Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator (4 page)

I knew I had to find this century-old drawing, though I wasn’t sure why. As I rode the escalator through the glass canyon of the atrium and into the bowels of the central branch of the Los Angeles Public Library to search for it, it struck me that I wasn’t just looking for some rare old newspaper. I was looking for myself. I knew who that fool was. He was me.

In addiction circles, those in recovery also use the image of the monster as a warning. They tell the story of a man who found a package on his porch. Inside was a little monster, but it was cute, like a puppy. He kept it and raised it. The more he fed it, the bigger it got and the more it needed to be fed. He ignored his worries as it grew bigger, more intimidating, demanding, and unpredictable, until one day, as he was playing with it, the monster attacked and nearly killed him. The realization that the situation was more than he could handle came too late—the man was no longer in control. The monster had a life of its own.

The story of the monster is a lot like my story. Except my story is not about drugs or the yellow press but of a bigger and much more modern monster—my monster is the brave new world of new media—one that I often fed and thought I controlled. I lived high and well in that world, and I believed in it until it no longer looked the same to me. Many things went down. I’m not sure where my responsibility for them begins or ends, but I am ready to talk about what happened.

I created false perceptions through blogs, which led to bad conclusions and wrong decisions—real decisions in the real world that had consequences for real people. Phrases like “known rapist” began to follow what were once playfully encouraged rumors of bad or shocking behavior designed to get blog publicity for clients. Friends were ruined and broken. Gradually I began to notice work just like mine appearing everywhere, and no one catching on to it or repairing the damage. Stocks took major hits, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, on news from the same unreliable sources I’d often trick with fake stories.

In 2008, a
Gawker
blogger published e-mails stolen from my inbox by someone else trying to intimidate a client through the media. It was a humiliating and awful experience. But with some distance I now understand that
Gawker
had little choice about the role they played in the matter. I know that I was as much a part of the problem as they were.

I remember one day mentioning some scandal during a dinner conversation, one that I knew was probably fake, probably a scam. I did it because it was too interesting
not
to pass along. I was lost in the same unreality I’d forced on other people. I found that not only did I not know what was real anymore, but that I no longer cared. To borrow from Budd Schulberg’s description of a media manipulator in his classic novel
The Harder They Fall,
I was “indulging myself in the illusions that we can deal in filth without becoming the thing we touch.” I no longer have those illusions.

Winston Churchill wrote of the appeasers of his age that “each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.” I was even more delusional. I thought I could skip being devoured entirely. It would never turn on me. I was in control. I was the expert. But I was wrong.

WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK

Sitting next to my desk right now is a large box filled with hundreds of articles I have printed over the last several years. The articles show all the trademarks of the fakes and scams I myself have run, yet they involve many of biggest news and entertainment stories of the decade. The margins are filled with angry little notes and question marks. The satirist Juvenal wrote of “cramming whole notebooks with scribbled invective” amid the corrupt opulence of Rome; that box and this book are my notebooks from my own days inside such a world. Collectively, it was this process that opened my eyes. I hope it will have the same effect for you.

Lately I have slowed my contributions to the pile of evidence, not because the quality of the content has improved, but because hope for anything different would be silly. I’m not so foolish as to expect bloggers to know what they are talking about. I no longer expect to be informed—not when manipulation is so easy for bloggers and marketers to profit from. I can’t shake the constant suspicion that others are baiting, tricking, or cheating me, just as I did to them. It’s hard to browse the Internet when you are haunted by the words of A. J. Daulerio, the editor of the popular sports blog
Deadspin
: “It’s all professional wrestling.”
¹

Some of you, by the time you are done with this book, will probably hate me for ruining it for you too. Or call me a liar. Or accuse me of exaggerating. You may not want me to expose the people behind your favorite websites as the imbeciles, charlatans, and pompous frauds they are. But it is a world of many hustlers, and you are the mark. The con is to build a brand off the backs of others. Your attention and your credulity are what’s stolen.

This book isn’t structured like typical business books. Instead of extended chapters, it is split into two parts, and each part is made up of short, overlapping, and reinforcing vignettes. In the first part I explain why blogs matter, how they drive the news, and how they can be manipulated. In the second I show what happens when you do this, how it backfires, and the dangerous consequences of our current system.

What follows are the methods used to manipulate bloggers and reporters at the highest levels, broken down into nine simple tactics.

Every one of these tactics reveals a critical vulnerability in our media system. I will show you where they are and what can be done with them, and help you recognize when they’re being used on you. Sure, I am explaining how to take advantage of these weaknesses, but mostly I am saying that
these vulnerabilities exist
. It is the first time that these gaps have ever been exposed, by a critic or otherwise. Hopefully, once in the open they’ll no longer work as well. I understand that there is some contradiction in this position, as there has long been in me. My dis-integration wasn’t always healthy, but it does allow me to explain our problems from a unique perspective.

This book is my experience behind the scenes in the worlds of blogging, PR, and online machinations—and what those experiences say about the dominant cultural medium. I’m speaking personally and honestly about what I know, and I know this space better than just about anyone.

I didn’t intend to, but I’ve helped pioneer a media system designed to trick, cajole, and steal every second of the most precious resource in the world—people’s time. I’m going to show you every single one of these tricks, and what they mean.

What you choose to do with this information is up to you.

*
By “real” I mean that people believe it and act on it. I am saying that the infrastructure of the Internet can be used against itself to turn a manufactured piece of nonsense into widespread outrage and then action. It happens every day. Every single day.

BOOK ONE

FEEDING THE MONSTER

HOW BLOGS WORK

I