Rating: 
Summary: "smell the coffee"
Review: If you're awake, and your mind is open, this book will anger you right down to your toes. If you're closed-minded, this book actually has the power to crack it open. Yeah, big business is killing us, everyone, you and me. Yeah, our government isn't elected, it's selected. Yeah, the United States' military-industrial complex is dangerously, dangerously out of control and driving our planet into a toxic death tailspin.And I'm angered to read that our best and brightest journalists have been boot-stomped by the market-watching bosses intent on raking in more money than they could ever spend. It's a great read. It's not relaxing. It's stressful, calling-out-to-your-spouse angering with every revelation. You NEED this book. It'll make you a better citizen. A more informed citizen. And a dangerous citizen, as there's nothing the U.S government hates more than secrets revealed. Here's to the journalists that lost it all in the pursuit of a 'true' Fourth Estate! Thank you so much for all you've done. And to all of you in the crosshairs of this book, remember one thing: Mother Nature bats last in this game, you greedy, naive souls you.
Rating:
Summary: What You Don't Know CAN Hurt You
Review: If you're like me, perennially skeptical about conspiracy theories and "unsubstantiated" claims, you're in for a shock. I used to blame the dumbed-down American media on a "dumb public" - I said, "we're getting what we asked for." Now I see that this idea was not just arrogant and supercillious (I knew that already!) - it's also dumb, and dangerously misinformed. This is an exceptionally brave and candid book in which over a dozen award-winning journalists detail a shocking, and rapidly growing, pattern of media censorship in America. It's an excellent introduction to the state of information - and misinformation - in America today, and helps explain why, in the midst of an information flood, the American public is unaware of the deeper picture of government and corporate corruption. You get the stories straight from the journalists who wrote them, how reporters had to fight for years to get some of the biggest investigative reports of the 1990's into the press - and how many of them lost their jobs in the process. Into The Buzzsaw shows how corporations and the federal government use the legal system to blackmail the media into silence, and how the consolidation of media ownership and the quest for profits has nearly obliterated the media's service of the public's need to know. The book explains, with detailed examples, how mainstream, respected journalists and editors go out of their way to discredit colleagues for daring to expose taboo information. For instance, one author is Gary Webb, who wrote the San Jose Mercury News story about the CIA's sale of pure cocaine in LA, which preciptated the national crack cocaine epidemic. You've heard that the story didn't "hold up under scrutiny", right? A BIG lie, perpetrated by the "respectable media". We're being taken a for a ride folks, and not toward where we want to go. Read this book, and begin to wake up. But, fair warning; it will make you very angry.
Rating:
Summary: News that's fit to print, but isn't
Review: If you, like myself, have stopped watching TV news, and question the reason any article appears in the print media, this book is for you. Here are the news stories that were deliberately withheld. Here are the important stories written by true heros that this country seems to be looking for.
I considered myself well informed until I read this book. I am grateful to all who contributed to its content.
This book should scare any thinking adult into taking their citizenship and future seriously enough to pay careful attention and take some action.
Rating:
Summary: Courageous Journalists (and a Few Bitter Ones) Fight Back
Review: In various ways, all the submissions in this book prove how the "Free Press" in America is not always so free. With a few exceptions, most of the essays here are by ace investigative journalists who have had their stories crushed by economic or political pressure from the power elite. This has more to do with the elite holding onto power, rather than inaccuracies in the always professional reporting. In recent times, this pressure increasingly comes from corporate media owners. As a bonus, this book also offers several actual investigative stories, including two with hard-to-dismiss conclusions about friendly fire and TWA flight 800. The high points in this book are the powerful submissions by Monika Jensen Stevenson, covering the preposterous injustices heaped by the US government onto Vietnam POW Bobby Garwood; Michael Levine, covering the mainstream media's complicity in the drug war's ethical and practical failures; and Gary Webb, concerning his travails after exposing CIA drug trafficking operations (the "Dark Alliance" story). All of these stories, and others in the book, were crushed by government pressure in order to protect the power elite. Theory and media watchdog pieces by Carl Jensen and Robert McChesney are also very enlightening. However, this is an uneven collection with some dismal low points that come close to sinking the overall effectiveness of the book. Kristina Borjesson (the editor) and Jane Akre are unprofessionally bitter in their essays, concerning TWA 800 and Monsanto abuses, respectively - their travails with wimpy editors and official harassment notwithstanding. Severe low points of the book include directionless and self-aggrandizing biographies from Maurice Murad and April Oliver, while Karl Idsvoog's piece is little more than a windy sales pitch for his media consulting firm. But overall, if you can stomach some bitterness and inconsistency, this revealing book will both damage your respect for the modern journalism business, but give you faith that there are still courageous journalists out there who are striving for the truth. [~doomsdayer520~]
