An urgent account of the revolution that has upended the news business, written by one of the most accomplished journalists of our time.
Technology has radically altered the news landscape. Once-powerful newspapers have lost their clout or been purchased by owners with particular agendas. Algorithms select which stories we see. The Internet allows consequential revelations, closely guarded secrets, and dangerous misinformation to spread at the speed of a click.
In Breaking News, Alan Rusbridger demonstrates how these decisive shifts have occurred, and what they mean for the future of democracy. In the twenty years he spent editing The Guardian, Rusbridger managed the transformation of the progressive British daily into the most visited serious English-language newspaper site in the world. He oversaw an extraordinary run of world-shaking scoops, including the exposure of phone hacking by London tabloids, the Wikileaks release of U.S.diplomatic cables, and later the revelation of Edward Snowden's National Security Agency files. At the same time, Rusbridger helped The Guardian become a pioneer in Internet journalism, stressing free access and robust interactions with readers. Here, Rusbridger vividly observes the media's transformation from close range while also offering a vital assessment of the risks and rewards of practicing journalism in a high-impact, high-stress time.
"The brilliant Breaking News is essential - and entertaining - reading for anyone who cares a whit about the hallmark of a democratic state being more than a lavatory wall."
Harold Evans, The Guardian
"[Rusbridger's] painstaking account is fascinating, even for those of us who lived both the peril and the promise. The rapid technology changes, collapsing business model, 9/11, media convergence, paywall wars, dawn of social media, rise of the 'citizen journalist' and more are here valuably detailed by a gifted reporter focused on the story of his own profession . . . The confidence and skill with which Rusbridger asserted his leadership, at times under government and legal pressure, sound an almost nostalgic note for an era when the sole job of a talented editor was to be an editor."
Anne Marie Lipinski, The New York Times Book Review
