David Rose (journalist)

David Rose (born 21 July 1959) is a British author and investigative journalist. He is a contributing editor with Vanity Fair and a special investigations writer for The Mail on Sunday. His interests include human rights, miscarriages of justice, the death penalty, racism, the war on terror, politics, and climate change denial. He is the author of six non-fiction books and a novel, Taking Morgan, a thriller set in Washington, Oxford, Tel Aviv and Gaza, published by Quartet in 2014. He was named News Reporter of the Year in the Society of Editors British Press Awards for 2015.[1][2]

David Rose
Born (1959-07-21) July 21, 1959
London, England, United Kingdom
OccupationAuthor, investigative journalist

His journalism on climate has been criticised by climate scientists and environmentalists for an over-reliance on unsound and unscientific sources and has been censured by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). Rose admitted to the dissemination of incorrect information from unreliable sources in the run up to the Iraq war.

In 2016 Rose wrote a false and defamatory article against Sasha Wass QC; the contents of which were later contested in court, with Rose and the Mail on Sunday receiving a substantive libel penalty and vituperation by the court judge.[3] In 2017 Rose wrote a false article accusing a taxi licensing officer of being involved in a child sex ring, resulting in a substantial defamation settlement by Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL).[4]

On 17 November 2019, David Rose wrote an article about Maria Carroll, then a Labour prospective parliamentary candidate, alleging that she assisted antisemites and Holocaust deniers. This article appeared in the Mail on Sunday. Following a complaint to IPSO that the article was factually incorrect, and as a result of arbitration, the article was removed and cannot now be found on internet searches. On Sunday 10 January 2021,the Mail on Sunday issued a correction (on page 2) apologising to Ms Carroll. The Mail on Sunday paid Ms Carroll a significant sum as tangible recognition of the damage and distress she suffered.[5]

Early life and career

Rose was born in London on 21 July 1959. He read history at Magdalen College, Oxford, and earned a first class honours degree in 1981.

Rose's first job was as a reporter with the London magazine Time Out, 1981–4. He then worked successively on the staffs on The Guardian, The Observer and BBC current affairs television.

In 2002 he became a Vanity Fair contributing editor, and in 2008 a special investigations writer for The Mail on Sunday. He is a winner of the Royal Institute of International Affairs David Watt Memorial Prize.[6] In 2013, a poll of investigative reporters organised by the UK Press Gazette named him among the top ten practitioners of his trade.[7]

After the trial of the three men convicted of murdering Police Constable Keith Blakelock in the Broadwater Farm riot in 1987, he wrote many articles challenging their convictions and life sentences, working closely with their lawyers. This led to their successful appeals in 1991, and became the subject of his book A Climate of Fear (1992).[8] Rose has repeatedly drawn attention to the dangers of wrongful convictions for historic sex abuse, beginning with the BBC Panorama programme which he reported and wrote, In the Name of the Children (2000).[9]

His longest-running campaign is that on behalf of Georgia death row prisoner Carlton Gary, convicted as the Columbus "stocking strangler", supposedly the African-American who raped and murdered seven white women 1977–78. His book, The Big Eddy Club (2007), focuses on this case and its direct links with the era of lynching and Jim Crow racism.

In 2010 Rose admitted to the dissemination of incorrect information from unreliable sources in his covering of the Iraq war in 2002 and 2003.[10]

Defamation findings

In 2016 Rose wrote a false and defamatory article against Sasha Wass QC; the contents of which was later contested in court, with Rose and the Mail on Sunday receiving a substantive libel penalty and vituperation by the court judge.[11][12]

A story by David Rose in the Mail on Sunday in May 2017 in which he falsely accused a British-born Pakistani taxi licensing officer Wajed Iqbal as participating in a child sex ring has resulted in a substantial out of court settlement by Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL).[13]

Climate change denial

Rose's journalism on climate has been criticised by climate scientists and environmentalists for an over-reliance on unsound and unscientific sources, cherry-picking and manufactured data.[14][15][16][17] Rose has also been criticised repeatedly by the United Kingdom's national weather service, the Met Office.[18][19][20][21]

