Alan Rusbridger



How do we know any more what is true and what isn't? We are living through the greatest communication revolution since Gutenberg in which falsehood regularly seems to overwhelm truth. In Breaking News Alan Rusbridger offers an urgent and agenda-setting examination of the past, present and future of the press, and the forces menacing its freedom.

The news media have been disrupted by huge and fast-moving changes. The growth of social media and with it the ability of billions of people to publish has created a vast amount of unreliable and false news which now competes with, and sometimes drowns, more established forms of journalism. The President of the United States regularly lies to the public and brands his critics 'fake'. Politicians openly rubbish the views of 'so-called experts'. Where can we look for reliable, verifiable sources of news and information? What does all this mean for democracy? And what will the future hold?

Reflecting on his twenty years as editor of the Guardian; and his experience of breaking some of the most significant news stories of our time, including the Edward Snowden revelations, phone-hacking, WikiLeaks and the Keep it in the Ground campaign, Rusbridger answers these questions and offers a stirring defence of why quality journalism matters now more than ever.

The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now

Breaking News

As major news events exploded around the world including the Japanese tsunami and WikiLeaks, the editor of The Guardian set out to learn, in the course of a year, Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G minor, and sought advice from legendary pianists, historians and others to reach his goal.

An Amateur Against the Impossible

Play It Again

An A-Z guide on how we stay informed in the era of fake news, from former Guardian Editor-in-Chief Alan Rusbridger

And How to Use It

News

This is the third book in a series about the wonderfully funny characters at Melton Meadow Zoo from Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian. The book features black and white illustrations throughout by Kate Greenaway longlist nominee, Ben Cort.

The Smelliest Day at the Zoo

Slap bang in the middle of the coldest Friday of the coldest week of the year, the central heating breaks down at Melton Mowbray Zoo. The system needs a new flange but flanges can�t be obtained on Fridays in Melton Mowbray, so Mr Pickles the head keeper asks all the other keepers to take the animal they are in charge of home for the weekend. The results range from disastrous to successful: when the penguin (who �always hankered after the good life�) decides to eat his tea in Mr Pumbles� bed, and the lion succeeds in scaring off Mr Leaf�s mother-in-law to such an extent that she doesn�t come back to lunch for three years�

The Coldest Day in the Zoo

An urgent account of the revolution that has upended the news business, written by one of the most accomplished journalists of our time Technology has radically altered the news landscape. Once-powerful newspapers have lost their clout or been purchased by owners with particular agendas. Algorithms select which stories we see. The Internet allows consequential revelations, closely guarded secrets, and dangerous misinformation to spread at the speed of a click. In Breaking News, Alan Rusbridger demonstrates how these decisive shifts have occurred, and what they mean for the future of democracy. In the twenty years he spent editing The Guardian, Rusbridger managed the transformation of the progressive British daily into the most visited serious English-language newspaper site in the world. He oversaw an extraordinary run of world-shaking scoops, including the exposure of phone hacking by London tabloids, the Wikileaks release of U.S.diplomatic cables, and later the revelation of Edward Snowden’s National Security Agency files. At the same time, Rusbridger helped The Guardian become a pioneer in Internet journalism, stressing free access and robust interactions with readers. Here, Rusbridger vividly observes the media’s transformation from close range while also offering a vital assessment of the risks and rewards of practicing journalism in a high-impact, high-stress time.

A Concise History of the Sex Manual, 1886-1986

The loveable animals and their keepers at Melton Mowbray Zoo are back! Everyone has recovered from the disastrous weekend when the heating broke and Mr Pickles, the zoo director, asked all the keepers to take their animal home for the weekend. In fact, so much so, that a feeling of nonchalence pervades - the animals have been teamed with the same keepers for years and quite frankly it's become rather boring. So. in a bid to liven things up, the keepers decide to swap animals for the day and, as you can imagine this makes for some lively antics! Told in Alan's inimitable dead-pan voice this is another very charming and extremely funny story brought to life by Ben Cort's hugely imaginative illustrations.

The Wildest Day at the Zoo

Slap bang in the middle of the coldest Friday of the coldest week of the year, the central heating breaks down at Melton Mowbray Zoo. The system needs a new flange but flanges can't be obtained on Fridays in Melton Mowbray, so Mr Pickles the head keeper asks all the other keepers to take the animal they are in charge of home for the weekend. The results range from disastrous to successful: when the penguin (who 'always hankered after the good life') decides to eat his tea in Mr Pumbles' bed, and the lion succeeds in scaring off Mr Leaf's mother-in-law to such an extent that she doesn't come back to lunch for three years...

Slap bang in the middle of the hottest day of the year, the zoo’s drains have blocked up and there’s nowhere for the animals' poo to go! Mr Pickles the zoo keeper (who is looking distinctly green) must decide what to do with it all . . . Before the naughty chimps beat him to it!

A society that isn’t sure what’s true can’t function, but increasingly we no longer seem to know who or what to believe. We’re barraged by a torrent of lies, half-truths and propaganda: how do we even identify good journalism any more? At a moment of existential crisis for the news industry, in our age of information chaos, News and How to Use It shows us how. From Bias to Snopes, from Clickbait to TL;DR, and from Fact-Checkers to the Lamestream Media, here is a definitive user’s guide for how to stay informed, tell truth from fiction and hold those in power accountable in the modern age.

Alan Rusbridger

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