I read the first 50 pages last night and there are a few problems. The author's premise is that the news is manipulated to serve the purposes of a given news organization. The tenor of that purpose is what's referred to in the business as the Narrative. Her intention is to show, through anecdotes of her own experience, how news is thus manipulated. She is an award-winning journalist whose work is held in high esteem, but right at the outset she has roused my suspicion.
One of her first observations is that there is often implicit bias in the way stories are assigned to reporters. The reporter is often asked to justify a presumed premise. She cites an assignment she was given in which she was asked to document the hardships faced by parents who are trying to raise a family while working jobs that pay the minimum wage. After a diligent search, she could find no families that were operating on minimum wages. As a last resort, she visited a McDonald’s where she figured she would be able to find people working for the minimum wage, but she found that every three months workers were given a raise of .25 an hour, so virtually no one was being paid the minimum wage. She notes the fact that in many places the local minimum wage is higher than the federal mandate. And here, only five pages in, she betrays my trust. As an example of the difference between the local and federal minimum wage she cites the fact that “(In 2020, for example, the Washington D.C. minimum wage was $15.00, more than double the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.)” The problem with that little factoid is that she worked on this story in the late 1990’s, at which time the federal minimum wage was $5.15 and the DC wage was $6.15 an hour. Her conclusion was that what was interesting about the story was that it was “difficult to find anyone raising children on minimum wage”. It may have been equally interesting to find out whether people were struggling despite making more than the minimum wage; to find out what kind of wage it actually takes to rise out of poverty.
There is a certain arrogance in not acknowledging her own bias in this regard, and I suspect that that arrogance may have contributed in part to the dissension between her and here producers.
A little further on she defends Trump against accusations of racism and misogyny by saying that he is equally offensive to members of his own race and gender. What an embarrassing argument.
It’s not a long book and a breezy read, so I’ll continue with it for the sake of the inside story of the news business and the promised attestations of other journalists, I have no doubt that the news is influenced by monied interests. It’s not useful though to make specious claims and faulty arguments that arise from a surprisingly facile intellect motivated in no small part by retribution for what she perceives as her victimization. She is outraged that editors get to decide what will or will not be reported. That is, in fact, the definition of an editor. It would be more useful if she focused her outrage on the corrupt influences.
Somehow she thinks that the corruption she has encountered in the news business justifies Trump’s claims that the mainstream media is all “fake news”. There is an important distinction between quashing a story for political reasons and claiming that the press lied about you having had the largest inauguration crowd in history. How can I trust her if she can’t or won’t see that difference? ( )

There is an important discussion to be had about journalistic ethics in this hyper-partisan age, but I don't think this book is it. The book is well-written, as you'd expect from a former national reporter. But the content is problematic. It reads like a long bitter rambling rant from a propagandist at a conservative TV or radio network: conspiracy theories, extended airings of grievances, revenge screeds against those who the author feels have done her wrong, victimization claims, head-scratching analysis. I found lots of individual bits that I agreed with, but the idea that journalists shouldn't push back against deliberate misinformation from politicians, that they should, in order to be "fair", treat conspiracy theories with the same weight as serious policy debates, is quite dangerous. I don't know what the right answer is, but when one side is dealing more-or-less in reality and the other in operating in a universe of "alternate facts", journalists can't just treat the resulting discussion as if both perspectives were equally reasonable. The old adage that "facts have a liberal bias" generally bears out, and I don't think "Slanted" really comes to grips with that. This book was not a pleasant read, but it does provide lots of challenging opinions to think about, which does provide some value. ( )

Never have I worked harder to keep myself informed as to what is happening in this country and around the world. And never in my adult life have I been so misinformed about what is happening in this country and the rest of the world. I know whose fault that is - and it is not mine.

Sharyl Attkisson’s Slanted: How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism does an admirable job of explaining the problem. What she has to say in Slanted will horrify any reader who is concerned about the future of this country, but the scariest thing about the current state of journalism in this country and the rest of the world is that it has been so bad for so long that a whole generation of young adults now considers it all to be normal. But, of course, the first thing that readers need to know about the book is exactly who its author is. Is Sharyl Attkisson an honest broker of the book’s message or does she have an axe of her own to grind?

