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Flat Earth News: An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media

Author: Nick Davies
Publisher: Chatto and Windus
Category: Book

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Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars

14 reviews
Sales Rank: 803

Media: Hardcover
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.7

ISBN: 0701181451
EAN: 9780701181451
ASIN: 0701181451

Publication Date: February 7, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days

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Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...

3 out of 5 stars

. July 30, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I'd always had a feeling that I was being misled by the mainstream media, but never really knew how it came about. This book went a long way to answering that question, and I now understand how the media is manipulated by a variety of sources so that what gets presented is very rarely the news as it happened.

My only criticism of the book is its coverage of the propaganda war in Iraq. It's undoubtedly all true, and relevant to the book, but I found that the middle of the book onwards was almost totally devoted to it, and it just turned me off a bit. It felt at times like the real message of the book was a criticism of Blair and Bush and that the stuff about the press was merely to illustrate that point, rather than the other way round.

5 out of 5 stars

The rise and rise of 'churnalism' July 8, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Today newspapers are run purely for profit. This means that numbers of reporters are being cut. This means that they can't get out into the world and build contacts that will help them unearth stories. This means that, by and large, they have time to just sit at a desk and recycle (sometimes just plain re-use) stories from:
1. News agencies, who feel it's not their job to interpret anything, merely report it, so no fact checking. This stuff goes straight into papers and broadcast media without being checked.
2. PR. PR agencies who work for organisations send out press releases, which by definition will not be fair or balanced. And that goes straight into the news too. Interestingly, there's also the issue of 'Astroturf' groups: supposedly 'grass-roots' movements and organisations that produce 'independent' reports, except they're no such thing; they're just a front for big business to put out press releases from an apparently independent source. And it's not just global warming or the millennium bug where we're being misled; there are apparently Astroturf organisations sending us reports, towing the government line, from Iraq! SO next time you hear about the publication of a report from some think tank, ask yourself who's paying for that report?
3. Each other. If one paper has picked up on a story, rather than (a) check it or (b) get left behind, they recycle the same stuff. It seems that each paper goes through every other paper checking for stories.

Anyone who reads a paper or listens to the news in any way shape or form should read this book.

5 out of 5 stars

Who stole our journalism? June 2, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

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.

5 out of 5 stars

Brave Man May 20, 2008
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

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.

5 out of 5 stars

Generalisations, deletions, distortions May 13, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

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.