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Flat Earth News: An Award-Winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media Paperback – May 1, 2009

by Nick Davies (Author)

4.5 251 ratings

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After years of working as a respected journalist, Nick Davies broke the unwritten rule of the media by investigating the practices of his fellow colleagues. In this eye-opening exposé, Davies uncovers an industry awash in corruption and bias. His findings include the story of a prestigious Sunday newspaper that allowed the CIA to plant fiction in its columns; the newsroom that routinely rejects stories about black people; the respected paper that hired a professional fraudster to set up a front company to entrap senior political figures; as well as a number of newspapers that pay cash bribes to bent detectives. His research also exposes a range of national stories that were in fact pseudo events manufactured by the public relations industry and global news stories that were fiction generated by a machinery of international propaganda. The degree to which the media industry has affected government policy and perverted popular belief is also addressed. Gripping and though-provoking, this is an insider’s look at one of the world’s most tainted professions.

Print length

320 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Vintage UK
Publication date

May 1, 2009
Dimensions

5 x 1.1 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

0099512688
ISBN-13

978-0099512684
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"This brilliant book by Nick Davies, unrelenting in its research, ruthless in its honesty, is a landmark expose by a courageous insider."
-- John Pilger

About the Author

Nick Davies writes for the Guardian, and has been named Journalist of the Year, Reporter of the Year, and Feature Writer of the Year. He is the author of Dark Heart, The School Report, and White Lies.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage UK (May 1, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0099512688
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0099512684
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 1.1 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,759,067 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,310 in Journalism Writing Reference (Books)
- #5,498 in Communication Skills
- #6,033 in Communication & Media Studies

Customer Reviews:
4.5 251 ratings

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Nick Davies
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Nick Davies writes investigative stories for the Guardian, and has been named Journalist of the Year, Reporter of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year in British press awards.
Apart from his work on newspapers, he also makes television documentaries and he has written four books: White Lies, which uncovered a racist miscarriage of justice in Texas; Murder on Ward Four, which examined the collapse of the NHS through the murder of children by Nurse Beverly Allitt; Dark Heart, a journey through the wasteland of British poverty; and Flat Earth News, exposing the shocking corruption of today's media.
He has three children and lives in Sussex.
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4.5 out of 5

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Grue

Great investigation into how news is made

Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2012

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If you're like me, you know that the news is "biased", but you haven't really thought much about specially which forces shape the news and how. After reading this book you will have a much better idea of how news organizations function and what they do and don't do. The main parts of the book are:

1. Economics of newspapers - why pressure to publish is often not conducive to truth
2. News ecosystem - describing the roles of journalists, newspapers, and suppliers such as the Associated Press
3. Outsiders - how companies, lobbyists, and politicians can manipulate the media by exploiting (1) and (2)
4. Details about English newspapers - mostly about how some newspapers in England do illegal stuff

Not being British, I didn't care much about section (4), even though the author is arguably most famous for precipitating the whole Murdoch/Daily Mail scandal. However, the other three sections are excellent and I know of no better book covering similar material. The author clearly has an insider's point of view, not an academic's, but despite some heuristic thinking and proof-by-example, the reader will be forced to admit that there is no reason to believe that the output of the current news system is even roughly true. In short, I was vaguely skeptical before; now I look at most news as being little more than entertaining fiction.

In my opinion the main two faults of the book are that
1) it is parochial and only describes British newspapers in any detail
2) it offers very little constructive guidance on how people _should_ stay informed.

Still, a very thought provoking book. Anyone who reads or watches news (i.e. basically everyone) should read this book or one on the same topics.

13 people found this helpful

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kynikos

God information about the changes in journalism as a consequence of corporate ownership

Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2012

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The author is partly describing, partly analyzing the changes to journalism in the latter part of the 20th century and the decade after. He describes how the changes to the quality of the content can be directly linked to the reduction of journalists at the same time as the size of the content nearly triples. He also gives good reasons why factchecking is becoming a lost art. Thus giving rise to "Flat Earth News", that is news which is right because people agree they are right, not because somebody checked and found them to be right. He mentions several typical topics where this happens, Global Warming among them. The direct cause this is happening, he says, is that corporations went into publishing to earn money. What earns money is selling people that which they want. What people want is to have their already existing opinions confirmed, thus the corporate print-media is selling precisely this. This is done without any factchecking, because it is expensive and timeconsuming.

