How Not to Be a Reporter

John Sweeney tells stories power and money don't want told. As a war reporter he took crazy risks from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and everywhere in between. He is perhaps best known for roaring his head off at a spokesperson for the Church of Scientology in an infamous BBC Panorama documentary. Years later, the BBC got rid of him when he had a go at another cult, the one run by Tommy Robinson. Freelance, he headed to Ukraine, staying in the capital for the whole of the Battle of Kyiv.How Not To Be A Reporter is the autobiography of a reporter who has criticised Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump to their faces. In Siberia, Sweeney got punched in the guts; in New York, the Trump organisation put out an attack video against him. When not going undercover in North Korea or Chechnya, in Britain he made documentaries on cot death mothers Sally Clark, Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony, arguing that they were not guilty of murdering their babies. Thanks, in part, to Sweeney they were all freed. In 2023, on the day when nurse Lucy Letby was first convicted of killing seven babies, he tweeted: 'Sometimes the law gets it wrong'. This is the story of someone who is a free spirit, not afraid to confront real monsters or to stand up for those falsely accused of being monsters. Someone who has seen the darkest things people can do to each other, but who also believes that information is light, that laughter can light up a prison cell, that love and friendship can keep people going through the worst of times.