Flat Earth News

This weeks key concepts lecture was the most interesting. I thought it would be worth writing about. We were looking at Political Economy analysis, how media texts gain power and the issues that surround it. When analysing a corporation, political economists are interested in; the state, regulations eg, OF COM and the conditions of labour.

There is a book that I definitely need to read - Flat Earth News, by British Investigative Journalist Nick Davies.

He argues how 'flat earth' news is killing journalism. He focuses on how much time journalists spend outside the news room and argues that Journalists do not have the time to confirm and check facts. The re-versioning of material from press releases etc are giving legs to a story that has no importance. Nick Davies shows the impact of this, where consumers believe the mass stories. Which in truth are false. Such as the millennium bug story that hit millions of papers but was utter nonsense.

Basically Nick Davies is arguing that the material conditions are effecting the way a journalist is able to work.