Rating: 
Summary: what is bias
Review: There has been much talk about the supposed liberal bias of the media. I find this absurd. The true bias is pro-establishment, pro-free trade (a misnomer if ever there was one), pro-rich, and anti anything that contradicts these. This is a book for those who wonder why, who question authority, and demand truth. I was introduced to a word in this book; to "privish" is to print too few copies to make a book financially viable. I hope that this is not the fate of this book, as it is a true eye-opener. We live in Orwellian times: Peace is War, Truth is ignorance, etc. To know the inner machinations of journalism is a necessary part of being informed. To read the stories of those who refused to lie down is to remember what "fight" means. Don't be a sheep, even if you believe that the saviour of the human race is a lamb.
Rating:
Summary: Journalism at its best.
Review: There's a one flag limit on this one. If you fly more than 1 flag on the back of your truck or car, you may want to pass on this one. The shock to the system would be far too great. I've been a conspiratorial nut case for years, and I still was blown away by some of the chapters in this book. These journalists truly have guts, and are among the greatest Americans living in this country today. Truth holds a very high place in their hearts. A must read for all seekers of truth.
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Summary: Every american citizen should read this book...
Review: This an extremely frightening book.What's so frightening in it? Not the fact that it claims to reveal some disturbing truths. Actually, many books are claiming to do just that. No, what scared me most is the fact that not only most of the contributors are respected journalists, but all the contributions are extremely well documented and precisely, seriously presented to the reader. It has nothing to do with any "conspiracy theory" book. All the information inside is very valuable in itself, but it also serves as a clinical description of the sorry state of the american media. Since all the accounts are written in the first person, you share all the difficulties of these reporters who commited that completely unusual sin: they actually did their job properly. As a swiss citizen who fancy the american culture and media a lot, I wonder how the citizen of that beautiful democracy can stand such scandalous behaviour from the mass media. The story of the involvement of the CIA in the emergence of the crack epidemy in L.A. was particularly shocking. But most of the stories are equally amazing. DO read this book. And trust me: I don't like reading the work of lunatics either, but this is serious journalism.
Rating: 
Summary: Freedom of the press, another version
Review: This book contains a series of essays by investigative journalists detailing some of their successes but mostly failures in getting some of their more controversial pieces published.
It is a spotty work. The paranoia of some essays leap out at the reader from every page; others are more reasoned and convincing. Some of the essays make valid points, but the underlying elitism turned me off.
The book's major villain is capitalism, profits being the dirty word that prevents the various authors from imposing their version of truth reality and importance on the idiots who have the temerity to disagree.
In the hands of most of the essayists, the constitutional right to a free press has somehow been transformed into a constitutional requirement that all newspapers must publish not what the majority of its readers want to read, but what self styled elitist literati feel should be fed to the public.
While an interesting read, the book can't be taken seriously.
Rating:
Summary: An award winner!!!
Review: This book isn't readily available in stores..."Into the Buzzsaw" is a book with A LOT to say about the organized suppression of inflammatory news and the lack of recourse for media whistleblowers. For this reason, it is hard to find. Essays like "Verdict First, Evidence Later" and "Mainstream Media: The Drug War's Shills" are disturbing and very well written. Other notable pieces include "The Price of Liberty" and "What Happened to Good Old-Fashioned Muckraking?" Do not write this off as another "conspiracy book." This is not some unfounded rant about UFO's or Bigfoot. This is a collection of essays guaranteed to make everyone, and I mean everyone, think twice about the news they're getting.
Rating: 
Summary: HARD TO FIND FOR A REASON
Review: This book isn't readily available in stores..."Into the Buzzsaw" is a book with A LOT to say about the organized suppression of inflammatory news and the lack of recourse for media whistleblowers. For this reason, it is hard to find. Essays like "Verdict First, Evidence Later" and "Mainstream Media: The Drug War's Shills" are disturbing and very well written. Other notable pieces include "The Price of Liberty" and "What Happened to Good Old-Fashioned Muckraking?" Do not write this off as another "conspiracy book." This is not some unfounded rant about UFO's or Bigfoot. This is a collection of essays guaranteed to make everyone, and I mean everyone, think twice about the news they're getting.
