To Be Fair

Ben Fenton is a former Fleet Street reporter who was occasionally given the key to the adjective cupboard - i.e. I was allowed to write longer and more entertaining pieces.In all, he has written about 8,000 stories in 30 years working for the Oxford Mail, The Daily Telegraph and the Financial Times. He covered wars, disasters, triumphs, riots, 9/11, the Olympic Games (3 times), the World Cup (twice) and then began to specialise in covering the media. He went from being the Washington Correspondent and the Senior Reporter on The Daily Telegraph to Chief Media Correspondent at the FT, covering stories like phone-hacking.

What does it mean to be fair? Why do we feel unfairness so strongly? What has happened to us today that we spend more time condemning each other's views than giving each other a fair hearing?The idea of fairness is one of the most commonly-expressed concepts, yet nobody ever stops to think what it really means. We all simply take the word 'fair' for granted.In this polemical guide to fairness, Ben Fenton explains the meaning of the word, how it fits into our genetic make-up and why we need our innate sense of fair play now more than ever.Fenton explores the idea that the unconscious procedure that humans go through in deciding fairness is the vital balancing act between competition and cooperation, the two driving forces that have made us the super-species of Planet Earth. He describes the neurology, anthropology, psychology, history and future of fairness and looks at how it affects our lives through politics, law, sex, religion, race, sport, business and even war.As a reporter of thirty years' experience, Fenton brings all his skills to bear in a lively and challenging description of the profound inner meaning of a throwaway phrase and why it matters so much to every single person in the world to seek To Be Fair.