Flat Earth News by Nick Davies. Chatto & Windus, 2008.
I found this a fascinating book on how journalism has changed over the years, including some detailed reports on specific incidents. Here are a few of the things I have learnt - some of them disturbing.
ND begins with some examples of how news is manipulated and leads to unintended cconsequences.
- The Millenium computer bug was known to be likely to be a small-scale issue mostly limited to desktop computers. To get people to check, a worst-case scenario used the fear factor; a single paragraph in a one paper later spread through mainstream news media. In the event, problems were few, even if nothing had been done - but not reported as it was not news!
- Heroin. Home Office licence to selected psychiatrists, prescribing for several hundred registered addicts, mostly in London. Media publicity and US pressure for prohibition saw orders to cut prescriptions to try and get addicts off the drug; instead their search for new supplies led to an ever-growing black market. High prices led addicts into prostitution and crime; poverty and contaminated heroin to health problems. Properly prescribed, heroin is benign; while addictive it is difficult to kill yourself with, and its most noticeable side effect is constipation. [My query: Would prescribing for existing addicts cause the black market to shrink or even disappear - lessening the number of people who end up trying it?]
- With a typical one hundred criminal offences, only three are tried and
convicted. In British prisons, 90% are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol
and/or suffering from mental disorders. The criminal justice system
works best at regulating the behaviour of law-abiding citizens. Putting
more 'bobbies on the beat' reduced effort available for sophisticated
work.
- The Chernobyl nuclear incident. In 2005, a WHO report that a total of
fifty-six people died as a result and there was an increase in thyroid
cancer among children who had drunk milk from cows grazing on
contaminated grass in the week after the explosion - most of whom had
been treated successfully. There was no evidence of any increase in
other cancers, still births or deformities, nor mutated plants or
animals.
Historically in Great Britian, power-hungry people owned newspapers and directed editorial process to favour political propaganda. Now mostly owned by corporations, whose primary purpose is to make money. In order to do this, production costs have been cut to the bone, with minimal numbers of journalists expected to file an increasing number of items, and where possible, exclusives. Some proprietors still intervene, building alliances with politicians, imposing a political framework on the papers and interfering if a paper threatens their other business interests.
Today journalists do not have time to check the facts of news stories, increasingly relying on press associations and news agencies, which in turn have been cutting staff so they do not check facts either. Another source of copy is press releases, which are publicity material and so slanted. Or they pick up stories from another paper or broadcaster. While claiming to be objective in selection there are pressures on them to follow certain lines.
Protest organisations - from Greenpeace to pro-political factions - use PR to their advantage. Safety net journalism adds some text on the other side to suggest balanced reporting (ok for opinions but not where facts are concerned). Government intelligence services worldwide use PR, sometimes to justify violence. However, with the rise of social media and global information networks, the terrorists are using the same tactics. PR also fabricates pseudo-evidence - surveys, polls and commisioned research - and pseudo-events where photos or videos are set up. Another method is leaks with strings attached.
'Give them what they want' journalism is focused on increasing readership or audience, most often seen in tabloids. News is now a way of making money. Agencies aim to cover stories which will sell in multiple markets - sport, celebrities, lifestyle. This is one of the factors tending to produce a conservative view of the world, distorting selection of stories and their content. There is a bias against truth with slow-burning tales ignored.
'Give them what they want to believe in'. Regardless of editorial judgement, 'readers are never wrong' - 'no red-top or tabloid is going to buy a postive story about asylum seekers'. Go with moral panic - mourning over a big death (e.g. Princess Diana) - everyone must mourn. Run stories published elsewhere even if they lack merit.
The Dark Arts - the use of private investigators and illegal practices to find evidence to build a story, in most cases where there is no evidence, or even suggestion of misdoing; they claim 'public interest'. The Press Complaints Commission guidance is weak, and their complaints procedure difficult to use, with tight srestrictions on who and in what period complaints can be made. Prosecution in court is hampered by the knowledge that papers might well hire expensive QCs, meaning that the prosecution would also need to hire QCs, and the possibility of a series of preliminary hearings to test law and evidence. All this led to corruption - people would be set up (accepting bribes) to generate a story.
ND looks in detail at three specific cases. The first is the muzzling and then the closing down of the Insight investigative team at the
Sunday Times (owned by Rupert Murdoch) and second the
Observer's increasing reliance on material supplied by Tony Blair's government over the Iraq war and 'weapons of mass destruction'.
The third case is the
Daily Mail, edited by Paul Dacre. Having been well in profit for fifteen years, it could protect its journalists from cuts seen elsewhere; its success is linked to its political influence - ND notes 'government pays attention to the
Mail'. Over a ten-year period, the paper provoked jusitfiable complaints to the Press Complaints Commission at three times the rate of other national titles. Inaccuracy and invasion of privacy were common themes, plus distortion and falsehood. When complaints are successful, the paper publishes a 'clarification', usually far less prominent than the offending article. In a small number of cases libel actions force admission of falsehood and the payment of damages, but the penalty is outweighed by the success of the offending pieces in keeping up its readership. Paul Dacre said in 2004 that his view of the editor's role was 'to reflect my readers' views and to defend their interest'. The paper is designed to appeal to lower middle-class men and women and it focuses on their interests and values, attacking black people, poor people, liberals, scroungers, drug addicts, homosexuals and the rich and powerful. It is more likely than other titles to pick on a story and push it so hard that other titles run it too. This can impact on almost every political issue - Europe, crime and policing, the NHS, binge drinking, the MMR vaccine, drugs, the fuel tax, GM foods, asylum and immigration, homosexuality, trades unionism and human rights.
ND thought it unlikely that media owners will employ more journalists, give truth primacy over other issues, stop using PR and propaganda, give media victims recourse to proper justice, reform media laws and allow only genuine public-interest defence. He does offer some hope. Firstly, the
Center for Public Integrity is a non-profit organisation created in 1989; its journalists and researchers tackle difficult, time-consuming investigations and then give away their findings to the mass media and anyone else interested. Secondly, while the Internet is responsible for much repeating of poor reporting, it is also where individuals can reveal deceit and uncover the truth.
The author also set up the website
www.flatearthnews.net which contains the full details of some of the reports examined in the book. Still available in 2016 but not updated since 2010.
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