A devastating (Nation) examination of how a cabal of tech-billionaires is colluding with once-idealistic journalists to create an entirely new media landscape

Owned is the story of the underreported and growing collusion between new wealth and new journalism. In recent years, right-wing billionaires like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and David Sacks have turned to media as their next investment and source of influence. Their cronies are Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi--once known as idealistic and left-leaning voices, now beneficiaries of Silicon Valley largesse. Together, this new alliance aims to exploit the failings of traditional journalism and undermine the very idea of an independent and fact-based fourth estate.

Owned examines how this shift has allowed spectacularly wealthy reactionaries to pursue their ultimate goal of censoring critics so to further their own business interests--and personal vendettas--entirely unimpeded while also advancing a toxic and antidemocratic ideology.

A rich history of the decades-long rise of this new right-wing alternative media takeover, Owned follows the money, names names, and offers a chilling portrait of a future social media and news landscape. It is a biting exposé of journalistic greed, tech-billionaire ambition, and a lament for a disappearing free press.

Can empathy deliver political change? Does art that elicits emotional identification with others take us where we need to go? In Imperfect Solidarities, writer and art historian Aruna D'Souza offers observations pulled from current events as well as contemporary art that suggest that a feeling of understanding or closeness based on emotion is an imperfect ground for solidarity. Empathy--and its correlate, love--is a distraction from the hard work that needs to be done to achieve justice. Rather, D'Souza contends, we need to imagine a form of political solidarity that is not based on empathy, but on the much more difficult obligation of care. When we can respect the unknowability of the other and still care for and with them, without translating ourselves into their terms, perhaps we will fare better at building political bridges.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

An urgent, comprehensive explanation of the ways disinformation is impacting democracy, and practical solutions that can be pursued to strengthen the public, media, and truth-based politics

MSNBC's legal analyst breaks down the ways disinformation has become a tool to drive voters to extremes, disempower our legal structures, and consolidate power in the hands of the few.

One of the most acute observers of our time shares . . . a compelling work about a challenge that--left unexamined and left unchecked--could undermine our democracy. --Eric H. Holder Jr, 82nd Attorney General of the United States

American society is more polarized than ever before. We are strategically being pushed apart by disinformation--the deliberate spreading of lies disguised as truth--and it comes at us from all sides: opportunists on the far right, Russian misinformed social media influencers, among others. It's endangering our democracy and causing havoc in our electoral system, schools, hospitals, workplaces, and in our Capitol. Advances in technology including rapid developments in artificial intelligence threaten to make the problems even worse by amplifying false claims and manufacturing credibility.

In Attack from Within, legal scholar and analyst Barbara McQuade, shows us how to identify the ways disinformation is seeping into all facets of our society and how we can fight against it. The book includes:

• The authoritarian playbook a brief history of disinformation from Mussolini and Hitler to Bolsonaro and Trump, chronicles the ways in which authoritarians have used disinformation to seize and retain power.
• Disinformation tactics--like demonizing the other, seducing with nostalgia, silencing critics, muzzling the media, condemning the courts; stoking violence--and reasons why they work.
• An explanation of why America is particularly vulnerable to disinformation and how it exploits our First Amendment Freedoms, sparks threats and violence, and destabilizes social structures.
• Real, accessible solutions for countering disinformation and maintaining the rule of law such as making domestic terrorism a federal crime, increasing media literacy in schools, criminalizing doxxing, and much more.

Disinformation is designed to evoke a strong emotional response to push us toward more extreme views, unable to find common ground with others. The false claims that led to the breathtaking attack on our Capitol in 2021 may have been only a dress rehearsal. Attack from Within shows us how to prevent it from happening again, thus preserving our country's hard-won democracy.

Writing in a clear and comprehensive writing style, [the authors] show how the U.S. political, social, and economic environments make disinformation believable to large numbers of people and difficult to stop or prevent. - Library Journal, Starred Review

Everyone, whether they work in the public sector or are private citizens, will find this book invaluable. - Booklist, Starred Review

Disinformation made possible by rapid advances in cheap, digital technology, and promoted by organized networks, thrives in the toxic political environment that exists within the United States and around the world. In Lies that Kill, two noted experts take readers inside the world of disinformation campaigns to show concerned citizens how to recognize disinformation, understand it, and protect themselves and others. Using case studies of elections, climate change, public health, race, war, and governance, Elaine Kamarck and Darrell West demonstrate in plain language how our political, social, and economic environment makes disinformation believable to large numbers of people.

