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
''The Mail on Sunday'' is a British conservative newspaper, published in a tabloid format. It is the biggest-selling Sunday newspaper in the UK and was launched in 1982 by Lord Rothermere. Its sister paper, the ''Daily Mail'', was first pub ...
''. 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
The Press Awards, formerly the British Press Awards, is an annual ceremony that celebrates the best of United Kingdom, British journalism.
History
Established in 1962 by ''The Sunday People, The People'' and ''Campaign (magazine), World's Press ...
for 2015.
Rose's 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
The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) is the regulator of the newspaper and magazine industry in the UK. It was established on 8 September 2014 after the windup of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), which had been the main ind ...
(IPSO). Rose admitted to the dissemination of incorrect information from unreliable sources in the run up to the
Iraq war
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror
, image ...
.
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
The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied (sometimes with significant variati ...
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 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 Gu ...
'', ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'' 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
''The Mail on Sunday'' is a British conservative newspaper, published in a tabloid format. It is the biggest-selling Sunday newspaper in the UK and was launched in 1982 by Lord Rothermere. Its sister paper, the ''Daily Mail'', was first pub ...
''. He is a winner of the
Royal Institute of International Affairs
Royal may refer to:
People
* Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name
* A member of a royal family
Places United States
* Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community
* Royal, Illinois, a village
* Royal, Iowa, a ci ...
David Watt Memorial Prize. In 2013, a poll of investigative reporters organised by the UK ''
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 ...
'' named him among the top ten practitioners of his trade.
After the trial of the three men convicted of murdering Police Constable
Keith Blakelock in the
Broadwater Farm riot
The Broadwater Farm riot occurred on the Broadwater council estate in Tottenham, North London, on 6 October 1985.
The events of the day were dominated by two deaths. The first was that of Cynthia Jarrett, an Afro-Caribbean woman who died the p ...
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). 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).
His longest-running campaign is that on behalf of Georgia death row prisoner
Carlton Gary
Carlton Michael Gary (September 24, 1950 – March 15, 2018) was an American serial killer who murdered three elderly women in Columbus, Georgia, and one in Syracuse, New York, between 1975 and 1978, though he is suspected of at least four more ...
, 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.
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.
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).
On 17 November 2019, Rose wrote an article about Maria Carroll, then a Labour Party 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, the article was retracted. The newspaper paid damages to Carroll and on 10 January 2021 issued a correction apologising to her.
The Daily Mail apologizes to Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for incorrect reporting by David Ros
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. Rose has also been criticised repeatedly by the United Kingdom's national weather service, the
Met Office.
''The Mail on Sunday'' was criticised by
Independent Press Standards Organisation
The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) is the regulator of the newspaper and magazine industry in the UK. It was established on 8 September 2014 after the windup of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), which had been the main ind ...
(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
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...
(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.
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''.
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
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rose, David
1959 births
Living people
British male journalists
British writers
Daily Mail journalists