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Title: The More You Watch, the Less You Know: News Wars/Submerged Hopes/Media Adventures by Danny Schechter, William M. Browning, Jackson Browne ISBN: 1-888363-80-0 Publisher: Seven Stories Press Pub. Date: 18 December, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.95

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Average Customer Rating: 3.8 (5 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: Some good thoughts ... but author gets WAY off track
Comment: The author does make some excellent (and scary) points about the state of modern journalism in the first 2 or 3 chapters of the book.

However, the book soon veers off course focusing mainly on the aphartide in South Africa. While this does correspond with the theme, I don't know if it deserves 3/4 of the book.

I also got the impression that the author sees himself as a saint, impervious to the trends that are affecting the rest of the media.

Not a bad book, I suppose, but there are better out there.

Rating: 3
Summary: Strong material poorly organized
Comment: Despite the dead-on title, Sheckter's narrative works better as personal reminscence than serious critique of a sterile media. A chief reason lies in the general absence of structure. There is no observable principle ordering the text. This results in an unpredictable and erratic narrative, which a more astute editor, I believe, could have presented more effectively - the material is there. Unfortunately, the whole adds up to considerably less than the parts.

At bottom, Sheckter's book provides insights into both strengths and weaknesses of the New Left from which he hails. None of the Old Left's rigid dogmatism enters into the text. On one hand, this allows him to confront a lock-step media in a more agile and less preconceived manner than critics of old. On the other hand, it produces a hopeful innocence that seems to learn much less from informed experience than should be the case. Does the author really expect these corporate entities to reform themselves in a progressive manner as his recommendations indicate. Here we arrive at a crux of the dilemma confronting any erstwhile reformer. Can real, humane change be expected of those entities whose bottom line is always money, even when an inventive and dedicated gadfly like Sheckter burrows from within. Without serious pressure from outside the industry, can such gadflys serve as anything more than occasionally troublesome house radicals. Given the temper of the times, that may be as much as anyone can expect.

Rating: 4
Summary: Sadly, 'tis the truth
Comment: Great book. It magnifies the dynamics at the coalface of infortainment. This book, read alongside the scholarly Chomsky and Herman's "Manufacturing Consent", give a wholesome and accurate picture of the media. Chomsky and Herman provide a structural analysis of the 4th estate, and Schechter testifies further to the accuracy of their analysis by sharing his experiences.

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