Campaigning journalist Claud Cockburn – defiantly anti-establishment and proudly Communist – had as his watchword ‘believe nothing until it is officially denied’, a saying borrowed by his son Patrick, himself a legendary foreign correspondent, for his biography of his maverick father. Described by schoolfriend Graham Greene as the greatest journalist of the twentieth century, Cockburn was born at the heart of the establishment it became his life’s work to satirise, lampoon and undermine, with reports from Berlin during the rise of Fascism and Spain during the Civil War, as well as New York, Washington and Chicago, where he once conducted an interview with Al Capone. Patrick Cockburn spoke at the shop about Believe Nothing Until It Is Officially Denied (Verso), and its lessons for journalism then, now and in the future, with journalist Duncan Campbell. Find more events at the Bookshop: https://lrb.me/eventspod Listen to Neal Ascherson discuss Claud Cockburn: https://lrb.me/aschersonpod Get the book: https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/believe-nothing-until-it-is-officially-denied-claud-cockburn-and-the-invention-of-guerrilla-journalism-patrick-cockburn

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.