![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
The role of the media is more important than ever. So what happens when this vital part of our society fails us and how can we even begin to understand the mess it’s in?
When the Manchester Arena was bombed, friends and families of victims were harassed by factions of the media; when an innocent man was linked to a case of murder, the media caused a pile on; whilst the BBC battles for balance on every issue, journalists who are supposed to hold politicians to account just happen to be their childhood friends … In an industry where trust between news outlets and the public is paramount, it’s hanging by a thread.
Through personal experience of the newsrooms and insider interviews, journalist Mic Wright strips the engine of information, entertainment and propaganda back to its constituent parts and lays it bare. Frank and comprehensive in its analysis of the modern media landscape, Breaking equips the reader with the tools to better interrogate our media, separating the fair from the ethically dubious, the truths from the half-truths … and the facts from the down-right lies.
Mic Wright is a journalist and media critic whose book offers an unflinching, insider’s look at the UK’s news media. It’s a fascinating and scathing account of journalism, its ethics and history that offers insight into how the media operates and its drivers. It’s particularly good at the close links between politics and the media and the failures and limitations of regulation, especially when ordinary people find themselves to be the story.
I picked this up because I started following Wright on Bluesky following recommendations from other users and found his commentary on UK media matters to be interesting and insightful.
This is a tightly written book that tracks through the main problems with modern British media. He starts by setting out his own media career and the difference between what journalism students are taught and how the sector works in practice. Chapter 2 provides a summary of the history of the UK’s newspaper industry and its development. There was a lot of information here, all provided concisely and I learned a lot from it - particularly the history of the Daily Mail and the rise of the Sun (no pun intended).
In Chapter 3 Wright looks at how issues/events are selected for inclusion within the news, including how vital trade publications are in breaking stories such as the Post Office scandal but also how newspapers can publish fiction rather than truth and the increasing reliance on public relations firms to provide ‘content’. Chapter 4 provides a potted summary of the focus of the main newspaper players and key terminology in news reporting.
The chapter on columns and columnists was, in my view, one of the strongest, not least because of how scathing it is as to the work of certain columnists but also because he has taken the time to consider and consult on what a columnist should look to do. From there he moves into looking at political journalism, which is equally strong and equally scathing. I have to be honest that I did know some of what he discusses here - notably the personal links between journalists and those in politics - but Wright is good at tracking through the history of political journalism and how it has changed over the years, including the decision of ‘New Labour’ to court the Murdoch press and the recent rise of GB News, which features politicians as programme hosts.
Wright brings a lot of insight into the chapter on impartiality, focusing on the BBC and how often this amounts to ‘both sides-ism’, with a particular deep dive into the history of the David Kelly affair. There is a chapter summarising the role of interviews and, in particular, how interviewees can choose to handle difficult questions (including Jeremy Paxman’s thoughts on the same) and how journalists can handle the same. I enjoyed the way Wright also considers how to produce a piece when the interviewee chooses not to be interviewed.
Chapter 9’s examination of ethics in journalism does a deep dive into the shameful coverage of Nicola Bulley’s disappearance and the Portsmouth mass shooting before deep diving into the role of the so-called ‘death knock’. Wright examines the failures of the regulator here and how its rules on when to make a death knock are routinely ignored by journalists and then deep dives into media behaviour on murders - particularly the murders of women - generally.
Chapter 10 looks into the relationship between the media and the Security Service and the use of DSMA orders to suppress stories and then the use of super injunctions by private individuals to save themselves embarrassment. Wright saves his fury in the penultimate chapter for the behaviour of the press against individuals and, quite rightly, uses the awful case of Christopher Jeffries as one of the central tent poles for it. He also talks about the experiences of Nish Kumar and the way the conservative press manufactured stories about him because they did not like the fact that he skewered the government in The Mash Report.
Although the final chapter notes the futility of making predictions about the future of the media and in particular the rise of on-line media and the potential impact of artificial intelligence and tech platforms (including tech billionaires).
All in all, I found this an entertaining and informative read, albeit I have to say that I came into the book feeling a great deal of skepticism towards the media and so there is a degree to which the book reinforced my existing prejudices. If you’re looking for a book that stresses more the positives within journalism and the media then you are more likely to find this wanting.
The Verdict:
Mic Wright is a journalist and media critic whose book offers an unflinching, insider’s look at the UK’s news media. It’s a fascinating and scathing account of journalism, its ethics and history that offers insight into how the media operates and its drivers. It’s particularly good at the close links between politics and the media and the failures and limitations of regulation, especially when ordinary people find themselves to be the story.
