The book is divided into eight chapters: each one focuses on a problem that the news industry is facing, what that means for society, and what journalism should do about it.  

De Botton starts by showing why the audience might get bored reading the news as it is today. “We are standing far too close”, he explains, where instead “we need news organisations to help our curiosity by signalling how their stories fit into the larger themes on which a sincere capacity for interest depends.”

De Botton goes on to compare a news piece to a small patch of paint which you would not be able to appreciate in isolation. Without the bigger picture, he warns, you won’t see the point. Accordingly, De Botton believes journalism should not only be “collect[ing] facts”, but rather “teasing out their relevance”. 

Too often, he says, journalism tries to offer a quick fix which only makes people angry and dissatisfied when it doesn’t solve anything: “News should make us angry for the right reasons and as a part of a constructive project”.

He warns against the stilted character and stultifying effect of most media coverage: “news stories tend to frame issues in such a way as to reduce our will or even our capacity to imagine them in profoundly other ways”.  If he’s right, too much of today’s journalism is instilling un-think rather than opening up the outside world to our intervention.

De Botton doesn’t quite say that money is the root of all evil; but he does think that journalism suffers when commercial considerations take top priority. Without identifying how journalism can actually pay its way, he reckons that news organisations which don’t invest in anything new for fear of losing their audience, run the risk of losing journalism’s future altogether.

He’s not, as far as I know, a Tottenham Hotspur supporter, but he does appear to adhere to their motto: audere est facere; to dare is to do.

Rationale: Politics and media are stuck in a spiral that incentivises divisive rhetoric, hyper-partisanship and disinformation. The people who benefit the most from this populist approach are politicians who are often supported by social media militias and homegrown publications with low editorial standards. Quality media end up reporting on these politicians as well using “clickable stories” because they struggle to survive financially.  

Findings: Arena researched different approaches to the “polarising subject” of migration. Corriere della Sera – a leading Italian newspaper – experimented with different story formats, while the LSE analysed reader responses. The analysis sought to establish what sort of content encouraged a “more civil debate, smoothed polarisation and enhanced trust towards accurate content.” 

It was noted that the number of migrants arriving in Italy decreased significantly in 2018, but the number of news stories increased – a rise thought to have been connected to the anti-immigrant policies of newly appointed deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini.

Investigating the response to these stories, Arena researchers found that a straightforward, impartial and unemotional approach led to more public trust and less criticism of the media, whereas human interest stories were more likely to prompt criticism and toxic language in response. However, hostile reactions were seen to soften when a sympathetic story concerned a single individual rather than a migrant group. News that referred to a solution to the perceived problem of migration, was also less likely to evoke a negative response. Data-driven approaches may elicit criticism, but often in a less toxic language. Also, video content produces a lower level of negativity possibly because moving images are seen as more reliable, or perhaps because people find it easier to engage with the format.

Relevance to Creative Journalism: An important point for our research is that human interest stories which aim to build empathy can have the opposite effect, prompting negative comments and criticism of the media platforms in which they appear. It may be that people feel such coverage is trying to manipulate them emotionally.

The study also considered what might happen if European media focused on migrants’ previous professions, or on the military conflicts behind migration, rather than cursorily classifying them by age and nationality.     

The research concludes that coverage of migration should navigate between anti-immigrant populism on the one hand and explicit sympathy on the other. Better to go for a straightforward, impartial approach which favours data over emotion; solutions-oriented journalism is welcomed more than what is seen as opinion-mongering.  

Finally, the study concluded that journalism should change the way it describes migrants because this description changes the way society sees them. This may well be true in part; nonetheless we should recall that people often read between the lines of what’s published. If they weren’t doing this, there wouldn’t be so much criticism when news media are (frequently) perceived to have got the story wrong.

Chris Pharo and Jamie Pyatt were the last journos to come to trial as a result of Operation Elveden, the prolonged investigation into journalists paying public officials such as police officers, for stories.

Look at these two hard-headed geezers. Can you imagine them knocking down your door? I surely wouldn’t want them knocking at mine! I bet they’re not shy when they are out hustling and demanding answers to questions that people are reluctant to answer. Standing up to this twosome would be quite a challenge. But that’s not quite how they presented themselves in court.

Sun news editor Chris Pharo and district reporter Jamie Pyatt were tried for aiding and abetting a police officer to commit misconduct in a public office between 2002 and 2011. The jury at the Old Bailey heard how the defendants were said to have paid a police officer up to £10k for information on high-profile criminal investigations such as the murder of schoolgirl Milly Dowler, rapist- Tony Imiela and quadruple killer Daniel Gonzalez.

Pharo and Pyatt denied breaking the law by bribing the cop. They were found not guilty – the latest in a line of cases in which juries have failed to convict journalists on such charges. I think this is good news for press freedom. But what riles me is the way these hard-headed journalists hid behind the skirts of former Sun editor Rebekah Brooks.

In court, Pharo described Brooks as ‘nothing short of a nightmare’. In evidence, he recalled a text message from Brooks comparing them unfavourably to News of the World’s journalists and declaring: ‘If you fucking cunts are not capable of matching them, I will sack the lot of you and replace you with them.’

Pharo told the jury how ‘Brooks would sulk for days’. When asked by defence counsel Nigel Remit if he felt secure in his job, he complained ‘no, not at any point’.

The insecure journalist then recalled how Brooks had reduced picture editor John Edwards to tears. He also revealed that Brooks kept a punch bag in her office to ‘relieve her tension,’ and once slammed a door so hard the handle broke.

Well, they do say exercise is the best form of stress release.

Broken doorknobs and foul-mouthed messages seem like lame excuses to me. If they felt so strongly about alleged mistreatment at the hands of Ms Brooks they should have done something about it – either in court or out of it. But hiding behind her – it was Brooks wot made me do it, your Honour – is hardly acceptable behaviour for a grown man and a professional journalist.

These two hard nuts can’t have it both ways!  Crying over the pressure Brook’s put them under is a bit rich coming from two blokes who spend half their life pressuring other people.

Grow some balls, boys!