News has the power to make and break elections. Turn everyday people into overnight superstars. And bring them crashing back down to earth.We base our opinions, decisions and arguments on it. It shapes the world around us – and the way we make sense of it.But can it ever be truly objective? And is the news you consume the same as everyone else’s?
Challenge and change the way you think about news
This exhibition prompts big questions about the news we consume:
- How do your opinions and beliefs influence the news you choose?
- When does news become propaganda?
- Why do we devour crime stories and sensationalism?
- Who decides which stories to suppress and which to spotlight?
From the Great Fire of London to #BlackLivesMatter
Explore five centuries of UK news through broadsheets, blogs and objects from our own collection and re-examine era-defining stories close-up.
From reporting on Jack the Ripper to the Profumo Affair. Covert newspapers operating under Nazi suppression. Or political power struggles faced by Margaret Thatcher. And coverage of the Grenfell Tower fire to the war in Syria. Plus chart the rise of social media with fallouts from the celebrity clashes of #WagathaChristie to public outrage in light of the boy on the hospital floor.
Doomscroll. Debate. Disagree.
The news is where conflicting ideas and ideologies are held up and fought over. But it can also kick-start movements. Entertain and uplift us. And change the world for the better.
We argue about it, but we’d be lost without it.
So what really lies behind the headlines?
