James Ball is a British journalist and author. He has worked for ''

The Grocer ''The Grocer'' is a British magazine devoted to grocery sales, published by William Reed Business Media. It has been published since 1862. The Grocer 33 A feature of the magazine is 'The Grocer 33'. This is a survey of each of the 5 leading s ...

'', ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'',

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is an international non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder and director and ...

, ''

BuzzFeed BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content. Ke ...

'', ''

The New European ''The New European'' is a British pan-European weekly political and cultural newspaper and website. Launched in July 2016 as a response to the United Kingdom's 2016 EU referendum, its readership is aimed at those who voted to remain within t ...

'' and ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...

'' and is the author of several books. He is the recipient of several awards for journalism and was a member of ''The Guardian'' team that won the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...

for investigative journalism.

Early life

Ball studied for a BA degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

and went on to enrol in the

master's A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

programme in journalism at

City, University of London City, University of London, is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, and a member institution of the federal University of London. It was founded in 1894 as the Northampton Institute, and became a university when The City Univ ...

. After transferring to a

diploma A diploma is a document awarded by an educational institution (such as a college or university) testifying the recipient has graduated by successfully completing their courses of studies. Historically, it has also referred to a charter or offici ...

course for financial reasons, he graduated from City in 2008 with a diploma in magazine journalism with a focus on investigative journalism.

Career

After leaving university he spent two years at ''

'' before moving to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism where he worked on iraqwarlogs.com. In November 2010,

Julian Assange Julian Paul Assange ( ; Hawkins; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of leaks provided by U.S. Army int ...

invited him to work as the in-house journalist for

in the UK, where he began working on the

Iraq War documents leak The Iraq War documents leak is the disclosure to WikiLeaks of 391,832 United States Army field reports, also called the Iraq War Logs, of the Iraq War from 2004 to 2009 and published on the Internet on 2010. The files record 66,081 civilian deat ...

. He said that the hours there were "long and erratic", complicated when a European Arrest Warrant was issued for Assange which led to

extradition Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdi ...

proceedings known as the Assange v Swedish Prosecution Authority. He described the backlash against WikiLeaks as "in some ways quite scary. ... Seeing

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

Paypal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...

, Visa and Mastercard turn on you, at the same time as US congressmen and senators are calling for you to be branded as a terrorist, is an experience, to say the least". Ball later criticised Assange and the WikiLeaks organisation and stated that his journalistic duty of care was to the source,

Chelsea Manning Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning; December 17, 1987) is an American activist and whistleblower. She is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage A ...

, rather than the organisation reporting on it. Ball left WikiLeaks after three months because of concerns regarding protecting the identity of vulnerable individuals in the leaked cables and Assange's attempts to secure WikiLeaks' funds for his own legal defence. In 2012 he co-authored a book with Charlie Beckett documenting his experiences, ''WikiLeaks: News in the Networked Era''. In 2011 Ball joined British newspaper ''

'' where he worked on several high-profile investigative stories. He was part of ''The Guardian'' team which received several awards for its study ''Reading the Riots'' about the

2011 England riots The 2011 England riots, more widely known as the London riots, were a series of riots between 6 and 11 August 2011. Thousands of people rioted in cities and towns across England, which saw looting, arson, as well as mass deployment of police an ...

. Whilst working for ''The Guardian'', Ball collaborated on the "Offshore Leaks" project which won multiple awards from

Investigative Reporters and Editors Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. (IRE) is a nonprofit organization that focuses on improving the quality of journalism, in particular investigative journalism. Formed in 1975, it presents the IRE Awards and holds conferences and training ...

as well as the

George Polk Award The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the awar ...

in 2014. In 2013 he was appointed data editor and from around June 2013 he worked on the

Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and su ...

leaked documents on British and US intelligence organisations

Government Communications Headquarters Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Uni ...

and

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...

. In October 2013 it was announced that Ball had joined ''

Guardian US ''Guardian US'' is the Manhattan-based American online presence of the British print newspaper ''The Guardian''. It launched in September 2011, led by editor-in-chief Janine Gibson, and followed the earlier ''Guardian America'' service, which wa ...

'', the American online section of the newspaper where he took up the newly created position of special projects editor. Prior to working for ''The Guardian'', Ball worked on British investigative

current affairs Current affairs may refer to: News * ''Current Affairs'' (magazine) a bimonthly magazine of culture and politics. * Current affairs (news format): a genre of broadcast journalism * Current Affairs, former name for Behind the News Politics * An ...

programmes '' Dispatches'' for

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

and ''

Panorama A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined i ...

'' for

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

. Whilst with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism he also worked for

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazee ...

and ITN.

