Flat Earth news
by Nick Davies · first published 2009
74% recommend26% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Journalist's inside account of how PR copy, thin staffing and press-release recycling (churnalism) shape what gets reported. Suits anyone wanting to understand the decline of news; UK-focused but broadly applicable.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Mentions per year
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…consumption for years, and news organisations with ever decreasing budgets and time simply use them verbatim. I’m sure there are criticisms about specific points, there always are, but I was aghast reading Flat Earth News a decade ago. I encourage everyone to pick up a copy for £3 on kindle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Davies#Critical_reaction_...
on “Local TV stations pushed the same Amazon-scripted segment” ↗…around you and wonder why it looks so fucking simple. Nobody is focusing on big issues because everybody is being told to look for an attack or to make a defense. It's an old book but I recommend reading Flat Earth News by Nick Davies, it gives an incredible insight into how current affairs are spun into particular forms to suit certain agendas. The key motif of the book is that there are more than two sides to every…
on “U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants” ↗Flat Earth News - Nick Davies: An interesting discussion about falsehood and PR in newspapers and the media generally. Hackers & Painters - Paul Graham: Read it this year and enjoyed it a lot. Shantaram - Gregory David…
on “Ask HN: Great books you read in 2009?” ↗It's not just the tech industry - read Nick Davies Flat Earth News for more on PR and the massive impact it has on "news". I wonder if this will become the norm or if there will be a backlash and people will start to prefer unspun unvarnished truth ?
on “Facebook PR: Tonight We Dine In Hell” ↗For an in depth look at quite how bad this has become, see the excellent book Flat Earth News by Nick Davies. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flat-Earth-News-Award-winning-Distor... It makes it very hard to mourn the passing of the newspaper industry. EDIT: before someone chips in about how the PR…
on “Suits are back (cf. pg's submarine essay)” ↗For an in depth investigation into this phenomenon, see Nick Davies' Flat Earth News: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flat-Earth-News-Award-winning-Distor...
on “Is It Journalism, or Just a Repackaged Press Release? Here's a Tool to Help” ↗Reading suggestion: "Flat Earth News" by Nick Davies. Essential to understand how the modern news room really works.
on “New York Times silently edits its "lost all credibility" line” ↗There's nothing new, or inherently tech about any of this. It started long before the Internet was widespread. I recommend the author reads "Flat Earth News" by Nick Davies.
on “Why Twitter Must Be Saved” ↗In my opinion the best book on this topic which should be required reading for pretty much everyone is Flat Earth News by Nick Davies [0]. The book is nowhere near as sensationalist as the title implies. While focused on the UK I think the content is broadly applicable. I'm sure the full text is available online but…
on “Losing the News: The Decimation of Local News and the Search for Solutions” ↗I'm only a two chapters in at the moment, but am enjoying the book Flat Earth News by Nick Davies. While I believe he has rose-tinted glasses for pre-1980s journalism, and his information and analysis is UK-centric, one of his conclusions is apt. The majority of journalists end up…
on “Illinois Is the First State to Have High Schools Teach News Literacy” ↗A modern extension of "Churnalism", coined by Nick Davies in Flat Earth News (that has its own issues but it's still a good read) whereby news rooms are overly keen (or forced into) using external PR fluff. Link to WikiP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_News_(book)
on “How prestige outlets get away with copypasta” ↗That's entirely the intention of press releases. For a better critique of modern journalism and uncritical regurgitation of press releases and where it leads then Flat Earth News by Nick Davies is great reading.
on “How prestige outlets get away with copypasta” ↗Newspapers are well and truly dead in the UK I'm afraid. Every now and then I re-read Nick Davies' Flat Earth News which chronicles the beginning of the death spiral, it's fascinating to read with hindsight.
on “French equality watchdog finds 90% of online pornography abuses women” ↗…how many stories started with the words "Ministers are today expected to announce..." - this isn't news, it hasn't happened yet. This is government PR. If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend Flat Earth News by Nick Davies [0] - it's incredibly eye opening. Reading it now, 11 years later, is even more eye opening - everything he writes about in there is now magnified ten fold. Going cold turkey from the…
on “Air India flight to London crashes in Ahmedabad with more than 240 onboard” ↗…is it hard to bridge that gap? If you take to social media, it can be really hard to have a conversation between two politically opposed groups of people without it immediately jumping to aggression. Flat Earth News is an old book now but it's a worthwhile read still.
on “Facebook said my article was false – now the fact-checkers admit they were wrong” ↗