Rating:
Summary: Courageous Journalists (and a Few Bitter Ones) Fight Back
Review: In various ways, all the submissions in this book prove how the "Free Press" in America is not always so free. With a few exceptions, most of the essays here are by ace investigative journalists who have had their stories crushed by economic or political pressure from the power elite. This has more to do with the elite holding onto power, rather than inaccuracies in the always professional reporting. In recent times, this pressure increasingly comes from corporate media owners. As a bonus, this book also offers several actual investigative stories, including two with hard-to-dismiss conclusions about friendly fire and TWA flight 800. The high points in this book are the powerful submissions by Monika Jensen Stevenson, covering the preposterous injustices heaped by the US government onto Vietnam POW Bobby Garwood; Michael Levine, covering the mainstream media's complicity in the drug war's ethical and practical failures; and Gary Webb, concerning his travails after exposing CIA drug trafficking operations (the "Dark Alliance" story). All of these stories, and others in the book, were crushed by government pressure in order to protect the power elite. Theory and media watchdog pieces by Carl Jensen and Robert McChesney are also very enlightening. However, this is an uneven collection with some dismal low points that come close to sinking the overall effectiveness of the book. Kristina Borjesson (the editor) and Jane Akre are unprofessionally bitter in their essays, concerning TWA 800 and Monsanto abuses, respectively - their travails with wimpy editors and official harassment notwithstanding. Severe low points of the book include directionless and self-aggrandizing biographies from Maurice Murad and April Oliver, while Karl Idsvoog's piece is little more than a windy sales pitch for his media consulting firm. But overall, if you can stomach some bitterness and inconsistency, this revealing book will both damage your respect for the modern journalism business, but give you faith that there are still courageous journalists out there who are striving for the truth. [~doomsdayer520~]
Rating:
Summary: Horrible.
Review: Only two chapters in and I am already in shock. I don't believe there is much I can say about this book that hasn't already been voiced in the other reviews aside from the fact that I passionately recommend reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Phenominal
Review: Thank God for these journalists. Thank God you have people that work in journalism that still live to tell the truth. Everybody should read this book. If you care about this country, if you care about liberty, you'll read this book. And then you'll understand how corporatization of the media world is destroying freedom of information. Not many people realize the disinterest newspapers, including your hometown newspaper, have in telling the truth about what happens in town. I'm cancelling my subscription to the newspaper tomorrow. And I'll tell them, start doing your job, or you'll never see my subscription dollars again.
Rating: 
Summary: so Ken, you still believe the CIA is just honest people?
Review: That's what I said to a coworker who said the FBI and CIA would never lie about anything. I was up till midnight reading this book last night, furious, but still reading with intense interest. The pressure from government agencies to get journalists fired from their jobs is an unacceptable attack on our free press. Many thanks to Prometheus books for having the courage to publish this book.
Rating:
Summary: Even Better than Publisher's Weekly Dares to Say It Is
Review: The editor, Kristina Borjesson, describes evidence she found about the TWA 800 crash in 1996 that doesn't fit the final determination of "mechanical failure" made by the NTSB. A followup essay by David Hendrix details his own investigation of the case. There are also chapters by Michael Levine and Gary Webb about CIA drug-running. Publisher's Weekly seems to think this book is "uneven" because most of the other essays don't present as many details about their authors' investigations as the four I mentioned above. For example, the essay by Jane Akre is mostly an account of how Fox News was pressured by Monsanto to cancel her story about the consequences of giving recombinant bovine growth hormone to cows in order to stimulate higher milk production. However, several of the essays provide valuable insights without describing specific cases their authors investigated. The concluding chapter, by Robert McChesney, reviews the history of journalism, pointing out that partisan presses were the norm at the time the Constitution was ratified. The notion of "objective" or "professional" journalism arose in the 20th century, and had some unintended drawbacks such as its emphasis that each story must have a "hook" or "peg" (which explains why starvation and pollution don't get covered unless a disastrous event occurs). I highly recommend this book to anyone involved (or just interested) in investigative journalism. The opening chapter by Gerard Colby is of more general interest because he describes the practice of "privishing" (privately publishing a book in a way that kills it), which since the 1970s has been done increasingly for reasons of profitability not just