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Title: Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press by Kristina Borjesson, Gore Vidal ISBN: 1-57392-972-7 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: March, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.74 (39 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The most important book about journalism in years
Comment: As a professional journalist, who studied under Fred Friendly at the Columbia U. School of Journalism, I find this the most important (and in light of recent 9/11 FBI revelations, timely) book about American journalism in many years. I read through its 381 pages in just a few days, amazing since I'm not an especially fast reader. I could hardly put it down.
Why?
-First, these are great tales written by great writers.
-Second, these are accomplished pros and their experiences span a wide range of media outlets and topics.
-Third, this book makes a pusuasive case both that investigative reporting is essential to an informed American public & the survival of American democracy *and* that it is being sabotaged, by either intention or default, by media companies that (I deduce) are so profit-driven and risk aversive that they can barely be considered as practicing serious journalism.
Anyone who is bored by this book is either sleep deprived, on a controlled substance, or is predisposed against it. After reading this book, it became evident to me that it is now up to journalists ourselves to defend our work and democracy. We are truly America's last hope for an informed public.
Rating: 4
Summary: "Media watchdog" ensnarled in conflicts-of-interest
Comment: Borjesson's "Buzzsaw" is a collection of well-researched insider stories from journalists who sometimes had to fight insurmountable odds to tell the truth. Because these are heroic tales from survivors, the book is a real page-turner from beginning to end.
These heroes fought (and most are still fighting) deep behind the newspaper banner pages and out of sight of the cameras - fought to give you the facts on various stories. Most of these people have paid a very high price for their dedication to the truth. These are the stories about the stories - and information that powerful vested interests preferred that we not hear about. Reason enough to read this book.
If you are at all interested in how the news gets "processed" on its way to your eyes and ears you have to read these stories. That process is currently impaired. In the land of the free press our media got sold to commercial interests and that is the story that we now urgently need to understand. Like the air we breathe, the media is somewhat tranparent. But even if it gets polluted slowly and imperceptibly we will still suffocate.
Borjesson brings tales of the possibility of fresh air.
A democracy depends on a well-informed citizenry and therefore an unbiased watchdog in the media. Universally, survival depends on clear minimally distorted perceptions of the world.
As a design engineer myself, I can assure you that no system is perfect. But after you better understand the news process problems scrupulously detailed in this collection, you may realize like I did that you must do something about it yourself. Thankfully we still live in a nation where we can effect improvements.
Continued ignorance may be bliss, but it is not safety.
Rating: 4
Summary: Who do you trust?
Comment: 'Into the Buzzsaw' is a book that purports to expose an underlying phenomenon of censorship in the media - censorship of stories which question the government or large and prominent corporations. It is composed of contributions from a number of journalists (some former journalists) describing stories that they were involved in which went 'into the buzzsaw' - which met with such resistance from those corporations or the government that they were not allowed to be fully reported, or reported at all. The stories range from recent to relatively old, including the use of hormones to increase milk production, an expose of the Du Pont family, the U.S. government's behind the scenes involvement in the international drug trade, the case of Vietnam-veteran and accused turncoat Bobby Garwood, the TWA flight 800 disaster and more.
I found 'Into the Buzzsaw' troubling, but not for the reasons you might think. The primary source of uneasy tension I felt while reading the book sprouted because I just wasn't sure whether I could believe the assertions of the various contributors or how far I could trust their veracity. It's not an easy question to wrestle with, and there is no solution between the covers of the book.
In his book 'Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion', Robert Cialdini shows how we take our cues about credibility from symbols of authority and that we look for reinforcement of our opinion from others who believe the same as we. Such a system gives a high level of credibility (though not an unimpeachable one) to major papers such as the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. It also leads us to add weight the opinions and statements of people who hold elected office or some other government position - an official imprimatur of authority. It does not, however, lend itself automatically to a high level of credibility for a book put together by a loose band of journalists and other media figures who buck the conventional wisdom - (another source of anonymous authority - who decides what that wisdom is and where do they hold the convention?).
Further difficulty arose from the fact that a few of the contributors appear to have an axe to grind. Vindictiveness can come through in writing, and when it occurs, it can lead the reader to the credible alternative theory that the author is slanting facts to support a pre-determined, biased conclusion. This undercuts the argument that these authors are attempting to make. Also, in one or two instances, there appeared to be significant questions about the situations that were not explored fully enough to rule out alternate explanations for the events described. Finally, in reading this book I also began to have questions about the limits journalistic expertise when it comes to various subject matters. There were one or two times when I didn't trust the reporter to know enough about the subject to be able to draw correct conclusions from the limited evidence they presented, particularly in the 2nd chapter regarding bovine hormones.
That said, this is an important book and well worth reading. Most of the authors are credible and appear to be primarily concerned with shedding light on the workings of the modern media, not with promoting their bias. You don't have to believe everything that the individual contributors assert to understand and recognize the validity of the primary point - that there is an underlying form of censorship (including self-censorship) that acts to protect powerful interests. There are innumerable examples independent of this book that show how such organizations, in a position of influence, use that influence to shape or suppress, distort or obfuscate coverage of their activities. Watergate and Travelgate come to mind for starters. This book does a good job of breaking down the credibility lent by cues of authority and reinforcing the healthy and appropriate skepticism that should accompany assertions by 'official sources'.
Had I proofed this book before publication, I would have advised a few of the authors to tone down their writing - to make it more serious. I'm no fan of plodding writing and I enjoy a good Dave Barry column as much as anyone - but loose language is sometimes inappropriate when your credibility is at issue. Nevertheless it is an entertaining read and will make you think, in more ways than one, about an issue that is at stake in any healthy democracy - who do we trust to give us our information? I gave it 4 stars to reflect the tension I felt in reading 'Into the Buzzsaw', but if the subject of the media, government, bias and censorship at all interests you, this is an excellent book to read.
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Title: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Truth About Corporate Cons, Globalization and High-Finance Fraudsters by Greg Palast ISBN: 0452283914 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: 25 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The War on Freedom: How and Why America was Attacked, September 11, 2001 by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, John Leonard ISBN: 0930852400 Publisher: Tree of Life Publications Pub. Date: July, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace by Gore Vidal ISBN: 156025405X Publisher: Nation Books Pub. Date: 10 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta by Gore Vidal ISBN: 1560255021 Publisher: Nation Books Pub. Date: December, 2002 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq by Sheldon Rampton, John Stauber ISBN: 1585422762 Publisher: J. P. Tarcher Pub. Date: July, 2003 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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