Trigger Warning: Is The Fear Of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech?

Author: Mick Hume

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $10.00 NZD
  • : 9780008125455
  • : HarperCollins Publishers Limited
  • : Harper Element
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  • : 0.48
  • : June 2015
  • : 216mm X 135mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : 32.99
  • : June 2015
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  • : books

Special Fields

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  • :
  • : Mick Hume
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  • : Paperback
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  • :
  • : English
  • : 323.4/43
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  • :
  • : 320
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Barcode 9780008125455
9780008125455

Description

In this blistering polemic, veteran journalist Mick Hume presents an uncompromising defence of freedom of expression, which he argues is threatened in the West, not by jackbooted censorship but by a creeping culture of conformism and You-Can't-Say-That. The cold-blooded murder of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists in January 2015 brought a deadly focus to the issue of free speech. Leaders of the free-thinking world united in condemning the killings, proclaiming 'Je suis Charlie'. But it wasn't long before many commentators were arguing that the massacre showed the need to apply limits to free speech and to restrict the right to be offensive. It has become fashionable not only to declare yourself offended by what somebody else says, but to use the 'offence card' to demand that they be prevented from saying it. Social media websites such as Twitter have become the scene of 'twitch hunts' where online mobs hunt down trolls and other heretics who express the 'wrong' opinion. And Trigger Warnings and other measures to 'protect' sensitive students from potentially offensive material have spread from American universities across the Atlantic and the internet. Hume argues that without freedom of expression, our other liberties would not be possible. Against the background of the historic fight for free speech, Trigger Warning identifies the new threats facing it today and spells out how unfettered freedom of expression, despite the pain and the problems it entails, remains the most important liberty of all.

Reviews

Praise for 'There Is No Such Thing As a Free Press': 'A masterclass in the writing of polemic' Dan Finkelstein, The Times 'A rousing defence of freedom of the Press and the inalienable right to publish and be damned' Trevor Kavanagh, The Sun '[This book] questions what we mean by ethical journalism, the public interest and a free press, with some splendidly non-conformist answers' Simon Jenkins, Guardian

Author description

Mick Hume is a journalist and author of more than thirty years' experience. He is editor-at-large of Spiked and writes regularly on free speech issues. He had a weekly column in The Times for 10 years, described as "Britain's only libertarian Marxist newspaper columnist". He has more recently written in defence of freedom of speech and a free press in The Times, The Sunday Times, the Independent and the Sun, and blogs on the Press Gazette website.