Truthteller: An Investigative Reporter’s Journey Through the World of Truth Prevention, Fake News and Conspiracy Theories
About this ebook
In a world where Putin and Trump have successfully branded journalists as traffickers in fake news, while promoting the actual creators of fake news, an investigative reporter shows the tools that are used to deceive us and explains why they work. Using exclusive documents and interviews drawn from three decades as an award-winning reporter, editor, foreign correspondent, television producer, documentary filmmaker, and journalism educator, Stephen Davis reveals shocking details of deception in the United States, the UK, Russia, Sweden, the Baltic republics, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, the Arctic and Antarctic.
Truthteller is an essential guide for understanding the modern media world — for teachers, students and concerned citizens who want to know the facts, not fake news and conspiracy theories.
It takes you inside the world of investigative reporting in an intimate history of a reporter’s battles, won and lost, the personal and professional costs and the lives damaged along the way.
About the author
Stephen Davis has been on the frontlines of journalism for three decades as an investigative reporter in TV, magazines and newspapers and as a leading journalism educator, trying to uphold the ideals of the fourth estate, and to inspire his students to do the same.
From the rainforests of Brazil to the icy wastes of Antarctica, from London to Los Angeles, from the Middle East to Australia and New Zealand, Davis has sought out the truth and sometimes found it. Along the way he has encountered lying politicians and corporate conmen, spies and special forces soldiers, secret policemen and scared scientists. Among those who have tried to persuade him from reporting his stories: men with Kalashnikovs, government lawyers, corporate PRs in fancy suits, senior police officers, billionaires, and newspaper owners.
Davis has worked for The Sunday Times in both London and Los Angeles, been a war and foreign correspondent, a TV producer for60 Minutes and 20/20, a newspaper editor, a documentary film maker for the BBC and Discovery, and has taught journalism to thousands of students from all over the world. He has won multiple awards for his investigative reporting, including a silver medal at the New York film and television awards, and has designed and run journalism degree programs in London, Sydney and Melbourne.