In September 2015 Ball joined the UK division of

as part of their investigative journalism team. Since 2016 Ball has also written articles for ''

'', a British

pro-European Pro-Europeanism, sometimes called European Unionism, is a political position that favours European integration and membership of the European Union (EU).Krisztina Arató, Petr Kaniok (editors). ''Euroscepticism and European Integration''. Polit ...

newspaper. Ball was a judge for the 2016 Amnesty International UK Media Awards. Ball was part of the team whose investigation into

HSBC HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational universal bank and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in Europe by total assets ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 tr ...

money laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdicti ...

was longlisted for

The Orwell Prize ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...

for Exposing Britain's Social Evils. Ball has been critical of the lack of fact-checking by journalists and news consumers, of using

clickbait Clickbait is a text or a thumbnail link that is designed to attract attention and to entice users to follow that link and read, view, or listen to the linked piece of online content, being typically deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise mis ...

headlines and the culture of media being forced to rely on advertising revenue from 'clicks' and

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...

'shares' and has said, "While we are demanding that the audience trust mainstream outlets and put us on a higher pedestal, our business models favour getting the clicks – if you'd had stopped and waited to verify and check, you'd have missed out on the traffic all-together and got no revenue, so we actually reward running this unchecked footage." He has been critical of

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

's use of

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

, describing his statements as "rhetorical clusterbombs of nonsense 'facts' ndunprovable allegations." He said we all need to take responsibility for 'fake news' and clickbait as well as the social networks we ultimately decide to click and share it on, perpetuating the problem of truth in journalism.

Awards in journalism

Ball has received several awards during his career for

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the " news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (p ...

and

investigative journalism Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years res ...

including, * 2012 Laurence Stern fellowship winner at ''

'' * 2013 XCity Alumni Award from

for his work in

data journalism Data journalism or data-driven journalism (DDJ) is a journalistic process based on analyzing and filtering large data sets for the purpose of creating or elevating a news story. Data journalism is a type of journalism reflecting the increased ...

* 2014

Royal Statistical Society The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good. ...

Award for Statistical Excellence in Journalism, in the print category for his work on 'The Thatcher effect', the legacy of

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

's public policy using historical data. Ball has been a member of investigative journalism teams which were awarded * 2011

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and s ...

digital journalism award * 2013 Paul Foot Award special investigation prize for reporting on the files leaked by

* 2013 The

Scripps Howard Foundation The Scripps Howard Fund is a public charity that supports philanthropic causes important to the E. W. Scripps Company, an American media conglomerate which owns television stations, cable television networks, and other media outlets. The goal of ...

Roy W. Howard Award for Public Service Reporting for coverage of the

data collection files. * 2014 The

Pulitzer Prize for Public Service The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. It recognizes a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper or news site through the use of its journalis ...

with the ''

'' for reporting on

surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as ...

by the National Security Agency, and "helping through aggressive reporting to spark a debate about the relationship between the government and the public over issues of security and privacy." * 2016 ''

Press Gazette ''Press Gazette'', formerly known as ''UK Press Gazette'' (UKPG), is a British media trade magazine dedicated to journalism and the press. First published in 1965, it had a circulation of about 2,500, before becoming online-only in 2013. Publis ...

'' British Journalism Awards, Investigation of the year Award for

money laundering investigative reporting.

Books

''WikiLeaks: News in the Networked Era'', co-authored with Charlie Beckett, was published in 2012 by Polity Publishing and is a detailed record of the history of

and

and Edward Snowden, and how this played out across journalistic media. ''The Infographic History of the World'', co-authored with Valentina D'Efilippo, was published 2013 by Collins. It is a representation of human history using

infographics Infographics (a clipped compound of "information" and "graphics") are graphic visual representations of information, data, or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly.Doug Newsom and Jim Haynes (2004). ''Public Relations Wri ...

, or visual representations of data with text commentaries. ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Eco ...

'' praised its mostly "terrific charts" but stated some lacked "infographical discipline". ''Post-Truth: How Bullshit Conquered the World'', published 2017 by

Biteback Publishing Biteback Publishing is a British publisher based in London concentrating mainly on political titles. It was incorporated, as a private limited company with share capital, in 2009. It was jointly owned by its managing director Iain Dale and by M ...

, discusses how truth has become devalued in the current socio-political climate, how the political left and right tend to exist in an "eco-system of bullshit: the combination of campaigns, media, technologies and more that come together to spread questionable information", and examines whether this is a phenomenon post-

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 Greenwich Mean Time, GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 Central Eur ...

and the Trump campaign. It has been described as "thorough and courageously even-handed" ''(

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

)'' and expressing a "vivid analysis of how the business models and incentives currently prevailing in digital media render decent discourse all but inaudible" (Kazuo Ishiguro). ''Bluffocracy'' was co-authored with Andrew Greenway and published 2018 by Biteback Publishing. It looks at members of the British establishment and those in positions of influence, and the culture of lying and pretence in place of competency and real skill. ''The System: Who Owns the Internet, and How It Owns Us'' (U.S. title: ''The Tangled Web We Weave: Inside the Shadow System That Shapes the Internet'') published in August 2020. It documents the inner workings of the system and the real-life figures who power the internet.

References

External links