Fraudcast News published as an eBook, paperback to follow

So I survived. I not only talked (a lot) about writing a book on democracy and journalism, I then finally did it. In comparison, working my way through Lulu’s self-publishing process was a doddle.

For Fraudcast News, this is what’s written on the packet:

People like to quote Winston Churchill’s quip about democracy being the worst form of government bar all the others. Yet who’s the butt of this decades-old joke if it’s not us?

Why do we accept democracy as an occasional choice between identikit candidates? We know our votes change little, leaving power with a wealthy elite that acts via corporations and global financial markets.

Fraudcast News unpicks this political charade – and the media complicity that masks it – in Britain, the EU, the United States and globally. It shows how reporters, far from being relentless critics of the status quo, are just as beholden to big money as our governors.

Yet this is a hopeful story, told as the confessions of an ex-Reuters journalist. It shows how we can have influence by training up local reporters who focus on accountability and governance where they live. It imagines joining them up into a global reporting network for a worldwide citizenry.

If you care about journalism, or dream of it as a career, if you believe “democracy” should mean something, this book’s for you.

You can buy the resulting eBook here for £2.00 (corrected on 25 January – it’s displayed as £2.00 but without tax/VAT, making the real price £2.40 – sorry about that). Equally, you can contact me via the comments section or Twitter @PatrickChalmers and I’ll send you a free copy. There’ll be a direct link to a pdf in due course, when the self-publishing schedule allows.

The reason I’m offering the free option is not because I have surgically removed my Scotsman’s DNA but because this is about democracy and I think people should have a chance to examine before they buy/read and not buy at all if they wish. A few lost sales is not something that bothers me, I’d like people to read the book and share it.

The model is inspired by Dan Gillmor, who did the same with his book Mediactive.

This is a video interview I did in October, explaining the project: