There is a depressing amount of bland "churnalism" going on and only the most deluded will deny it. The commercialisation of British newspapers by faceless corporations has damaged honest reporting more than a previous generation of ideological newspaper barons did. My impression is that Davies makes a powerful case for the prosecution. I will finish it and I will recommend it to my students. I have not had time to read his entire book, but I have read large parts of it in the 24 hours since I was asked to write this piece. So is British journalism guilty as charged? Here a confession made in the spirit Davies aims to encourage.
When the editor screams for a front-page story, a feature and six "nibs" – news briefs – to fill page five, it is easier to rewrite press releases and download second-hand news from the internet. Reporting by telephone is no substitute for personal contact and even reporting by telephone is a luxury. Journalism's reliability has declined because there are now too few reporters with time to get out of the office and meet people. He told Press Gazette: "It's mad that reporters spend so much time rewriting agency copy so that their newspapers can pretend that their reporters have worked on it." With help from academics at the University of Cardiff he has discovered that 80 per cent of home news stories in a sample of quality national newspapers consisted of agency or PR copy.
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