News of the World?: Fake Sheikhs and Royal Trappings

‘…that is what we do - we go out and destroy other people’s lives’ - Former news editor on the News of the World . Do the great British public get the press the ‘Red Tops’ think they deserve? Or are the tabloids’ pious protestations of public interest really just a prurient self-serving attempt to halt declining circulation? Peter Burden examines the News of the World’s performance - with its Fake Sheikh and the illegal mobile phone tapping, which lead to a goal sentence for royal reporter Clive Goodman and the resignation of the editor. Burden also highlights the papers hypocritical bleating when Mazher Mahmood, the Fake Sheikh, was himself unmasked. News of the World: Fake Sheikhs and Royal Trappings is a book for everyone concerned about standards in British tabloid journalism and people who care about privacy rights and the debate over serving the Public Interest vs the interest of the public. ‘We shouldn’t be writing about anybody’s private life at all unless there is some really powerful public need to know about it’ - Nick Davies, Flat Earth News .