Carole Cadwalladr

Topics: Big tech – Democracy – Misinformation – Politics

Carole Cadwalladr is a renowned Pulitzer-nominated journalist. She formerly worked at the Guardian and was a feature writer for the Observer. Carole has been nominated for numerous Press Awards.

Cadwalladr was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for National Reporting in 2019, receiving praise upon her investigation and coverage into Cambridge Analytica and its role in Brexit. Cadwalladr’s sheer dedication in exposing a nexus of corruption that resulted in Mark Zuckerberg being called before Congress, and exposing Cambridge Analytica’s role in mass-harvesting data to influence elections (Brexit and Trump), goes far beyond the question of Remain or Leave. Her investigation also interrogates the role we have been puppeteered to play in a 2017 Britain that took its first step into an undemocratic world.

In April 2019, Cadwalladr gave a TED talk, “Facebook’s role in Brexit – and the threats to democracy”, regarding the links found between Facebook and the Brexit election. This talk led to worldwide acclaim but it also sparked a three year long lawsuit which was won by Carole in June 2022. This case was one of several brought against her and other leading journalists by powerful individuals and firms to tie up the press in expensive and time consuming legal defences (these are called SLAPP suits).

Cadwalladr has won other awards, including the British Journalism Awards: Technology Journalism Award in December 2017 and The Orwell Prize for political journalism in 2018. She is the author of ‘The Family Tree’, published in 2006 and was shortlisted for the 2006 Commonwealth Writers Prize.

Carole’s best bits:

Carole Cadwalladr at TED – This is a digital coup

Carole Cadwalladr on the Daily Show with John Stewart

Carole Cadwalladr at TED – Facebook’s role in Brexit – and the threat to democracy