Effective Journalism

This book provides journalists and the public with a broad overview of all the ways modern communication technologies and information approaches make it difficult for people to effectively find and interpret information, and what they can do about it. The public may have a general awareness that things like confirmation bias, content algorithms, and the backfire effect exist and can influence their behaviour, but this book will explain them in one place, in plain language. Journalists likewise know that their audiences are dealing with some of these issues, but continue to operate under the assumption that if they just publish facts, the truth will win out in the court of public opinion. The central argument of the book is that journalists and audiences can no longer afford to pretend that all information is competing on an even playing field, and that it is enough for journalists to simply publish “the facts.” Just as behavioural economics provided a new way of thinking about