politics. Colby details how his book *Du Pont: Behind the Nylon Curtain* was privished because the du Pont family took offense at some of its facts and allegations (e.g., a description of the Gunpowder Trust and a quote from Secretary of War Newton Baker about the family overcharging the US government $250 million during WW1). The essay "Silence of the Lambs" by Gregory Palast is not a mere "rant" as claimed by Publisher's Weekly. He outlines his evidence that Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris illegally purged over 50,000 voters from the Florida rolls before the 2000 election. In addition, he describes key differences between US and UK laws about press freedom and libel, illustrating with his own case of being sued in the UK by Barrick for describing an alleged incident at one of their African mines which occurred *before they owned it.*
Rating:
Summary: Behind the big stories; news to scare us all
Review: The eighteen essays in this book will dismay even those who have watched investigative journalism co-opted on TV by talking heads and road accidents or who look up from a newspaper story with more questions than answers. The contributors are distinguished career journalists, most of them award winners, most of them gung-ho about journalism - until their run-in with the buzzsaw of corporate or government displeasure. They may not persuade you (though most probably will) but they will make you think. Taken individually the essays are emotionally charged, well-organized exposés of blunders, greed, incompetence and ruthlessness. Taken as a whole the book paints a depressing picture of the state of big, mainstream media. Expensive investigative journalism is the first to go in a corporate climate where profit stands above the public's right to know. Beholden first to the bottom line, media giants are also swayed by advertising dollars, government intimidation and fear of lawsuits. And the book paints a disturbing picture of the lengths our government and corporate giants are willing to go to quash negative stories. Most of these stories are familiar: the investigation of TWA flight 800, the CIA and drug running/ assassinations/ incompetence, civilian Koreans massacred by US troops, MIAs in Vietnam, and the election of 2000. On the corporate side there's rapacious DuPont, bovine growth hormone, and the state of psychiatric hospital care. Which story is the scariest? Well, everyone eats so Monsanto's push to get bovine growth hormone into all our milk comes to mind. Jane Akre details the process (i.e. the longest test for long-term human toxicity lasted 30 days on 30 rats - and although the FDA was told there were no adverse effects, one third of the rats suffered cysts and lesions) and then the demise of her story, orchestrated by Monsanto lawyers and abetted by her station's new owners, Rupert Murdoch. Or how about Michael Levine's (former DEA undercover operative, turned author and journalist) surreal but all too believable piece on long-term CIA involvement with politically expedient drug runners and killers, which segues neatly with Gary Webb's piece on CIA collusion with Contra drug dealers who introduced vast amounts of crack to gangs in South LA who then spread it to the rest of the country. Remember that one? Discredited? Gary Webb tells how and why and he's very believable. But the saddest, most chilling story of all is the case of returning Vietnam POW Bobby Garwood who was vilified and court-martialed in 1979 as an enemy collaborator because his story conflicted sharply with the government line that all POWs and MIAs had been accounted for. Writer Monika Jensen-Stevenson spent 20 years working to clear Garwood's name and her account of our government's deliberate, well-orchestrated destruction of a loyal, traumatized soldier would be hard to believe if it wasn't so well-documented. Memorial Day 1998 Garwood was embraced by three Medal of Honor winners and honored at the Vietnam Memorial but, though network cameras were present, the occasion never appeared on the news. Kristina Borjesson offers a comprehensive piece on the investigation of TWA flight 800, the Paris-bound plane that exploded off Long Island in 1996. You don't have to agree with her conclusions to be convinced of an investigation thoroughly botched by FBI incompetence, turf wars, government spin and outright lies. Some of these essays get a boost from the revelations about FBI and CIA bungling revealed since September 11. But why did it have to take an event so horrific to make news out of what so many already knew? The essays are well-written and buttressed with loads of facts and sources, many of them checkable by interested readers. Names are named, which in itself is unusual for today's news stories. Each essay is prefaced with a short, impressive biography of the writers, many of whom have written books about the stories that consumed their careers. Many lost their jobs; some, like April Oliver, the CNN producer whose nerve gas story was famously retracted, had their reputations destroyed. This is a book for anyone interested in what goes into a well-researched investigative story, for anyone who thinks it can't be true if it doesn't make the news, and if it does it is, for anyone who wonders why some stories never get legs (the state of our food, the state of our prisons), for anyone who wonders why some stories won't go away (OJ, Monica), for anyone who's noticed that soft interviews with government officials and elected representatives have apparently replaced hard digging, for anyone who would like to be better informed about the world.
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