons expert, David Kelly. On the day Kelly's body was found, a private investigator had sent the Telegraph a list of every phone number Kelly had dialled in the eight weeks leading up to his untimely death.[15][3]:13

Hack attack

In 2014, Davies published Hack attack: the inside story of how the truth caught up with Rupert Murdoch,[3] which has been called the sister book to Flat Earth News.[16]

References
  1. Davies, Nick (1997). Dark heart: the shocking truth about hidden Britain. London: Chatto & Windus. ISBN 978-0-7011-6351-8.
  2. Davies, Nick (2000). The school report: why Britain's schools are failing. London: Vintage. ISBN 978-0-09-942216-7.
  3. Davies, Nick (2014). Hack attack: the inside story of how the truth caught up with Rupert Murdoch (First American ed.). New York: Faber & Faber, an affiliate of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-86547-881-7.
  4. Davies, Nicholas (2008). Flat Earth News: An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media. London: Chatto & Windus. ISBN 978-0-7011-8145-1.
  5. Yong, Ed (1 July 2009). "Flat Earth News with Nick Davies – a discussion on the breaking of journalism". Science / Not Exactly Rocket Science (NERS). National Geographic. Retrieved 11 November 2020. Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)
  6. Davies, Nick (4 February 2008). "Nick Churnalism has taken the place of what we should be doing: Telling the truth". Press Gazette. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  7. Lanchester, John (6 March 2008). "Riots, Terrorism etc". London Review of Books. 30 (5): 3. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  8. Mary Riddell (3 February 2008). "Failures of the Fourth Estate". The Guardian. The Observer. London. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  9. Peter Oborne (30 January 2008). "The vile behaviour of the press". The Spectator. Archived from the original on 25 September 2009. Retrieved 29 September 2009.
  10. Orr, Deborah (15 February 2008). "Flat Earth News, by Nick Davies". The Independent. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  11. Stabe, Martin (11 February 2008). "Flat Earth News: Still more reviews". Press Gazette. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  12. "Kamal Ahmed accuses Nick Davies of 'scurrilous journalism'". Press Gazette. 11 February 2008. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  13. Ponsford, Dominic (14 February 2020). "Solicitors engaged over Flat Earth News". Press Gazette. Retrieved 16 November 2020.
  14. Turvill, William (5 August 2014). "Nick Davies: The bad guys hate me... but most journalists are decent people and are glad I exposed phone-hacking". Press Gazette. Retrieved 12 November 2020.
  15. Ponsford, Dominic (23 January 2008). "Sunday Telegraph obtained Dr Kelly's phone bill". Press Gazette. Retrieved 16 November 2020.
  16. "Great journalist of his generation Nick Davies to give workshop in West Cork". Retrieved 12 November 2020.
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