OVERVIEW

Can you briefly tell us what your new book is about?

It’s about who you can believe.  The Covid crisis has shown a confused public. Do you believe politicians? Scientists? Mainstream media? TV? Newspapers? Social media? Your friends? People like you? 

Journalists – of course – want the public to believe in them. They, after all, are the professionals. But repeated studies show that trust in many forms of news media is stubbornly low.

Why is this? What could journalism be doing differently to convince a confused public that they deserve trust.

 Why did you want to write it now?

The Covid crisis shows how information can be a matter of life and death. If people are badly informed about science, medicine and public policy then wrong decisions or outcomes will follow. And people will die.

But in a sense Covid is a dress rehearsal for climate change. It really matters that we know who to believe on the emergency around our climate. Again, the media should play a crucial and trusted role - independent of politicians  - in creating an informed public.

So, it is vital that we explore – now – the issues of trust in information.  Particularly as journalism is experiencing something of an existential crisis which is being hastened by Coronavirus.

 What would you like a reader to take away from your book?

I would like people to have a deeper understanding of news and how it works. It is right to be sceptical about all sources of information.  The best journalism is professional, humane, rigorous and trustworthy.  But “journalism” is a word which also describes sloppy, biased, cruel and untrustworthy information. I’d like a general reader to have a better way of understanding the signals that would help negotiate their relationship with news. And maybe for journalists to have a better understanding of why so much of the public is confused and distrustful.

Given the challenges facing that the news industry, and readers of news, are experiencing do you see any cause for hope?

 Yes. The world needs reliable news. Societies can’t function without an agreed basis of facts. “This happened, this didn’t. This is true, this isn’t” See what happens when the President of the US deliberately sets out to delegitimise  news and journalism and persuade people that real is fake and fake is real. You begin to see a violently polarised society in which anyone can believe anything they want – and which begins to break down. So we can see the need for news, even if the traditional business model for it is in danger of failing. Journalism may need to reposition itself as a public service. That may be no bad thing – meeting a public suddenly very attuned to the need for news at its best. 

 Beyond your own book are there any trustworthy sources of news that you would direct a reader to?

I like the idea and people behind De Correspondent in the Netherlands. In general, I like the public service ideals behind public service broadcasters. Twitter exposes me, not to an echo chamber, but to a wide variety of news sources which stretch my mind. I read the NYT, the Washington Post, the FT, the Times and the Guardian every day - as well as Buzzfeed, Axios, Slate and many others. I dip into the Telegraph and Mail. It’s a good time – as well as a dangerous one – to be alive and engaged with the opportunities and perils ahead.