Name: Flat Earth News
ISBN: 9780701181451

Nick Davies

An award-winning reporter exposes falsehood, distortion and propaganda in the global media. WARNING! Are newspapers seriously damaging your insight? Does what you read every day contain lies, PR, propaganda and distortion? Find out who's controlling your news in this shocking expose from the ultimate insider.

An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media

Flat Earth News

Gavin

Calm hatchet job on what I will call mainstream media - but don’t thereby imagine me in a tin hat. I was on a news diet anyway (though this doesn’t mean disengaged), so this told me what I’d already nastily assumed: commercial ownership of outlets means vast staff cuts and over-milked productivity; which mean no time to research or check facts; which means “churnalism”, the frantic-lazy reproduction of PR and State material, and worse, their interpretations. (88% of all UK stories are now based on press releases. This trend includes the Guardian (50%) and Times (59%).) 

His model of the origin of hysteric snowball stories like the Millennium Bug or Diana’s death is brilliant and convincing, disparaging conspiracy-theory suspicions 

1. Uncertainty exists.
2. An expert sexes up the dangers to increase popular impact.
3. Impact stirs commerce, who exaggerate for gain.
4. Exaggeration is absorbed by cranks (cultists, columnists), who begin to scream.)

Economise, kowtow, slink, hegemonise, neutralise, service, decontextualise, validate, exaggerate and conform: the rules of production. Was balling my fists through most of this. 

Essential for people in Britain.

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

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