When the Manchester Arena was bombed, friends and families of victims were harassed by factions of the media; when an innocent man was linked to a case of murder, the media caused a pile on; whilst the BBC battles for balance on every issue, journalists who are supposed to hold politicians to account just happen to be their childhood friends … In an industry where trust between news outlets and the public is paramount, it’s hanging by a thread.
Through personal experience of the newsrooms and insider interviews, journalist Mic Wright strips the engine of information, entertainment and propaganda back to its constituent parts and lays it bare. Frank and comprehensive in its analysis of the modern media landscape, Breaking equips the reader with the tools to better interrogate our media, separating the fair from the ethically dubious, the truths from the half-truths … and the facts from the down-right lies.
Mic Wright is a journalist and media critic whose book offers an unflinching, insider’s look at the UK’s news media. It’s a fascinating and scathing account of journalism, its ethics and history that offers insight into how the media operates and its drivers. It’s particularly good at the close links between politics and the media and the failures and limitations of regulation, especially when ordinary people find themselves to be the story.
I picked this up because I started following Wright on Bluesky following recommendations from other users and found his commentary on UK media matters to be interesting and insightful.
This is a tightly written book that tracks through the main problems with modern British media. He starts by setting out his own media career and the difference between what journalism students are taught and how the sector works in practice. Chapter 2 provides a summary of the history of the UK’s newspaper industry and its development. There was a lot of information here, all provided concisely and I learned a lot from it - particularly the history of the Daily Mail and the rise of the Sun (no pun intended).
In Chapter 3 Wright looks at how issues/events are selected for inclusion within the news, including how vital trade publications are in breaking stories such as the Post Office scandal but also how newspapers can publish fiction rather than truth and the increasing reliance on public relations firms to provide ‘content’. Chapter 4 provides a potted summary of the focus of the main newspaper players and key terminology in news reporting.
The chapter on columns and columnists was, in my view, one of the strongest, not least because of how scathing it is as to the work of certain columnists but also because he has taken the time to consider and consult on what a columnist should look to do. From there he moves into looking at political journalism, which is equally strong and equally scathing. I have to be honest that I did know some of what he discusses here - notably the personal links between journalists and those in politics - but Wright is good at tracking through the history of political journalism and how it has changed over the years, including the decision of ‘New Labour’ to court the Murdoch press and the recent rise of GB News, which features politicians as programme hosts.
Wright brings a lot of insight into the chapter on impartiality, focusing on the BBC and how often this amounts to ‘both sides-ism’, with a particular deep dive into the history of the David Kelly affair. There is a chapter summarising the role of interviews and, in particular, how interviewees can choose to handle difficult questions (including Jeremy Paxman’s thoughts on the same) and how journalists can handle the same. I enjoyed the way Wright also considers how to produce a piece when the interviewee chooses not to be interviewed.
Chapter 9’s examination of ethics in journalism does a deep dive into the shameful coverage of Nicola Bulley’s disappearance and the Portsmouth mass shooting before deep diving into the role of the so-called ‘death knock’. Wright examines the failures of the regulator here and how its rules on when to make a death knock are routinely ignored by journalists and then deep dives into media behaviour on murders - particularly the murders of women - generally.
Chapter 10 looks into the relationship between the media and the Security Service and the use of DSMA orders to suppress stories and then the use of super injunctions by private individuals to save themselves embarrassment. Wright saves his fury in the penultimate chapter for the behaviour of the press against individuals and, quite rightly, uses the awful case of Christopher Jeffries as one of the central tent poles for it. He also talks about the experiences of Nish Kumar and the way the conservative press manufactured stories about him because they did not like the fact that he skewered the government in The Mash Report.
Although the final chapter notes the futility of making predictions about the future of the media and in particular the rise of on-line media and the potential impact of artificial intelligence and tech platforms (including tech billionaires).
All in all, I found this an entertaining and informative read, albeit I have to say that I came into the book feeling a great deal of skepticism towards the media and so there is a degree to which the book reinforced my existing prejudices. If you’re looking for a book that stresses more the positives within journalism and the media then you are more likely to find this wanting.
The Verdict:
Mic Wright is a journalist and media critic whose book offers an unflinching, insider’s look at the UK’s news media. It’s a fascinating and scathing account of journalism, its ethics and history that offers insight into how the media operates and its drivers. It’s particularly good at the close links between politics and the media and the failures and limitations of regulation, especially when ordinary people find themselves to be the story.