Rating:
Summary: wake up and smell the propaganda
Review: This gathering of essays by Ms. Borjesson will serve as the wakeup call for all of those people who think they are well informed if they view the network news broadcasts or read such "prestigious" newspapers as the NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal or fill in the blank. If trustworthy information is essential to the continued existence of a democracy, then America is in far worse trouble than most of it's citizens imagine. As much as I hate to insist, this book should become required reading for all breathing human beings, along with Orwell's "1984" and Huxley's "Brave New World". Think you know the truth about Flight 800, or the CIA/Drug/Contra connection, or the 2000 presidential election in Florida? Read this book!
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Summary: As Much Between the Lines as In Them
Review: This is a book that deserved to be widely read. I'm not so sure if that's because of what it says as reading between the lines. It's a series of articles, or essays, or maybe vignettes written by people in the media who are discussing stories that they feel were not adequately covered by the national media. They blame their own companies, the Government, nearly everyone but themselves.
On the back cover it says: "CBS's Dan Rather describes in chilling terms how perssure to be patriotic compessed him and other journalists to censor themselves." First, in the Dan Rather vignette, he doesn't use the word "censor" at all (at least not that I could find in reading it two or three times). Second, perhaps Dan Rather needs some censorship, either by himself or others, that might have prevented the little story that he reported on the Bush National Guard just before the election, and which he later defended until proven wrong.
Yes, the national media covers the news rather poorly. (But better than the local news which is almost pure entertainment.) It's called ratings. Why else would so much coverage be given to some young guy in California who murdered his wife (Scott/Laci Peterson). And what about the overwhelming percentage of news stories that center around New York and Washington, D.C. -- there is life across the Hudson and outside the beltway.
There's one other real critism that I have, the sub-title says, "the Myth of a Free Press." The TV/Newspaper press isn't free, it's big business. Readers of other book reviews I've written have seen me write, "you don't really know the story until the books come out." This book confirms this in spades. Here the book is out. It wasn't censored. There are about 70,000 book publishers in the United States. You can find one that will print the stories (and Prometheus Books is to be complimented on publishing this one and many others dealing with social issues). Book publishing is where Free Press remains.
Rating:
Summary: Into the Buzzsaw
Review: This is a really important book to read - especially in this day and age when honest news is so rare. Buzzsaw proves definitively that the news we get is all stirred out of the same bucket and distributed to the main television, printed press and radio and they just regurgitate it at us. The truth is always hard to get at, but to have paid the price some of these journalists have paid just reminds us of the price Karen Silkwood had to pay just trying to get the truth out. Don't ever think that the news you're seeing, reading or hearing has much to do with what is really going on - we just get benign half truths so America can continue to live the illusion that it's well informed and that it's press is free....HAH!!!!!!
Read this book, and you will be inspired to start really digging to get to the truth - the real truth. Hopefully, more and more Americans will do the same. GET OUT AND BUY THIS BOOK!!! It's important for you and our future.
Rating:
Summary: REQUIEM FOR A "FREE PRESS"
Review: This is not the first book or program to decry the disappearance of classical American investigative journalism. The anthology assembled from seasoned and often award winning journalists tells us that in many subtle but also heavy handed ways, the information which we the public are permitted to get through the mainstream news media has been heavily managed by corporate and government forces. Having been properly selected and groomed, the mainstream talking J-heads such as Dan Rather know what they may present as news and what they may not discuss. As bad as corporate news management had been presented in the Russel Crowe movie THE INSIDER, it is much worse than that, tell us the oft times ousted reporters and TV producers in INTO THE BUZZSAW who wouldn't or couldn't toe the line. Some years ago, a similar group of American journalists mourned in front of a television camera for the discouraging journalism scene in America. The documentary, produced for PBS at the public televison station in San Jose is called FEAR AND FAVOR IN THE NEWSROOM in which Pulitzer Prize winning former New York Times, Washington Post and also network TV journalists tell stories similar to those in INTO THE BUZZAW. But that TV program was produced some ten years ago, and I had hoped that truth in the newsroom would undergo a renaissance. Wrong! As INTO THE BUZZAW tells us, the situation has become much worse year by year, and decade by decade. The message in this book is a sad one: poor American journalism, poor democracy. The hope is that those who value both classical American democracy and also the pursuit of high quality, incisive journalism that is required to nourish it will keep on digging out the news that is needed to maintain a free society.
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