Slanted How the news media taught us to love censorship and hate journalism

Sharyl Attkisson, 1961-

Book - 2020

"The five-time Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter and New York Times bestselling author of Stonewalled and The Smear uncovers how partisan bias and gullibility are destroying American journalism"--

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Subjects
Published
New York, NY : Harper [2020]
Language
English
Main Author
Sharyl Attkisson, 1961- (author)
Edition
First edition
Item Description
Includes index.
Physical Description
303 pages ; 23 cm
ISBN
9780062974693
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1. CBS Tales: "Death by a Thousand Cuts"
  • Chapter 2. The Narrative by Proxy
  • Chapter 3. Weaponizing The Narrative: The #MeToo Poison Pen
  • Chapter 4. When Narratives Collide
  • Chapter 5. The New York Times: All the Narratives Fit to Print
  • Chapter 6. The Verbiage of The Narrative: Lies, Evidence, and Bombshells
  • Chapter 7. The Mother of All Narratives: Russia, Russia, Russia.
  • Chapter 8. CNN: The Cable Narrative Network
  • Chapter 9. Pundits and Polls: Hard to Believe
  • Chapter 10. Media vs. Media
  • Chapter 11. Media Mistakes
  • Chapter 12. There's Hope
  • Conclusion
  • Appendix: Major Media Mistakes in the Era of Trump
  • Index
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Sinclair Broadcast Group journalist Attkisson continues her attack on media bias (after The Smear) in this unpersuasive polemic. Contending that news outlets "filter information on the front end to ensure that only the 'correct' view is presented in the first place," Attkisson details her battles in the 1990s and early 2000s against CBS News producers who killed her stories because, as she sees it, they didn't fit a "preconceived narrative'' about "the push to insert religion into public schools" or presidential candidate John Kerry's Vietnam War record. Attkisson's examples of "anti-Trump bias" in the media include an April 2020 Politico report alleging that the president owed the Bank of China tens of millions of dollars (the loan had been sold to a U.S. real estate firm in 2012) and claims that Trump flip-flopped on the length of the border wall (" had never wavered" on saying the wall wasn't needed where natural barriers already existed, Attkisson writes). In other instances, Attkisson castigates news outlets for views expressed on their opinion pages, and claims, without much evidence, that there is "a well-funded, well-organized effort" to smear her and other "media figures" as "coronavirus doubters." This one-sided critique doesn't land its punches. (Nov.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

An Edward R. Murrow and five-time Emmy award recipient, the New York Times best-selling Attkisson (Stonewalled) looks at today's meager and manipulated media to discover what went wrong. Before fake news, she say, there was a push to call in the pundits and to create narrative news. But whose narratives? With a 100,000-copy first printing.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A veteran journalist decries a lack of responsible reporting. Investigative journalist Attkisson, winner of five Emmy Awards, mounts a hard-hitting, if hardly novel, critique of the media, which she sees as manipulated and manipulative. Right now, "versions of history and current events are being written and revised in real time according to what powerful interests wish them to say." Facts that support "The Narrative" are deemed newsworthy while other facts are buried. Instead of doing research and presenting opposing views, writes the author, "a new breed of reporter" aims "to convince you to believe whatever they personally believe." Attkisson reports her own frustrating experiences at CBS, where her stories were repeatedly quashed and her reporting attacked; although executives wanted her to stay, she left before her contract expired in 2014. Areas where the author identifies egregious bias include the #MeToo movement, the Russia investigation, and biased pollsters; regarding the last, if results "are off trend," the media discount them. Trump, however, has become "the vehicle that the media at large has used to unleash its furor and redefine journalism in a way it was never defined before," and Attkisson finds much evidence for ways in which news outlets misquote or misconstrue Trump's statements. Rarely, though, does she take Trump to task for his many proven lies. The author appends a long list of "major mistakes" about Trump propagated by news sources. These include "photos of immigrant children in cages as if they were new photos taken during the Trump administration" when they were "from 2014 during the Obama administration." The media condemned Trump for saying, "It's not our problem," when referring to Turkey's assault on Syria, when he said, "It's not our border." Attkisson reveals that in 1999, "Gallup found trust in mass media at 55 percent. It had plummeted to 40 percent in 2014." To counter an even greater dip, the author includes a list of outlets and reporters that she considers trustworthy. A damning and depressing indictment sure to incite controversy. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.