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Frontlines of Journalism

7. Open the door and you’re doomed

Duration: 15 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FMLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 LW

Available for over a year

Journalists couldn’t get to the truth with people. Some make stories possible. Others do all they can to stop them.

Revisiting difficult stories he and other journalists have had to report, BBC International Editor Jeremy Bowen looks at some of the obstacles that stand between journalists and what Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein once called the ‘best obtainable version of the truth’.

In this episode: how journalists deal with sources, spin and powerful people.

Jeremy speaks with: journalist and former BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg, Dean Baquet - until 2022 executive editor of the New York Times, BBC Gaza producer Rushdi Abu Alouf, and broadcaster and former editor of The Mirror and News of The World, Piers Morgan.

Presenter: Jeremy Bowen
Producer: Georgia Catt
Assistant Producer: Sam Peach
Additional research: Rob Byrne
Series mixing: Jackie Margerum
Series Editor: Philip Sellars Show less

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