The veteran Guardian news editor's thoughts on news media and how they work in a post-print world, in the form of a set of sixty or so short essays arranged, for no obvious reason, alphabetically from "ACCURACY" to "ZOOMERS". Most of it is aimed at helping either the reading public or would-be editors and journalists to make sense of what we see, but it's spiced up by the occasional bit of back-stabbing Fleet Street reminiscence.

There's a lot of quite sensible advice about making ourselves aware of the way what we read may have been shaped by the private interests of proprietors, the commercial interests of advertisers, and the career ambitions of the people who write it, as well as thoughts on how those considerations might be taken out of the loop. Needless to say, he approves of the Guardian's "moral-pressure-paywall" model, although he has his doubts about whether it will be a model that can last through the next big shifts in the industry, whatever they turn out to be. He's also surprisingly positive about the quite different ways other news organisations have found to finance their internet journalism — cross-subsidy, sponsored content, and even the MailOnline's highly profitable showbiz (non-)news factory ("Sidebar of Shame" as it's known in the industry). But on the whole this is stuff anyone interested enough in journalism to be reading this book will know about already.

One thing that did catch my attention was Rusbridger's focus on what turns out to be a surprisingly thin line between outstanding investigative reporting and relentless pushing of unsubstantiated claims. He cites quite a number of case studies of award-winning reporters who ended their careers in ignominy after doubt was cast on their uncanny ability to find stories where other journalists couldn't. The monster-ego always seems to be more vulnerable than the team of equals to self-delusion, fraud, or being seduced by evil dictators.

Interesting, but a bit patchy. ( )