REVIEWS AND RESPONSE

“Smart, relevant and punchy”

“Alan Rusbridger argues in this smart, relevant and punchy take on the way news is made and the way we consume it, there’s no such thing as a single truth. Journalism comes from a series of contradictory complexities. It is shaped by the opinions and backgrounds of those who make it and we need to understand the process if we are not to be misled.

Why did political journalists need to use anonymous sources? How could newspapers be more accurate and honest? Why did the state hide things, rather than share what it knows? ..This isn’t a jolly book of reminiscences to keep us entertained through a long winter. It’s a work in progress from a media world that’s messy, tough and fast-changing. But if you need to find your way through then it’s a powerful light in the darkness”

Julian Glover, Evening Standard, here

“An agreeable and very worthwhile book. It invites you to think and question. It is informative and entertaining.”

“Reviewing his last book, Breaking News, in these columns, I called it fascinating and important. The same adjectives may fairly be applied to this new one, with its first sentence: “Who on earth can you believe any more?”..He rightly draws attention to the damage done by the evisceration of local newspapers, remarking that the concerns of residents of Grenfell Tower about the building’s safety might have been picked up had there still been reporters covering the borough for a local paper. Now, even where there are local freesheets, reporting is often done at a distance by someone seeking information from a screen, not from the streets and talk with residents….This is an agreeable and very worthwhile book. It invites you to think and question. It is informative and entertaining.

Allan Massie, The Scotsman. here

“One of the two great newspaper editors of the past half-century…anything he writes about the press is going to be worth reading”

“He riffs on stuff he feels to be important and gloss over things that are more ephemeral. ..This is not a book to read end-to-end, but, rather, one to be dipped into as time and curiosity permits. Many of the mini-essays are useful distillations of his experience in, and knowledge of, the industry. He is very good on the climate crisis, investigative journalism (not surprising, given the sterling work the Guardian did on his watch) the danger of being driven by metrics, how to deal with the inevitability of of mistakes, national security and who (or what) is a “journalist “nowadays. .. He is also perceptive on hyperlinks …it was nice to see his take on ‘craft.”

John Naughton, the Observer.