So, let’s begin with Attkisson’s background. She is a veteran news reporter who has won five Emmy Awards and an Edward R. Murrow Award for her investigative reporting at networks like CNN, CBS, and PBS. She is an old-school journalist who believes in following the truth no matter where it leads her or whom it embarrasses. She most definitely does not believe, and never has, in mixing her personal opinions into the news she reports. And that’s why she walked away from a successful career at CBS News when she discovered that her producers were more interested in pushing an approved “narrative” than they were in telling the truth. Gradually, over a number of months, she came to the realization that her stories were being censored out of existence because of pressure from politicians and corporate sponsors. She had the courage - and the support of her family - to walk away from a job she found as humiliating as it was frustrating. Now, she has a nonpartisan Sunday-morning news show on the Sinclair network called Full Measure with Sharyl Attikisson and produces some of the most informative podcasts anywhere. In other words, her bonafides are the real deal.

As Attkisson sees it, journalists “have blended opinion and reporting. We’ve self-censored people and topics. We’ve stepped in to try to shape public opinion rather than report the facts. It is only with this recognition of the fact that we have a problem that well-intended, serious journalists can begin to solve it.” The problem is that the vast majority of the news media have an agreed upon narrative to sell to the public and they get away with lying or distorting the truth all too easily. So why should they reform themselves when their propaganda is so successful? And they have been so successful that Attkisson says, “The information landscape becomes ever narrower, squashing diversity of thought and facts. Pretty soon, we won’t know what we don’t know. And that will be that.”

And it gets worse because pollsters have now transformed a once-enlightening tool into just another propaganda technique to sell the “The Narrative.” According to the author, “Just as The Narrative calls upon the news to codify certain story lines, political polls are now widely used for the same purpose. Polls have morphed from providing a snapshot of pubic opinion at a moment in time into being an indispensable tool used to shape voter opinion.” They simply cannot, and should not be trusted, any longer.

I’m going to end this with a long quote from Chapter 10 of Slanted because I believe that it perfectly captures the dangerous world we are living in today, a world in which we can no longer trust the news that we hear all day long, every day of the year - those same two or three stories that are pushed at us over and over again so steadily that we cannot avoid them even if we want to. Even if they are largely little more than outright lies, distortions, and omissions:
“The trend of mainstream media outlets actings as police and enforcers over other media is a shocking change in our news landscape. Reporters are now less concerned with facts and more with demanding adherence to The Narrative. They determine the position that is to be taken on issues or the facts that can be written about. They use their platform to insist that theirs is the only right and correct view. They convince their colleagues that the job of a reporter is not to be neutral or fair but to take the ‘correct’ position. They define the parameters of the language deemed acceptable or unacceptable for the media to use when covering an issue. They punish, cajole, and threaten those who do not comply. In other words, instead of covering the news, they attack those who are off narrative and cover that as if it is big news. Their goal is to stop the freethinking, independent interlopers. To make it where nobody dares to go off script or disclose the facts or ask questions that the media bullies want to keep hidden.”

Thank God, they could not “stop” Sheryl Attkisson.

On a more hopeful note, Attkisson closes Slanted with a list of reporters and organizations that also refuse to be stopped. The list includes reporters from NBC, CBS, ABC, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Sinclair, and ESPN. Among them are people like Howie Kurtz, James Rosen, Pete Williams, David Martin, Peter Schweizer, Lara Logan, Greg Jarrett, and John Solomon. Listed organizations include: The Epoch Times, RealClearPolitics, Just the News, The Hill, Wikileaks, the Wall Street Journal, and business news channels like CNBC, Fox Business, and Bloomberg. Conspicuous by their absence are the New York Times, CNN, PBS, and the Washington Post.

If you’ve had the patience to read to this point, this book is for you. You are someone willing to make the required commitment to thinking for yourself. You are not one of the millions who have simply tuned out because the static is just too much to deal with. Sharyl Attkisson is a name you need to remember, a journalist who will help you find the truth. You need to read this book. ( )

You can relate to fake news and Trump’s issues with the media better if you understand the concept of The Narrative. That is the most important revelation in Sharyl Atkisson’s latest book, Slanted. Unfortunately, the rest of the book consists of apologies and misdirection for Trump’s acts, actions, and behavior while she attacks the news media herself.

