Bad news for news

Guardian journalist Nick Davies pulls no punches in criticising individuals and institutions in this crucial critique of the modern-day media.

Davies's essential thesis is that, over the past 25 years, journalism has been taken over by the forces of neoliberalism, no better personified than in the activities of Rupert Murdoch and his media empire.

The title of the book Flat Earth News comes from the falsehoods that are now regularly passed off as news stories in the British media.

Much of Davies's work is underscored by his research at the journalism department at Cardiff University. This found that roughly the same number of journalists are employed now as 20 years ago, only they produce three times the volume of material.

Davies starts with the example of the millennium bug. He traces the start of the story to Canada on a Saturday morning in May 1993, when technology consultant Peter Jager warned that computer systems would fail worldwide come the new millennium.

From there, the story spread until it virtually became a global panic. Yet, come the turn of the century, meltdown did not materialise. In fact, countries such as Italy, which took virtually no preventative measures, were no more affected than those like Britain, which spent millions on preventative measures. It was a story based on falsehood.

Davies examines the different influences that help to create these great untruths. They include the influence of advertisers, owner interference and the constant cost-cutting of the journalistic process.

All three factors combine, though it is the something-for-nothing culture that appears to be the most pervasive.

Telling figures quoted include the reliance of the five nationals examined, the Guardian, Times, Telegraph, Independent and Daily Mail, on the wire service of the Press Association and public relations companies.

The Cardiff research shows that 80 per cent of news stories in those five papers are at least partially made up of second-hand material from PA or PR.

There are now as many people employed in PR as there are journalists.

Davies illustrates the power of PR with the example of the "NatWest three." At first pilloried as crooks for their role in defrauding the NatWest bank in conjunction with employees of bankrupt US corporation Enron, the whole picture changed when the PR team got involved.

From crooks, the PR offensive managed to convert the three into miscarriage of justice victims by focusing on the one-sided extradition treaty between Britain and US.

Lavish claims were made of the three languishing in a US jail for two years awaiting a trial and receiving 35-year sentences. The truth was that the three men were bailed and recently received three-year sentences. The PR machine had turned them from hate figures to victims with the complicity of much of the national media.

Probably the most devastating part of the book are the last three chapters, which focus on the demise of the investigative Insight team at the Sunday Times, the pro-Iraq war stance adopted by the Observer and bully-boy journalism of the Daily Mail.

On the Insight team, Davies details how properly funded meticulous journalism resulted in uncovering the network involving Kim Philby, MI6 and the Russians. Editor Harold Evans was put under pressure by Prime Minister Harold Wilson and MI6, but stood firm and published the devastating revelations.

This is compared to the appalling handling of Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu under the now Murdoch-owned and Andrew Neil-edited Sunday Times.

The investigation typified the new corner-cutting approach, with Vanunu eventually getting captured by the Israeli intelligence service and serving an 18-year prison sentence.

The Observer case is damning. It tells how, in 2002, US correspondent Ed Vulliamy had a story from a good source in the CIA that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Vulliamy tried to get the story published seven times, but was blocked every time. New political editor Kamal Ahmed and politically naive editor Roger Alton were both shown to be out of their depth.

Ahmed ended up working closely with Alastair Campbell and Downing Street. Davies tells how Ahmed would ring Campbell on Saturday to run through the paper's stories with him. These claims are probably the most damning in the book, alleging that a once great newspaper sold out to the political masters, thereby smoothing the way to a war that cost thousands of lives.

The Daily Mail exposés are also devastating, telling of the overtly racist way in which the paper operates. Davies claims that it will not have black people in the pages unless there is a negative connotation such as crime. The bullying tactics of the Mail and its immense wealth make it virtually untouchable.

The picture conjured up by Davies in this excellent book is depressing for democracy and those who care about journalism. It chronicles how the neoliberal market mantra has come to dominate journalism.

The idea of the media as an instrument for truth and justice seems long gone. Journalists have become churnalists, tied to their desks and pressured constantly to do more for less.