Anna's Angle

Nick Davies’ Flat Earth News (2008) is a striking and, at times, uncomfortable read about how the news we consume is produced. Davies is not an academic but a veteran British investigative journalist, best known for his work at The Guardian newspaper. His background shapes the book: rather than offering a detached, theoretical critique, he writes as an insider who has seen the system from within. His earlier work, like Dark Heart (1998), explored social inequality, while Hack Attack (2014) exposed the phone-hacking scandal. Flat Earth News fits into this trajectory, turning his investigative lens onto the media itself.

The book’s context is very prevalent. Written in the aftermath of the Iraq War, when journalists repeated false claims about weapons of mass destruction with little scrutiny, public trust in the press was already fragile. At the same time, 24-hour news cycles, newsroom cutbacks, and the rise of PR shaped the industry. Davies captures that moment of disillusionment, and in many ways his arguments still feel relevant today.

The central claim is simple but powerful: journalism is failing in its “primary purpose” of telling the truth. Davies coins the term “churnalism” to describe the way stories are churned out from press releases or wire copy without proper fact-checking. He shows how commercial pressures, shrinking staff, and political spin have created what he calls “flat earth news”: stories accepted as true simply because they are widely repeated. He quotes, “A story appears to be true. It is widely accepted as true. It becomes heresy to suggest that it is not true – even if it is riddled with falsehood, distortion and propaganda.” This captures the danger of repetition replacing truth.

Davies supports his thesis with a mixture of case studies (such as media coverage of the Iraq War and health scares) and the Cardiff University study, which analysed how much of news content comes directly from PR or wire services. The evidence is persuasive, but not flawless. Some critics argue he generalises too much and paints an overly bleak picture, ignoring examples of investigative journalism that still worked well in the 2000s. There’s also an assumption of a “golden age” of more independent reporting that isn’t fully proven.

Stylistically, the book is very readable. It feels more like an exposé than a dry academic text, which makes sense given Davies’ background. The structure flows well, moving from theoretical points to real-world examples. At times the tone is provocative and even angry, which I think made the book all the more engaging.

For me as a sociology student and aspiring journalist, Flat Earth News feels like a really valuable contribution to media studies. Its greatest strength is the clear and memorable concept of “churnalism,” which has since become part of mainstream conversations about journalism. Davies challenges the comforting idea that news is always neutral or objective, showing instead how systemic pressures tend to shape what the public ends up believing. This made me think critically about the role of journalists, and how easily truth can be replaced by a simple repetition of false news. While the book does have some weaknesses, such as being quite UK-focused and at times leaning heavily on anecdotal evidence, I don’t think these flaws take away from the force of its overall message. If anything, they highlight how complex and messy the reality of journalism really is, which is exactly why I found the book so engaging and important to read.

Overall, Davies forces us to question the honesty of journalism at a time when honesty should be its “defining value.” As someone interested in studying journalism at university, I found it both unsettling and motivating; unsettling because it shows the scale of the problem, but motivating because it underlines why independent, critical journalism is still worth fighting for.