Rating: 
Summary: Preaching to the Pew
Review: There is never any Socratic search for the truth in this book as its major theme is a forgone conclusion. Never for a moment does Alterman doubt he has found the truth about the media. Like the Church Vicar, Alterman is preaching to his pew. His focus is narrow and never reaches beyond the members of his church.Socrates said, "Whenever, therefore, people are deceived and form opinions wide of the truth, it is clear that the error has slid into their minds through the medium of certain resemblances to that truth." ...Alterman fails to see the wider world beyond to "form wider opinions of the truth" and, therefore, fails to convince his version of truth is more than just that or a resemblance to truth. In it, Alterman goes so far as to claim that certain public figures are dangerous to the "political Public."...
Rating:
Summary: I might find this book useful...
Review: ... if I owned a cat and wanted to provide that cat with a comfortable place to squat. Other than that, it was a waste of time. Alterman is obviously self-deluding since he can't even recognize his own liberal bias.
Rating: 
Summary: Alterman explodes the "myth of the liberal media"
Review: As a 64+ year old who has seen the gradual conservative/big money take over of our media over the past three decades, I found Eric Alterman's well researched, throughly documented book very informative and incisive. He lays it all out, names names, some famous and some (often the most interesting) not so famous. He totally succeeds in fleshing out a case for a "vast right wing media" which is corporate, simple-minded in its pursuit of power and more and more money, and disgustingly self righteous and corrupt. I loved reading his incontrovertible (at least I haven't seen any detailed rebuttals yet) dissection of Fox TV, the self admitted ignorant "pundits" of print and TV, and all the rest of the poobahs who try to convince us that the media are "liberal" and that the emperor does have clothes. Thanks for all the amunition to explode that odious self-serving myth once and for all, Mr. Alterman. Highly tonic reading for these debased times!
Rating:
Summary: Solid, scholarly, factual; jibes with my take over time...
Review: Scarborough sitting in for Nachman on MSNBC tried a Coulter
[gambit] on Alterman, meaning he and the other guy ganged up
to ensure their words over, under, between and around
sabotaged the book data. Since Scarborough, ex-Fla. rep. was
implicated in the death of his assistant and thereby stepped
down, he has not lost his smirk incidental to getting away
scot free, hence he caught my eye thereto. So, I bought the
book and find it solid, scholarly and factual in that it jibes
with my notes over time. Clever arrangement of material and
superb writing skill have me reading past the bedtime hour. Following the footnotes and having an eureka moment now and
then has been a pleasure despite the ugliness the facts reveal. Then I saw the Neo-Con crowd out to dump on the book in nearly
every review which confirms my sense that the whine-gang continues
to be successful in every venue. I needs buy a few more copies for those
not robot-programed to spew that hate...or baptize liberals line...
Rating: 
Summary: Delusions come in all colors
Review: If you could simply ignore all the arguments against the premise of this book, then it would appear to be a well documented thesis and a viable stream of thought. Unfortunately, you have to have the mental ability to completely ignore all of the evidence to contrary. The idea of the book is mostly a knee jerk reaction to the liberal Bernard Goldberg's confessional about liberalism in the newsroom. Pretty much everybody in the media who wasn't savaged in Goldberg's book would confess that Goldberg was essentially correct in asserting that the vast majority of 'mainstream media' is unconsciously tilted left. Alterman seems to believe that Goldberg lives in another parallel universe. Alterman has developed a bunker mentality about the conservative emergence in alternative media (radio, cable, web) and believes that somehow in a matter of 3 years the right wingers have taken over every media outlet and all of the liberals still left in journalism are cowed into being 'balanced' while conversatives are free to spew invective at will. Its not only delusional for someone to pretend that 'there are no left leaning columnists from any major daily appearing on television' as he does in his book. Jonathan Alter, Clift, Carlson, Conason, Jack White, Goodman, Germond, Page, etc. etc. It would be funny if it weren't such a college level argument. Despite all of the footnotes and documentation, this thesis remains merely one side of an argument which it doesn't seem likely that Alterman will win. But he will undoubtedly blame some right wing cabal for his failure to succeed in print. He really could have used a sounding board on the other side of the political aisle as an editor to help him dress out his arguments before putting into print. It he want's this to really sell, he should have used Rush Limbaugh's name in the title.
Rating:
Summary: Makes his point
Review: This is a fun book to read if like me you are fed up with the right wing press complaining about how 'Liberal' they are. People who have read the book will understand that Alterman is not really trying to prove that the media is 'Conservative', he is actually showing that it is something else, completely irresponsible, sloppy and pandering to its owners and advertisers. Alterman does dish it out to people like Ann Coulter but no worse than Coulter dishes out to others. But the biggest indictment of these people are their own words. Coulter saying talking about assasinating Clinton, and yes pretty much anything that Rush Limbaugh says. If the media really did have a left wing bias Alterman would have been on as many talk shows touting his book as Coulter and co. Somehow the invitations don't seem to be made to liberals, funny that.
Rating:
Summary: whine whine whine
Review: Frankly Ann Coulter is right and her book Slander describes professional LW whiners like Alterman with GPS guided precision. The majority of the media IS biased to the left. However to people like Alterman, it is not left enough. Think like Marx, Stalin, and Chomsky and you may be able to come to the same conclusion as Alterman. Think like the majority of Americans and you will scratch your head wondering what Alterman is in fact complaining about.
Rating:
Summary: We need a liberal media!
Review: This book is a powerful refutation of the right-wing charge of a liberal media bias. I believe that any fair-minded person will be convinced by Alterman's analysis of the news. You don't have to accept his left-wing ideology to see that the liberal media monster so often decried by right-wingers is almost entirely a fabrication. And you don't have to be a conservative to admire the single-minded discipline and strategic brilliance (not to mention superior funding) that has allowed conservatives to absolutely dominate political discourse (you do, however, have to be a conservative not to find this terrifying). But only the most cynical or hypocritical out there will continue to whine about how conservatives can't get a fair shake when the left wing has been utterly marginalized by the mainstream media. Most important, this book exposes the dangerous trend among conservatives to both distort the facts (sometimes, as in the cases of Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Coulter et al., by simply making them up) and label honest disagreement as evil, traitorous and anti-American. This (largely successful) attempt to silence principled debate in this country is extremely dangerous and unworthy of a country that is supposed to be a light for all nations.
Rating:
Summary: A radical liberal rant
Review: Alterman seems to have zero understanding of the difference between commentators, journalists and newscasters. Is Limbaugh conservative? Well, last time I checked he was. Does he pretend to be a newscaster? Never.
Did the publisher of the New York Times say he would rather see an American soldier die in a fight with a Communist in Viet Nam? Yes he did and has never denied it. Does that make him one the the conservative elites who control the media? I don't think so.
Alterman's book is a classic example of left-wing writers who just "don't get it." He thinks he is "mainstream" when the radical journals he writes for wouldn't hire a conservative if their lives depended on it.
This book is good fantasy for his fellow travelers, but is pure garbage when it comes to telling "The Truth."
Save your money.
Rating:
Summary: Alterman also called Louis Farrakhan "conservative," too.
Review: Alterman does a brilliant job of proving that the mainstream media doesn't lean as far to the left as he does. However, that's not the same as proving that the media doesn't lean to the left at all. Alterman is so far to the left that one morning a few years ago on CSPAN's "Washington Journal," he actually had the gall to say -- and with a straight face -- that Louis Farrakhan is a "conservative." Anyone who does that obviously doesn't know what "liberal," "conservative," "left," and "right" really mean.
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