Atkisson is a former CBS News star. She has decades of experience, all the best connections in the business, and the smarts to earn her solid reputation. She is also a staunch Conservative in what she sees as a sea of liberals and left wingers, which raises her hackles and fears for her field. The results get crazier as the book goes on.

The main, true and important point she makes is that the news is a shadow of its former self. It has become sloppy. Fact-checking is becoming a lost art. Journalists have long abandoned the rules of the game, like having solid proof and unimpeachable confirmation of claims they report. Instead, she says, journalists have made themselves the story. They make the claims themselves, and insist you trust them rather than the original sources. “Reporters routinely declare information to be fact as if they had personally confirmed it, when they could not possibly have done so,” she says at various points and in various ways. Journalists no longer present the story and let the viewer/reader decide. They feel they must hammer it home as their own firsthand experience and analysis. Until recently, that would have been called editorializing and left to editorialists. Today, it is considered reporting the news, and everyone is encouraged to do it.

To no one’s shock or surprise, they get it wrong a lot. They apologize a lot (later, when the story is well past its prime, ie. forgotten). Or, they stand their ground despite all findings to the contrary. The result is falsehoods making their way into viewers’ minds, and staying there even when they are demonstrably false. It is shameful, an ugly development in what used to be a reliable and important service, and in Atkisson’s mind, a terrible disservice to the innocent victim, Donald Trump.

The Narrative she speaks of is the preset attitude that journalists have on various topics. Russia manipulating Trump. Trump as racist. Trump as selfish, self-centered, greedy, in it purely for himself, narcissistic, uninformed, operating alone, dismantling national institutions he swore to uphold, etc. etc. etc. Any reporter who brings a story that doesn’t follow this line of thinking, will find their story rejected everywhere they try to place it. That is the chokehold The Narrative holds over the news and therefore the populace at large.

Fairness has no place at, say The New York Times, which gets a lot of scolding from Atkisson in its own chapter of shame. Arrogant reporters refuse to retract false accusations, editors demand even more severe and direct criticism of Trump, and lots of negative adjectives in otherwise anodyne paragraphs tilt the story against the common good, common decency or the Trump administration.

She gives the example of the #metoo era, in which men’s careers are destroyed by sexual assault charges. It doesn’t matter that the charges might be fraudulent. It doesn’t matter that there might be no evidence whatsoever, or that timeframes prove they are false, or that they are later withdrawn. Or that the accuser is simply seeking the spotlight. The damage is done: automatically guilty as charged. As one top CBS news executive realized, there was no point defending himself; it would only make things worse and drag it out for years. Better to just take retirement and get on with life. The media does not investigate the accusations; it feeds on them. The media have become the problem instead of the solution in a system where innocent until proven guilty is the supposed rule.

All of these media charges are true, and Atkisson assembles them in a way that makes clear just how far journalism has fallen. With them in mind, readers can see plainly for themselves how badly they are served on a daily basis, and not just from the obvious and self-declared biases of an MSNBC or a Fox News. It includes everything else too, from The Wall Street Journal, to The New York Times, to Time Magazine and all the online services, blogs and podcasts. It is inescapable. Finding the real news is a challenge and most are not up to it.

She devotes an entire chapter to the fall into disrepute of CNN, which she quotes insiders as calling unrecognizable any more. No one researches the news; they just talk about its implications for various interests, live, off the cuff and without any backup evidence. It has become an embarrassment of talking heads, providing little or no usable information, 24 hours a day.

Atkisson shows the power of journalists to frame anything or anyone however they choose, altering public perception. She lists some fake obituaries from #wapodeathnotices to prove it, easily. For example: “Adolf Hitler, passionate community planner and dynamic public speaker, dies at 56.” All true, and all totally removed from the reality and the importance of the event and the man. But framed the way the reporter wanted it, it stands as its own truth.

But does that make the news industry “the enemy of the people?”