The Mail on Sunday was criticised by Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) in September 2017 for the February publication of an article by Rose which falsely suggested information from the American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had been used to overstress the extent of global warming. Not all of the other points in the complaint against Rose's article were upheld.[22]

Private life

Rose is married with four children and lives in Oxford. His interests include mountaineering, rock-climbing and caving. He has taken part in expeditions with Oxford University Cave Club, which have explored the very deep caves of the Picos de Europa mountains in northern Spain, including the Pozu del Xitu, 1,264 metres deep. These explorations were the subject of his first book, Beneath the Mountains.[23]

Books by Rose
  • 1987 – Beneath The Mountains (with Richard Gregson)
  • 1992 – A Climate of Fear: Blakelock Murder and the Tottenham Three
  • 1996 – In the Name of the Law: The Collapse of Criminal Justice
  • 1999 – Regions of the Heart: The Triumph and Tragedy of Alison Hargreaves (with Ed Douglas)
  • 2004 – Guantanamo: America's War on Human Rights
  • 2007 – The Big Eddy Club: The Stocking Stranglings and Southern Justice (published in UK under the title Violation)
  • 2014 – Taking Morgan

References
  1. "Citations for Winners, Press Awards for 2015". Press Awards. Archived from the original on 23 December 2016. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  2. @@PressAwardsuk (22 March 2016). "Video: David Rose wins News Reporter of the Year" (Tweet). Retrieved 5 January 2017 – via Twitter.
  3. "SASHA WASS QC – TOP CRIMINAL QC SECURES FULL COURT APOLOGY FROM MAIL ON SUNDAY".
  4. "David Rose story: Mail loses Rs244m defamation case to Pakistani man".
  5. "CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS - 10 Jan 2021".
  6. Timothy Garton; Said, Edward; Fisk, Robert; et al. (1 January 2008). "The David Watt Prize: Winning Articles 1988-2008". Rio Tinto. Retrieved 5 January 2017 – via Amazon.
  7. Turvill, William (5 February 2013). "Press Gazette's top ten investigative journalists: 'Brave and unstoppable' Nick Davies tops the list". Press Gazette. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  8. A Climate of Fear: The Murder of PC Blakelock and the Case of the Tottenham Three. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. 1992.
  9. "Panorama - Archive - In The Name Of The Children". BBC News. 26 November 2000. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  11. "SASHA WASS QC – TOP CRIMINAL QC SECURES FULL COURT APOLOGY FROM MAIL ON SUNDAY".
  12. "STATEMENT IN OPEN COURT" (PDF).
  13. "David Rose story: Mail loses Rs244m defamation case to Pakistani man".
  14. Abraham, John (5 February 2017). "Mail on Sunday launches the first salvo in the latest war against climate scientists". The Guardian. David Rose penned an attack described by expert as “so wrong it’s hard to know where to start”.
  15. Zeke Hausfather. Factcheck: Mail on Sunday's 'astonishing evidence' about global temperature rise, carbonbrief.org, February 2, 2017.
  16. "Analysis of "Stunning new data indicates El Nino drove record highs in global temperatures…" Published in Daily Mail, by David Rose - 26 Nov. 2016". Climate Feedback. November 2016.
  17. Monbiot, George (8 December 2010). "David Rose's climate science writing shows he has not learned from previous mistakes". The Guardian. You can divide people into two categories: those who learn from their mistakes and those who don't. ... [Rose] has distinguished himself by the same uncritical reliance on dodgy sources that caused his catastrophic mistakes about Iraq.
  18. "Met Office in the Media". Met Office. 29 January 2012.
  19. "Met Office in the Media". Met Office. 14 October 2012.
  20. "Met Office in the Mail on Sunday". Met Office. 15 September 2013.
  21. "Met Office in the Media: Response by Professor Mat Collins and the Met Office". Met Office. 16 February 2014.
  22. Harvey, Fiona (17 September 2017). "Press regulator censures Mail on Sunday for global warming claims". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 September 2017.
  23. "Beneath the Mountains - Contents". Oxford University Cave Club. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
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