The Messenger tells the story of an unlikely friendship between two men
looking to change the world - a repentant jihadist and an idealistic
journalist. This troubling real-life thriller takes us from their first
meeting in a spartan flat in the rough suburbs of Manchester, to a bombing
in Pakistan, a dramatic arrest and Malik's reporting career on the brink of
ruin. Ten years later, Malik returns to this extraordinary tale. He asks
where we can place our trust - in reams of evidence, in a government we
believe is on our side, in a terrorist who swears he's changed, in a friend
who has no one else to turn to. Malik explores the uncomfortable questions
about why he, as well as the wider media and the nation, surrendered to
fear so easily. And he reveals how the age of terror laid the groundwork
for an era of fake news and demagogues. This is investigative journalism
and storytelling of the highest order.