Journalism is the pursuit of the truth, and that’s what Tom Burgis and Carole Cadwalladr have spent their careers working towards. But what happens when people don’t want the truth to get out? Burgis and Cadwalladr talk to writer Oliver Bullough about the society-changing work they have done, and how strategic lawsuits against public participation (known as SLAPPS) are increasingly being used to tie up journalists’ time and funds to stop their work.
For three years, Burgis followed a lead that produced his new book Cuckooland: Where the Rich Own the Truth. He hunted down oligarchs and traced vast sums of money flowing between multinational corporations, ex-Soviet dictators and the West’s ruling élites. Guardian writer Cadwalladr exposed Cambridge Analytica’s role in mass-harvesting data to influence elections in the UK and US. Bullough is author of Butler to the World: How Britain Became the Servant of Tycoons, Tax Dodgers, Kleptocrats and Criminals.
