Shooting the Messenger: Criminalising Journalism

ISBN-13: 9781138296602 / Angielski / Twarda / 2018 / 244 str.

Andrew Fowler

Opis

Since 9/11 governments as diverse as the US, the UK, France and Australia have introduced tough legislation to intimidate the legitimate activities of a probing press, in such great need after the Iraq War proved that executive government could not be trusted. Through detailed research and analysis, this book, which includes interviews with leading figures in the field, including Edward Snowden, explains how mass surveillance and anti-terror laws are of questionable value in defeating terrorism, but have had a ‘chilling effect’ on one of the foundations of democracy, revelatory journalism.

Recenzje

Ironies abound in this disturbing analysis of how western governments are clamping down on media freedoms and using dragnet surveillance to amass data on every one of us. Andrew Fowler neatly summarises, "New laws are now being shaped, both in the US and elsewhere, to make illegal that which had been normal journalistic practice; to make legal the activities of intelligence agencies which had previously been outlawed" Perhaps the biggest irony is the role played by right-wing elements of the media who endorse these draconian invasions of privacy and restrictions on freedom of expression in the name of national security. Fowler convincingly argues that journalism that speaks truth to power and democracy itself could be imperilled if we allow our governments free rein to stifle signs of dissent.

The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, June 2018

O autorze

Andrew Fowler is an award-winning investigative journalist and a former reporter with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Foreign Correspondent and its premier investigative TV documentary programme, Four Corners. Andrew began his journalism career in the early 1970s, covering the IRA bombing campaign for the London Evening News. He first interviewed Julian Assange for Foreign Correspondent in early 2010 and went on to write the bestselling book, The Most Dangerous Man in the World (Melbourne University Press, 2011) which has been translated and published in countries as diverse as China, South Korea, the USA, Russia, Indonesia, Romania and Taiwan.