It does make working for these outlets soul-selling. Editors instruct reporters to produce stories that will specifically make the administration look bad. Anything that could be deemed criticism of an investor or advertiser could get the journalist in hot water. Rogue middle managers can hold up production, order changes that make no sense, and induce “death by a thousand cuts” until the story is outdated, useless, or incomprehensible any more. She cites one of her own stories where editors made her take out certain key facts, only to be told months later that she should consider adding those facts if she ever wanted it aired.

Honestly, I think most Americans see themselves in that same situation every day of their working lives, with irrational managers, irrational demands, oppressive working conditions, and the total destruction of self-respect, pride in work, or sense of accomplishment. CBS might be hell, but it is far from an isolated case. Rather than being shocked, readers will simply relate directly to Atkisson’s frustrations.

Back in the book, things start to deteriorate as Atkisson reveals her own Conservative bona fides.

She writes a lot about Trump’s lying, and how the news likes to tack on the words “with no evidence” to claims he makes. Even if the reporters have no evidence to the contrary. Eventually, she begins to put quotation marks around the word “lies”. She questions why Biden is accused merely of making gaffes, but when it comes to Trump, they are lies. (The answer of course, is that if Biden makes a gaffe, he does not take action based on it. Nothing happens. When Trump lies, people die.) She says “Even if two, five or ten of these stories about Trump were true, how could they all be true?” A very odd defense of a huge issue In America today.

She defends Trump as just using his own, very successful Narratives. Simply calling Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas all the time worked wonders, according to Atkisson. Or The Failing New York Times to try to damage its credibility. She says he calls Congressman Adam Schiff Pencil Neck, which I confess I have never seen or heard before and which means nothing to me. But I have seen Trump write Little Adam Schitt, which is disgusting enough to make me question Trump’s qualifications to be president of the USA. It is not helped by his use of the Narratives of Deep State and QAnon. Or “very good people – on both sides.” Or shithole countries. Or suckers and losers. But Atkisson doesn’t examine any of those Narratives.

She is even more selective with numbers. She writes about Trump having 72 million Twitter followers in his own name, plus an additional 28 million for the White House account giving him “a neat hundred million” followers. I can’t imagine a journalist with 40 years’ experience making that claim. The duplication factor is almost certainly close to 100%. Everyone who follows the White House also follows Trump, probably because they have to, or miss out on something. She has absolutely no information that the two lists are mutually exclusive, but she makes that claim anyway, doing precisely what she criticizes – making herself the expert regardless of the facts she has no knowledge of.

The same goes for her sources. One of the most galling things reporters do is not name sources. Anonymous sources are suspect. But Atkisson hides almost all her sources as “a former insider” or “a top TV news executive,” once again doing precisely what she rails against for everyone else. This kind of hypocrisy, ironically, is why few trust the news media.

Towards the end, Atkisson gets so granular it becomes silly. She heavily criticizes Comedy Central’s The Daily Show for going after Trump so intensely. She dissects a particular episode until it becomes almost unrecognizable. But The Daily Show is not and never has been journalism. It is an entertainment vehicle. A comedy. A satire. Its whole job is to bite at the ankles of the bloviated state. She questions why it doesn’t go after others. The answer is because they aren’t the president. That’s all. I would have thought it was obvious.

She then puts headlines under a microscope, getting way off track in a Conservative rant on the news. Her rewriting of the news simply lowers her to the level of the scribes she criticizes as out of scope for their mission.

She concludes her book with her personal collection 131 times the media were wrong (“Major Mistakes”) about something, mostly Trump, during this term of office. Some are famous incidents readers will recognize, but most are errors like this:
28. September 7, 2017: The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman reports that Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called President Trump about an immigration issue. Actually, Trump made the call to Pelosi.

I have reviewed several Conservative books, because I am ever hopeful of appreciating a new argument. (I did not know this would be one of them when I began reading it.) They all seem to suffer the same bizarre malaise. They begin strongly, with a central claim that is valid, makes total sense, and changes the way readers will think going forward. That is most welcome, powerful and valuable: an alternative viewpoint that is dramatically true and overlooked. But then they all get bogged down in half-truths, hypocrisy, selective facts and head-scratching tangents, shooting down everything they had accomplished off the top.

It’s too bad.

David Wineberg ( )