Former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger on why the When good news goes bad
The development of workable coronavirus vaccines in just eight months is testament to the brilliance and expertise of scientists around the world. Now, Alan Rusbridger believes the world needs journalists to step up to the mark.
The former newspaper editor turned academic believes misinformation and conspiracy theories about the vaccine sweeping the internet means trusted and reliable sources of information are more important than ever. They are, literally, a matter of life and death. As countries around the world prepare mass immunisation against Covid, online many are questioning the dangers of the virus, the benefits of lockdown and the safety of vaccines. Mr Rusbridger, who edited the Guardian, said: “This ought to be the test moment for journalism. If we don’t get people to take the vaccine, then vaccination is not going to work. There’s an awful lot of misinformation and rubbish around about vaccination, just as there has been about many aspects of the pandemic.
“It’s vital that, for society to work, there are some people who are trusted to say, ‘This is the evidence on which you should make your mind up.’ When there is a complete breakdown of that, as I think there certainly has been in America, with the president saying the New York Times is fake news and
Jon Snow reports from Grenfell on the morning of the tragedy on June 14, 2017
people should believe him, then society can’t work.
“A pandemic is a very good example, as is climate change, of how nothing works unless you know what’s true and what isn’t true.”
During the pandemic, journalists have uncovered a range of stories questioning the official response, from
Boris Johnson’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings Alan breaching lockdown Rusbridger rules to the disaster in our care homes and huge PPE contracts being awarded to companies with links to ministers. Mr Rusbridger, whose new book examines how and where good information is found and tested in the unregulated digital world, said: “Billions have been given away to people who apparently have no experience, some of them with apparent close connections with people in government. That has been a really good exercise in holding power to account.”
He was editor-in-chief of The Guardian from 1995 to 2015, a period when the newspaper helped break a number of stories including Edward Snowden’s revelations around government mass surveillance and the Panama Papers.
Today, he remains a passionate advocate for investment in investigative journalism. He said: “At The Guardian we did brilliant investigative work – taxation, torture, rendition, toxic dumping, slavery, Wikileaks. When we then went to the readers and asked them to make a contribution, they said that if we were going to do journalism like that they would pay for it. “Investigative journalism became the business model, and that I think should be an inspiring message for young journalists. There are too many people in the industry who think, ‘let’s get rid of the investigative team first because they’re the expensive bit. Let’s do churnalism, which is processing the stuff in the cheapest way.’ But readers are never going to pay for that.”
Mr Rusbridger criticised cuts in local newspaper journalism, which, he fears, meant the concerns of residents of Grenfell Tower about the building’s safety before the fire that claimed 72 lives were missed. He said: “The hollowing out of local journalism meant that the patch including Grenfell was covered by a reporter who lived 40 miles away.
“We’ve also seen that in America where whole areas of the country are not being covered any more. With these information deserts when nobody is noticing what’s going on any longer, we shouldn’t be surprised that social media is stepping into this vacuum.
“It’s all happening for completely understandable reasons.