Karmarck and West argue that we are not doomed to live in an apocalyptic, post-truth world but instead can take actions that are consistent with long-held free speech values. Citizen education can go a long way towards making us more discerning consumers of online materials and we can reduce disinformation risks through digital literacy programs, regulation, legislation, and negotiation with other countries.

A guide for business leaders working to create socially conscious, sustainable companies--while pursuing profits

Amid growing international concerns about income inequality, labor abuses, racial injustice, and disinformation online, Conscience Incorporated examines the gaps in current corporate social responsibility measures and what more needs be done to address these challenges. The rise of new technologies such as smartphones and social media have made it easier than ever to document and spread awareness of corporate actions. Despite these developments, large corporations often fail to meaningfully address the human rights abuses linked to their business models and practices. In Conscience Incorporated, Michael Posner addresses what lies at the root of these challenges, drawing on his extensive personal experience as a human rights lawyer, State Department official under President Obama, chair of the Fair Labor Association and Director of the Center for Business and Human Rights at NYU Stern School of Business.

Drawing from research into the history of business ethics and anchoring his argument with examples of companies publicly accused of human rights abuses--Nike, Coca-Cola, Walmart, Meta, and more--Posner provides a blueprint for global business leaders to navigate human rights challenges and adopt sustainable corporate practices. Conscience Incorporated highlights the need for increased protections for outsourced workers in faraway nations, greater attention to harmful online content, and prioritization of human rights by investors. He argues that growing public awareness has not been enough to enforce ethical practices for global businesses. As a result, governments, especially in Europe, are becoming more involved in regulating global business practices in various industries.

Posner proposes a series of concrete reforms and argues compellingly for why businesses need to devote greater time and resources to protecting basic human rights. Conscience Incorporated is a powerful challenge to the status quo and advocates for a fundamental shift in the principles that govern global businesses.

A New York Times bestseller.

From CNN's veteran Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta, an explosive, first-hand account of the dangers he faces reporting on the current White House while fighting on the front lines in President Trump's war on truth, featuring new material exclusive to the paperback edition.

In Mr. Trump's campaign against what he calls Fake News, CNN Chief White House Correspondent, Jim Acosta, is public enemy number one. From the moment Mr. Trump announced his candidacy in 2015, he has attacked the media, calling journalists the enemy of the people.

Acosta presents a damning examination of bureaucratic dysfunction, deception, and the unprecedented threat the rhetoric Mr. Trump is directing has on our democracy. When the leader of the free world incites hate and violence, Acosta doesn't back down, and he urges his fellow citizens to do the same.

At Mr. Trump's most hated network, CNN, Acosta offers a never-before-reported account of what it's like to be the President's most hated correspondent. Acosta goes head-to-head with the White House, even after Trump supporters have threatened his life with words as well as physical violence.

From the hazy denials and accusations meant to discredit the Mueller investigation, to the president's scurrilous tweets, Jim Acosta is in the eye of the storm while reporting live to millions of people across the world. After spending hundreds of hours with the revolving door of White House personnel, Acosta paints portraits of the personalities of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, Sean Spicer, Hope Hicks, Jared Kushner and more. Acosta is tenacious and unyielding in his public battle to preserve the First Amendment and #RealNews.

Arming Americans to defend the truth from today's war on facts

In what could be the timeliest book of the year, Rauch aims to arm his readers to engage with reason in an age of illiberalism.
--Newsweek

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

Disinformation. Trolling. Conspiracies. Social media pile-ons. Campus intolerance. On the surface, these recent additions to our daily vocabulary appear to have little in common. But together, they are driving an epistemic crisis: a multi-front challenge to America's ability to distinguish fact from fiction and elevate truth above falsehood.

