David Edwards (journalist)

David Edwards (born 1962) is a British media campaigner who is co-editor of the Media Lens website with David Cromwell. Edwards specialises in the analysis mainstream, or corporate, mass media, which are normally considered impartial or liberal, an interpretation both men believe is disputable.

Born in Maidstone, Kent, Edwards was raised in the village of Bearsted, and spent summers in Sweden, his mother's country of origin. He sees this as influencing his attitudes to modern living.[1] After graduating from Leicester University with a Politics degree he worked in sales and marketing management for several large corporations, but became profoundly dissatisfied with the corporate working environment. According to Edwards, while working at British Telecom in the late 1980s, his employment there became untenable after he attempted to set up a "green initiatives" project.[1] In 1991 he left the business world completely, and began his writing career, earning most of his income as a teacher of English as a second language.[1]

After his articles were published on human rights and environmental issues by independent magazines and journals (such as Z Magazine), Edwards wrote his first book, Free to be Human, (Green Books, 1995),[2] which later appeared in the United States as Burning All Illusions: a Guide to Personal and Political Freedom (South End Press, 1996). It relies on Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky's propaganda model, as well as on the writings of Erich Fromm. Edwards advanced the thesis that corporate structural factors conspire to make the mass media give a picture of the world that goes beyond the political indoctrination postulated by Herman and Chomsky, to encompass almost all aspects of personal life, by constantly promoting the values of blind consumerism.[3]

Edwards has also drawn on his practice of Buddhism in his writings.[4] Edwards, writing for the New York-based Tricycle: The Buddhist Review in 2005, commented: "The antidotes to systemic greed, I am convinced, are political movements motivated by unconditional compassion for suffering. This compassion needs to be rooted in genuinely profound and authentic sources—the kind provided today by the best Buddhist teachers and organisations."[5]

Edwards was working from home in Bournemouth for the International Society for Ecology and Culture at the time he first met David Cromwell.[6] Together with Cromwell, Edwards co-founded in 2001 (and remains a co-editor of) Media Lens, a website correcting what they perceive as bias in the British "corporate media". The Media Lens' editors have collaborated on two books, Guardians of Power: The Myth of the Liberal Media[7] (2006) and Newspeak in the 21st Century (2009).

Bibliography

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Derrick Jensen & David Edwards "Nothing To Lose But Our Illusions: an interview with David Edwards", The Sun magazine (United States), June 2000, as reprinted on the Media Lens website, 22 June 2000. Jensen reprinted this interview in the book, How Shall I Live My Life?: On Liberating the Earth from Civilization, Oakland: PM Press, 2008, p.11-36. Interview conducted by telephone, 11 January 2000
  2. ↑ Sam de Brito "Free to be human", Sydney Morning Herald, 30 November 2011
  3. ↑ Edwards wrote about these themes in an exchange of open letters with Caspar Henderson. See "Can we trust the media on the environment?", The Ecologist, 9 June 2000
  4. ↑ See the last chapter of Newspeak in the 21st Century (London: Pluto, 2009) where Edwards explains this part of his life.
  5. ↑ David Edwards "Life or Death: Media watchdog David Edwards spurs Buddhists to action", Tricycle, Fall 2005
  6. ↑ Cromwell, David (2012). "Why Are We the Good Guys?". Alresford, Hants: Zero Books. p. 30.
  7. ↑ Edwards, David; Cromwell, David (2006). Guardians of Power: The Myth of the Liberal Media. London: Pluto Press. pp. 240pp. ISBN 0-7453-2482-7.

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