5 people found this helpful

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Baky

Excellent conditions

Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2019

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Thank you. Very pleasant with the conditions of the book. Excellent

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Yanninski

The Matrix - Updated for 2016

Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2017

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If the Matrix didn't blow your mind back in 1999, this should do the trick.

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Mr T

do you believe the news?

Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2013

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an excellent book which clearly outlines the lack of investigation and rigour applied to news stories. It is easy to see why newspapers are losing readership.

One person found this helpful

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Jaideep Vaidya

Must-read for journalists

Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2014

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The author seems to discredit beats such as sports and entertainment as unimportant, which I don't agree with. Otherwise, it is a must-read for all budding journalists and perhaps experienced ones as well.

One person found this helpful

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Paul H. Wigton II

Review of "Flat Earth News"

Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2013

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Not overly thrilled with the writer's style, and it seems as if he's in a bit of "CYA" mode. He seems sometimes to be an apologist for an industry that has done so much damage to our democracy.

3 people found this helpful

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Thomas Edmund

It's not a conspiracy, its a mess

Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2017

Reading this book (published first in 2009) at the end of 2017 raises much curiosity how Davies would react and analysis today's "fake-news" "Post-Truth" environment. In many respects Flat-Earth News lays the ground-work for modern 'news' and explains clearly how we got to this place of political echo chambers, shareable garbage and click-bait. The greatest irony is towards the conclusion of the story Davies saw the internet as a possible solution to the problem of inaccurate and biased media.

Anywho as to the book itself, I absolutely loved it, while written quite densely and unapologetically thorough Flat-Earth News provides an excellent review and explanation of how and why news is so often warped, spun, biased and sometimes outright wrong. While I think most of us have a general sense that there is something a bit off about journalism and news, Davies does a brilliant job of summarizing the issues pointing out that its not so much that people peddle "fake-news" its more a systemic problem of PR, profits, manpower and politics. Probably the most alarming thing for me wasn't actually the racist spins, the invention of facts or absurd lack of checking, but the omissions - the fact that despite how it feels, the world isn't covered in media, much of foreign and internal news is simply generated by 'expert' opinion and the is a massive dearth of journalists on the ground.

The best thing about Flat-Earth News is that Davies perspective is relatively balanced. He is one of the few non-fiction writers I've picked up (possibly the only) that actually pointed out his conflicts of interest in the beginning of the story, and while he does have some opinions and obvious stances he doesn't pick on any particular cause or political wings, for example he reveals the poor tactics of both big petroleum companies and environmental groups in the same chapter.

Overall this book is a must read for anyone wanting to understand journalism and media better, especially in today's somewhat toxic environment

One person found this helpful

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Iaia

a must read

Reviewed in Italy on August 7, 2018

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Nick Davies is one of the best investigative journalists ever. And this is a must read.

Big Bill

How Media Died.

Reviewed in Canada on September 21, 2016

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A great analysis of what happened over the years to the media industry , and why it is now ineffective.

One person found this helpful

Hereward the Wakeful

Breaking [the] news

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 16, 2012

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Nick Davies lifts the lid on a world, which most of us know by instinct if not by experience, has a sordid, shadowy side that not infrequently corrupts the truth if it doesn't actually create fiction. I have experience of the technical - as opposed to the editorial - aspects of this world but of course I was sometimes in a position to witness exactly the kind of bad practice that Davies shines a light on. While his book has shown me that this existed, and still exists, in a wider context than my own little cocoon he has, on the other hand, taught me to be a little bit more forgiving to the lower eschelons of journalists who, I now see, are caught in a trap which they are powerless to avoid. Their only alternative is to leave. Undoubtedly there are those who do revel in distorting facts and destroying lives on a whim driven by selfish and inhumane motives - I have seen that myself too - but the broad brush of contempt that I wielded over the whole news industry has narrowed to the targets that truly deserve it. That doesn't mean that I will start buying newspapers again or stop asking questions about any news I happen to catch on the telly or the radio. If anything Davies has underlined the fact that we should all be asking those questions all the time about everything. Really - everything! It is no exaggeration to say that people die when we don't.
The book is getting on for five years old now and it contains a fascinating history of the decline of the press over the last couple of decades. I think it is important to understand that history to appreciate why things are the way they are today. I marvelled at the well-researched and discomfiting revelations about certain individuals who were actively involved in that decline. But most shocking of all is the level of manipulation, distortion and outright mendacity in what most of us still call "news", even when it comes from the most respected and influential sources. My only reservation is that while the main argument in the book is still current I think it should be brought up to date with additional, more recent examples to support it. However, it is still a valuable resource, one which cannot fail to change your point of view if you are still labouring under the notion that you get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

