‘Where there’s muck, there’s brass’ goes the saying. So I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised that following on from the phone hacking trial, two journalists are hoping to cash in with their revelatory books.
Hack Attack: How the Truth Caught up with Rupert Murdoch is to be published by Chatto and Windus. It has been written by Guardian journalist Nick Davies whose life has been consumed by the story since he first reported it in July 2009.
Beyond Contempt: The Inside Story of the Hacking Trial by Peter Jukes, whose claim to fame seems to be mostly that he covered every day of the hacking trial on Twitter, will be published as an e-book (paperback to follow.)
According to Mr Davies’ publisher, his book is a ‘gripping account of the investigation and full of detail we haven’t read before.’
But – bottom line is – are these books that the general public will be interested in? Granted, people in the industry might be interested – although frankly whether many see it as enjoyable bedtime reading, I’m not sure. They are not books I for one am interested in myself.
However, unfortunately for both of these journalists-cum-authors I don’t think they are books that will set the public rushing to their book shops or Amazon to buy them either.
How do I so confidently know this? Because whenever I have written about hacking on any of my blogs they are the ones that are least clicked on.
Real-life stories, health stories, quirky stories, business stories – they all come higher in best read on Featureworld and on sister site sellyourstoryuk.com. Will this blog even be read by many – as it has ‘hacking’ in the title, I am not expecting a lot of traffic.
Of course there were times in the past few years when the sensational revelations what happened at the News of the World fascinated and shocked everyone.
But whether that interest – after reading about this in our papers and on viewing it on TV pretty much every day for years – stretches to reading even more in books, remains to be seen.
Maybe journalism isn’t quite as fascinating for those outside the industry. I do believe there’s a tendency for journalists to think we’re more interesting than we actually are…
Or perhaps we’ve all read so much about this issue that it has simply been consigned to old news – because I’ve noticed the same lack of interest when hacking has recently been reported as well. The stories quickly slide down the list of must read on news websites.
So I’m afraid however ‘thrilling and ambitious’ Nick Davies’ book is and however compelling Peter Jukes offering might be – I don’t think these books will be topping any bestsellers lists any time soon.