Mic Wright, who you should follow on Bluesky, answers some questions, mostly about his new book “Breaking: How the Media Works, When it Doesn’t, and Why it Matters.”
1. As per your Bluesky photo “Who the fuck is Mic Wright?”
I’m a writer, journalist, and media critic. I was born in Norwich and now live there again but have spent time in Cambridge, London, Manchester, and Dublin. I started out in journalism on a trade magazine called Pensions World – the only place I could get a job that paid rather than a glamorous internship that didn’t – before going on to be on staff at the technology magazine Stuff and the music magazine Q. I’ve written for every national newspaper besides The Daily Mail and The Daily Sport at one time or another. Since 2020, I’ve been writing the media criticism newsletter, Conquest of the Useless (a title I shamelessly nicked from an excellent Werner Herzog book). I also write a monthly media column for Byline Times and regularly contribute to The New World.
2. Why did you write the book?
After years of writing the newsletter, it was apparent that lots of readers had questions about how the media works. I’d always wanted to write a book and this seemed like the topic I was destined to take on. There’s also a paucity of media criticism in the mainstream these days. There was a time in the 90s and 00s when newspapers themselves still had media critics on staff. There’s definitely a need to scrutinise what the industry gets up to but self-examination isn’t one of its strengths. There’s too much of a tendency for journalists to babble about ‘speaking truth to power’ when that’s very often far from what they do on a daily basis. A lot of the media is absolutely delighted by proximity to power.
The actual writing of the book took about six months. It covers all aspects of how the media works from how you become a journalist to what the future of journalism looks like with stops along the way to find out who runs the show, how interviews work, why there’s such a problem with ethics, what happens if you become the story, and a lot of other things besides. It was a fun book to write and has been a hard one to promote. It turns out writing something that is critical of every national newspaper as well as most of the broadcasters puts a crimp in your marketing plan.
3. Is the UK media particularly bad?
Short answer: yes. Long answer: It’s particularly bad in print and online because we have a very toothless, industry-backed regulator, but it’s a little better in broadcast than in the US. That said, the idea that our tabloids are uniquely beastly is really the product of a weird kind of angolocentric ego. Go to Germany and you’ll find their red tops are equally as bad and have as grim a history. What great news then that the Daily Telegraph is now owned by Axel Springer, publisher of Bild, which is like The Sun and The Daily Mail whizzed up in a blender.
4. What can be done to make things better?
A more effective and independent press regulator would be a great thing but I don’t think we have the political will or bravery to see that happen any time soon. In the meantime, being willing as individuals to speak up when we encounter stories that are badly reported or simply false is important. We can change the minds of people around us. That’s definitely the case with things like climate stories. If we point out how framing often leans on things like pictures of people having a lovely time on the beach even while the country is practically boiling alive, others will start to notice it too. My 94 year old grandmother has started questioning what she sees from the Daily Mail a lot more since she read my book. We can always learn new tricks and get wise to the ones that are being deployed against us.
5. What next?
I don’t know. But I have a few ideas for another book. It depends on how this one does.
6. Any shout outs?
I highly recommend Barry Malone’s newsletter, Proximities, which collects three essential non-Western news stories every week day. It’s a really good corrective to how narrow our window of interest can be sometimes.
Breaking: How the Media Works, When it Doesn’t, and Why it Matters is out now in paperback. It’s also 99p on Kindle for this month only.