15 people found this helpful

John Low

A must-read book

Reviewed in Australia on August 29, 2014

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An excellent introduction to the changes currently being experienced in the field of journalism and the implications of those changes both for the general reader and students of journalism. While the author is somewhat extreme in his views his concerns regarding the corporatisation of journalism and the control of the flow of news by extremely powerful special interest groups through the activities of 'public relation' entities are enough to cause alarm in the news consuming community. Highly recommended reading.

Metropolitan Critic

A great read, but lacks documentation

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 8, 2012

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Nick Davies' theme is the phenomenon of Flat Earth News in the British press. A Flat Earth story:

'appears to be true. It is widely accepted as true. It becomes a heresy to suggest that it is not true. The most powerful institutions on the planet insist that it is true, but it is riddled with falsehood, distortion and propaganda.' (p.32)

Davies provides an appetising smorgasbord of examples, from the idea that the Millenium Bug would cause computer systems round the world to collapse, and that heroin is a deadly poison, through to the Weapons of Mass Destruction which Saddam Hussein could launch in 45 minutes.

Why are Flat Earth stories so prevalent? Davies' diagnosis is that the economic incentives to verify stories are weak. Fact checking takes time, money and energy. But the penalties for printing inaccurate stories are minimal: only the richest can afford to use the libel laws and the Press Complaints Commission is ludicrously ineffective. When verification is so costly, and the risk of punishment so small, why bother?

Davies refers to an interesting study by a group at Cardiff University which analysed the source of 2,207 stories in the Times, Guardian, Independent, Telegraph and Daily Mail over a two week period. They found that:

60% were wholly wire copy and/or PR material
20% contained elements of wire copy and/or PR material to which other elements had been added
8% were of unknown source
12% had been generated by the reporters themselves

In other words, at least 80% of stories were 'prepackaged' stories taken from wire copy (normally the Press Association) or PR material; at most 20% were original journalism.

The similarity of stories across different newspapers results from the fact that they typically come from the same source.

Wittgenstein once pointed out that you cannot check whether a story in a newspaper is true by buying another copy of the same paper. What the Cardiff research shows is that you usually cannot check whether a story is true by buying a copy of a different paper either.

Perhaps even more alarming than plagiarism is the use of the 'Dark Arts': hiring private investigators to gather stories by various means ranging from blagging to phone hacking. Here, the stories may be true, but the means by which they are obtained are illegal. Davies compellingly documents the endemic use of these techniques by the British media.

The book closes with chapters on the decline of investigative journalism at the Sunday Times and Observer, followed by a savage swipe at the Daily Mail.

It's an exhilirating helicopter ride over some of the most important UK news stories of the last twenty years. The one weakness, and it is an important weakness, is the absence of any references. For a book which insists on the need to chase everything back to the original source, it is very odd that Davies should provide no documentation for his claims.

For example, there is no reference to the title or authors of the Cardiff report. This appears to be 'The Quality & Independence of British Journalism', undated, by Prof. Justin Lewis at el. This is currently available on the Cardiff University website. But there is a puzzle about this. In Flat Earth News, Davies says 'I commissioned specialist researchers from the journalism department of Cardiff University to investigate a sample of stories...'. But in the Cardiff report, there is no mention of Nick Davies or of the fact (if it is a fact) that he commissioned the report. If he did, surely the authors should have mentioned this.

Incidentally, the idea that there was ever a time when it was widely accepted that the Earth is flat is itself a myth. The Greeks knew it is a sphere (more or less), the medieval world knew it as well. Or so at least it says on wikipedia...

6 people found this helpful

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