Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator (47 page)

5
. Josh Duboff, “Paterson Reportedly to Resign Monday Following Times Story,” last modified February 7, 2010,
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/02/paterson_reportedly_to_resign.html
.

XIX: THE MYTH OF CORRECTIONS

1
. Howard Kurtz, “Clinton Aide Settles Libel Suit Against Matt Drudge—at a Cost,”
Washington Post
, May 2, 2001,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30046-2001May1
.

2
. Shirley Brady, “American Apparel Taps Drew Carey for Image Turnaround,” last modified September 6, 2010,
http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2010/09/06/American-Apparel-Drew-Carey.aspx
.

3
. Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler, “When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions.”
Political Behavior
32: 303–30.

4
. Jeffrey A. Gibbons, Angela F. Lukowski, and W. Richard Walker, “Exposure Increases the Believability of Unbelievable News Headlines via Elaborate Cognitive Processing.”
Media Psychology
7 (2005): 273–300.

XX: CHEERING ON OUR OWN DECEPTION

1
. Staci Kramer, July 7, 2010,
https://twitter.com/#!/sdkstl/statuses/17994359302
.

XXI: THE DARK SIDE OF SNARK: WHEN INTERNET HUMOR ATTACKS

1
. Philip Petrov, “Why Are College Students—and Bwog—So Clever?” last modified March 8, 2009,
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2009/03/08/why-are-college-students-and-bwog-so-clever
.

XXII: THE 21
ST
-CENTURY DEGRADATION CEREMONY: BLOGS AS MACHINES OF HATRED AND PUNISHMENT

1
. Dov Charney, “Statement from Dov Charney, Founder and CEO of American Apparel,”
The Guardian
, May 18, 2009,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/may/18/american-apparel-woody-allen
.

XXIII: WELCOME TO UNREALITY

1
. Henry Blodget, “DEAR PR FOLKS: Please Stop Sending Us ‘Experts’ and ‘Story Ideas’—Here’s What to Send Us Instead,” last modified April 15, 2011,
http://www.businessinsider.com/pr-advice-2011-4
.

2
. “Conservative Media Silent on Prior Publication of Leaks Favorable to White House,” last modified June 30, 2006,
http://mediamatters.org/research/200607010007
.

CONCLUSION: SO…WHERE TO FROM HERE?

1
. John Hudson, “Nick Denton: What I Read,” last modified February 6, 2011,
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2011/02/nick-denton-what-i-read/17870
.

2
. Tyler Cowen, “What’s the new incentive of The New York Times?” last modified March 18, 2011,
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/03/whats-the-new-incentive-of-the-new-york-times.html
.

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.

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———.
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Carmon, Irin. “What Went Wrong with Sarah Palin?”
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———.
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.

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———.
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FURTHER READING

I firmly believe that I still have much learn about this subject, and I have not slowed down my research since turning in the manuscript for this book. To continue this journey along with me, and to get monthly recommendations of books (on this topic and all others) sign up for my reading list e-mail. It currently has nearly five thousand subscribers, and it’s a great and lively place to discuss books. I would love to hear your recommendations on it as well. Sign up at:
ryanholiday.net/reading-newsletter

For a list of books that changed my life, check out the Ryan Holiday reading list:
ryanholiday.net/reading-list

Some recommendations for books that greatly influenced what you just read are the following:

The Image a Guide to Pseudo-Events in America
by Daniel Boorstin

If there was one book I wish I could force into more people’s hands, it would be
The Image
by Daniel Boorstin. In 1960, before talk radio, before Fox News or blogs, he wrote a scathing indictment of the deliberately false reality molded around us by our media culture. Boorstin’s book will shake you to your core. It made me want to write this book.

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
and
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
by Neil Postman

These are the spiritual sequels to
The Image
. Postman wants us to realize that there is something inherently inferior about the information we consume through visual media. As far TV producers are concerned, the worst thing that it could possibly do is inspire or provoke you, two horrible emotions that risk having you get up and leave your living room and miss the imminently scheduled set of commercials. You realize that the last thing we have to fear is a malicious Orwellian political censorship, because what we have already is so much worse: culture incentivized to be as shallow, fabricated, and captivating as possible—at the expense of what is actually real or true or meaningful.
Technopoly
is equally compelling; it tells us why the inventors of a technology are the absolutely worst people to listen to when it comes to deciding how to use it.

The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism
by Upton Sinclair

You probably don’t know this but in 1920 Upton Sinclair self-published a muckraking exposé of the corrupt and broken press system in America. Not only did he self-publish it—at the height of his fame, no less—but he refused to copyright it, hoping to pass through the media blacklist a critical book like his faced. It went on to sell more than 150,000 copies. This fascinating and deeply personal analysis of the media was the model for what I aspired to while writing my own. Sinclair deeply understood the economic incentives of early-twentieth-century journalism and thus could predict and analyze the manipulative effect it had on The Truth. Today those incentives and pressures are different, but they warp our information in a similar way.

News from Nowhere: Television and the News
;
Between Fact and Fiction: The Problem of Journalism
;
The Big Picture: Money and Power in Hollywood
by Edward J Epstein

I used economic reasons to explain why bloggers act the way they do. I could not have done this without the father of this line of thinking, Edward Jay Epstein. From his 1973 Harvard thesis, which was later published as
News from Nowhere
, that pioneered the study of network news (the first and last person to get access to their inner sanctum) to his wonderful books on the movie business, Epstein finds, exposes, and explains the hidden economic factors that determine the courses of entire industries. I followed in his footsteps for this book at almost every turn. I had the privilege of meeting him recently, which only increased my advocacy for his methods. I am morally obligated to press his books into your hands just as they were pressed into mine by my mentors when I entered the entertainment business.