Flat Earth News

THE PUBLIC RIGHT TO KNOW
KARL DU FRESNE is a former

editor of The Dominion and a
media commentator.
A strong case
for fair,
neutral
reporting
Flat Earth News, by Nick Davies.
London: Chatto & Windus, 2008. 408 pp.
ISBN 9780701181451
NY book about the news media that gets rave reviews from
journalists as ideologically opposed
as John Pilger and Peter Oborne
deserves our attention. Pilger is an
impassioned leftist crusader, the
scourge of supposedly imperialistic Western powers and a trenchant
critic of mainstream journalism;
Oborne is a contributor to the rightwing Spectator and an uncompromising conservative.
It is unlikely there are many issues on which these two agree, but if
the blurb on the dust jacket for Nick
Davies book Flat Earth News is to be
believed, Pilger described it as a brilliant book, ruthless in its honesty
while Oborne said of it: This is an
exceptionally important book which

should be read, re-read and inwardly
digested by all reporters, editors and
proprietors. Clearly, Davies is on to
something.
Flat Earth News is a 400-page
expos of shonky practices by the
British media
and not just the scurrilous London tabloids, which would
surprise no one, but by some of the
so-called quality broadsheets as
well, including Davies own paper,
The Guardian (though it must be said
The Guardian emerges looking a little
purer than some of its competitors).
Davies takes as his starting
point the blizzard of misinformation
disseminated by the media over
PACIFIC JOURNALISM REVIEW 14 (2) 2008 223
Iraqs non-existent weapons of mass

destruction, and the failure of journalists to dig beneath the propaganda. He
says he started out trying to explain
how we had managed to do so badly
in covering what is probably the single biggest story of our era. He goes
on: The more I looked, the more I
found falsehood, distortion and propaganda running through the outlets of
an industry which is supposed to be
dedicated to the very opposite, i.e. to
telling the truth (p. 2).
He develops several themes,
among them:
The increasing influence of PR
firms, spin doctors and pressure
groups in manipulating the news
agenda, and the medias complicity in the process;
The advent of what he calls churnalism, in which credulous and/
or overworked journalists unquestioningly process wrong, misleading or second-hand information;
The steady reduction in the number
of journalists reporting unglamorous but important local news such
as court proceedings and council
meetings (I loved Davies line [p.
78] that judges are as likely to see
a zebra in London courts as a reporter);
The emergence of a new type of
newspaper owner whose papers
are run according to the logic of

pure commerce (p. 65) rather than
by any commitment to journalism
values, for which Davies largely
blames (I believe unfairly) Rupert
Murdoch;
The increasing pressure, in the
digital era, to turn news around
fast, without adequate checking
and verification;
The willingness of the British
press, including supposedly respectable titles such as the Sunday
Times, to use a wide repertoire of
sleazy, underhand and sometimes
illegal means to get stories
including bribing police officers,
paying private investigators for
illegally obtained information
and setting up elaborate traps
in the hope of catching corrupt
politicians, even where there is no
evidence of misbehaviour.
It is an assiduously researched book,
jam-packed with detail and wellwritten, as you might expect of an
award-winning Guardian journalist.
Davies forcefully reminds us of one
of the most important journalistic
values: question everything and accept nothing at face value.
But he is not entirely consistent.
Davies tries hard to be fairhe is
tough on Greenpeace and its alarmist
stunts (pp. 190-192), and he acknow
ledges a bad error of his own that was
224 PACIFIC JOURNALISM REVIEW 14 (2) 2008
based on an ideological assumption

(pp. 125-126)but his own personal
preoccupations and political leanings
intrude from time to time. At times
one senses the familiar anguished cry
of the idealistic leftie who is frustrated
because the media are ignoring the
stories he thinks are important.
He is not fond of Christians,
Margaret Thatcher or Israel, and it
might or might not be significant that
all the unreported scandals he uncovers, for which he excoriates the
media, are ones that reflect unfavourably on what might loosely be called
the establishment.
At one point (p. 310) he describes,
without criticism, a disgraceful act of
deception in 1988 by Roy Greenslade,
then managing editor for news at the
Sunday Times. Perhaps Greenslade
escaped Davies censure because of
the formers sainted status as a media
commentator for The Guardian.
Davies also suffers from an
occupational disorder, common
among British journalists, that I call
Rupertaphobia. Like many Brits,
he seems never to have adjusted to
the idea that an impertinent colonial
upstart could take over so much of
the British media. Never mind that it
was largely through Rupert Murdoch
that the British newspaper industry,
which had long had been held hostage
by greedy unions, was eventually
liberated from primitive 19th century

technology and disgraceful union
rorts.
Ironically, Davies is fashionably
dismissive of the notion of journalistic objectivity (pp. 109-114). I say
ironically because it seems to me
that his entire book, with its justifiably
scathing indictments of secret agendas, distortion and manipulation, is
a powerful argument for fair, neutral
reporting uncontaminated by covert
interests and biases.
None of the books failings should
detract from the fact that Flat Earth
News is an important, cautionary
tale, and one that will shake peoples faith in British journalism. But
British journalism has always been
about extremes of good and bad:
the scurrilous tactics of the Sun and
Daily Mail (for which Davies reserves
special contempt) on one hand and
bold, resourceful journalism uncovering corruption and abuse of power
(such as the Sunday Times exposure
of the cash-for-peerages scandal) on
the other.
And how much of this, if any, is
applicable to New Zealand? Certainly,
New Zealand journalists will nod
in recognition at some of the trends
Davies describes: the baleful influence of PR and spin, the pressure on
newspapers to do more with fewer
staff, the gradual attenuation of the
PACIFIC JOURNALISM REVIEW 14 (2) 2008 225
grassroots-level journalism (such

as coverage of courts and council
meetings) that was once the meat and
drink of the daily press. Older New
Zealand journalists probably also
lament, as Davies does, the passing
of an older generation of newspaper
proprietors who, for all their stuffy
conservatism, had a strong newspaper ethos, although we shouldnt get
too dewy eyed over some mythical
golden era.
On the really crucial stuff relating
to ethics, however, the New Zealand
media have kept their noses admirably clean. Ethical corners are most
likely to be cut where multiple media
outlets are competing toe-to-toe, as
in the case of Fleet St (metaphorical
home, at least, to 14 daily titles and 10
Sundays). In New Zealand, that sort of
intense competition really exists only
between the two major TV networks,
the trashy womens magazines and the
Sunday papers. It is in those branches
of the media that journalists are most
likely to be ethically compromised in
the chase for the exclusive story, but
even there its relatively rare. Lets
hope it stays that way.
This review was originally published in
the Scoop Review of Books.
226 PACIFIC JOURNALISM REVIEW 14 (2) 2008

Flat Earth News

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Flat Earth News

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Flat Earth News

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

THE PUBLIC RIGHT TO KNOW

KARL DU FRESNE is a former

exceptionally important book which

PACIFIC JOURNALISM REVIEW 14 (2) 2008 223

THE PUBLIC RIGHT TO KNOW

Iraqs non-existent weapons of mass

are run according to the logic of

224 PACIFIC JOURNALISM REVIEW 14 (2) 2008

THE PUBLIC RIGHT TO KNOW

based on an ideological assumption

liberated from primitive 19th century

PACIFIC JOURNALISM REVIEW 14 (2) 2008 225

THE PUBLIC RIGHT TO KNOW

grassroots-level journalism (such

226 PACIFIC JOURNALISM REVIEW 14 (2) 2008

You might also like