Nick Davies (1) (1953–)
Autor(a) de Flat Earth News: An Award-Winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media
Para outros autores com o nome Nick Davies, veja a página de desambiguação.
About the Author
Nicholas Davies was born on March 28, 1953. He is a British investigative journalist, writer and documentary maker. He has written extensively as a freelancer, as well as for The Guardian and The Observer, and been named Reporter of the Year, Journalist of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year at mostrar mais the British Press Awards. Davies has made documentaries for ITV's World in Action and written numerous books on the subject of politics and journalism, including Flat Earth News, which attracted considerable controversy as an exposé of journalistic malpractice in the UK and around the globe. As a reporter for The Guardian, Davies was responsible for uncovering the News of the World phone hacking affair, including the July 2011 revelations of hacking into the mobile phone voicemail of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.He will be at the WORD Christchurch Writers & Readers Festival in 2015. His title Hack Attack: How the Truth Caught up with Rupert Murdoch made the New Zealand Best Seller List. (Bowker Author Biography) mostrar menos
Obras de Nick Davies
Associated Works
The Bedside 'Guardian' 30: A Selection from The Guardian, 1980-1981 (1981) — Contribuinte — 9 cópias
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Nome padrão
- Davies, Nick
- Data de nascimento
- 1953-03-28
- Sexo
- male
- Nacionalidade
- UK
- Educação
- Oxford University (PPE)
- Ocupação
- journalist
- Organizações
- The Guardian
- Premiações
- Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism (1999)
Paul Foot Award (2011)
British Press Awards (Reporter of the Year, 2000)
Membros
Resenhas
Listas
Prêmios
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 8
- Also by
- 3
- Membros
- 775
- Popularidade
- #32,829
- Avaliação
- 4.2
- Resenhas
- 17
- ISBNs
- 41
- Idiomas
- 3
- Favorito
- 3
The media is not the face of the world. It's not the face of anything. It is a bunch of masks that are produced to sell. You wouldn't trust an entertaining anecdote on the back of a pack of chips to tell you the truth about reality so why would you trust the media? You trust the media because it has a beautiful mask of truthfullness and trustworthiness. But it is still a mask.
Before reading this book i had several beliefs about the media:
1. The media industry is vast so there must be some value to it, otherwise it would collapse. If they say they provide a service of investigating the truth then there is a high chance that that is where their value lies.
2. There are checks and balances around the media. If they tell a lie then somebody will point it out and the lie will be corrected and i will know about it.
3. The media is neutral and covers most aspects of life uniformly. If there is a gap then eventually another media outlet will fill it.
4. The commercial PR is somehow separated from the main content of the media or made clear that it is PR.
5. Personal blogs and forums are trustworthy because they are written by individuals who are not subject to the pressures of a media company.
After reading the book i now believe that:
1. The media often don't know the truth, don't like the truth, don't care about the truth, don't have time and resources to get to the truth. What is packaged as news and truth often has nothing to do with the truth. It's fiction. Fiction might be good when you know it's fiction.
2. There are checks and balances but they are not enough. The scale of the lies and propaganda overwhelms the available institutions that protect the reader. Sometimes there are no institutions at all, or just fake institutions created by the media itself.
3. The media doesn't cover everything and is not neutral. It covers what it will be paid for. It will blatantly lie to you to push an agenda or to grab your attention. Many important aspects of life are not covered at all because they are hard to exploit for money.
4. There is a lot of manipulation embedded in the media products which is not made clear at all. Some of it is very hard to notice but it nevertheless makes an impact on your opinions.
5. Uncovering truth is hard work. The individuals often don't have the resources, the skills, the will to do it. Some bloggers share their own experience which can be valuable but not necessarily true on a larger scale. Others just regurgitate the same lies but filtered only to those they personally enjoy.
My heart is bleeding now. Digesting the detail after excrutiating detail of how this person lied and this group people deceived and this agency betrayed and these guys stole and this newspaper threw their ideals and humanity out the window and on and on until my head hurts - well, it's painful and sad. I don't remember being as sad reading any other book. With every story i felt like a piece of my idealism fell off and withered. It's revolting to drink such concentrated essence of the dark side of humanity. I desperately need to watch kitties playing with cotton balls now.
Besides the numerous examples of the workings of the media the book also provided glimpses into workspace environments in agencies, newspapers and even governments. It was enlightening to see how human interactions in toxic environments play a role in the production of lies. Some journalists hate their jobs and their bosses, they hate to tell lies, they didn't sign up for it, they came into the industry to deal with truth and facts - but now they are stuck because they enjoy the pay and can't leave.
The media is in constant conflict between telling the truth and earning a profit. I wish i could proclaim that from now on and until they figure their shit out i will not trust anybody, i will not derive any of my opinions based on speculative fiction dressed as news, i will discover the world for myself and check everything important. But i realise that it's just a dream. Just like the media i don't have the resources to find the truth and i most certainly have to rely on other people. The question is how do i do that without getting bamboozled. I guess reading this book and learning about the production of news is a good start.… (mais)