In 2016 Russian trolls and bots nearly drowned the truth in a flood of fake news and conspiracy theories, and Donald Trump and his troll armies continued to do the same. Social media companies struggled to keep up with a flood of falsehoods, and too often didn't even seem to try. Experts and some public officials began wondering if society was losing its grip on truth itself. Meanwhile, another new phenomenon appeared: cancel culture. At the push of a button, those armed with a cellphone could gang up by the thousands on anyone who ran afoul of their sanctimony.

In this pathbreaking book, Jonathan Rauch reaches back to the parallel eighteenth-century developments of liberal democracy and science to explain what he calls the Constitution of Knowledge--our social system for turning disagreement into truth.

By explicating the Constitution of Knowledge and probing the war on reality, Rauch arms defenders of truth with a clearer understanding of what they must protect, why they must do--and how they can do it. His book is a sweeping and readable description of how every American can help defend objective truth and free inquiry from threats as far away as Russia and as close as the cellphone.

In this eye-opening exposé, Dr. Bart P. Billings, a seasoned psychologist and veteran advocate, pulls back the curtain on the media's role in shaping societal perceptions and behaviors. Drawing from personal experiences and extensive research, Dr. Billings reveals how modern media often prioritizes sensationalism over truth, inadvertently glorifying criminals and creating victims in the process.

From courtroom dramas to veteran healthcare, this book offers a critical examination of how media influences can distort reality, impact public opinion, and even encourage destructive behaviors. Dr. Billings challenges readers to question the information they consume and consider the broader implications of media practices in our society.

In this characteristically turbocharged book, now in a new post-election edition, celebrated Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi provides an insider's guide to the variety of ways today's mainstream media tells us lies.

Part tirade, part confessional, Hate Inc reveals that what most people think of as the news is, in fact, a twisted wing of the entertainment business.

In the Internet age, the press have mastered the art of monetizing anger, paranoia, and distrust. Taibbi, who has spent much of his career covering elections in which this kind of manipulative activity is most egregious, provides a rich taxonomic survey of American political journalism's dirty tricks.

After a 2020 election season that proved to be a Great Giza Pyramid Complex of invective and digital ugliness, Hate Inc. is an invaluable antidote to the hidden poisons dished up by those we rely on to tell us what is happening in the world.

How can political campaigns fight back against disinformation?

A decade after The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns, which Politico called Moneyball for politics, journalist Sasha Issenberg returns to the cutting edge of political innovation to reveal how campaigns are navigating the era's most pressing challenge: how to win in a world awash in lies.

The Lie Detectives is a lively and deep secret history of Democratic politics in the Trump years. Our main character, Jiore Craig, is a young but battle-hardened veteran of the misinformation wars, and she leads a memorable cast including LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, whose emergence as one of the American left's biggest donors has forced his adviser Dmitri Mehlhorn into the role of moral compass for a movement still wrestling with whether it should counter fake news by producing its own, and David Goldstein and Jehmu Greene, who are confronting the Big Lie, in the vernacular of online conspiracy theories, with gifs, memes, and ugly graphics of their own.

The Lie Detectives presents a vivid snapshot of a political class trying to come to terms with an exploding social media landscape and using every weapon in its arsenal to counter the biggest threat it has ever faced to its way of doing business and winning power.

Reveals a political trend that threatens both our form of government and our species. - Timothy Snyder, author of ON TYRANNY

Riveting.... Want to understand how so many Americans turned against truth? Read this book. Nancy Maclean, author of DEMOCRACY IN CHAINS

In 1981, emboldened by Ronald Reagan's election, a group of some fifty Republican operatives, evangelicals, oil barons, and gun lobbyists met in a Washington suburb to coordinate their attack on civil liberties and the social safety net. They called their coalition the Council for National Policy. Over four decades, this elite club has become a strategic nerve center for channeling money and mobilizing votes. Its secretive membership rolls represent a high-powered roster of fundamentalists, oligarchs, and their allies, from Oliver North, Ed Meese, and Tim LaHaye in the Council's early days to Kellyanne Conway, Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins, and the DeVos and Mercer families today.

In Shadow Network, award-winning author and media analyst Anne Nelson chronicles this astonishing history and illuminates the coalition's key figures and their tactics. She traces how the collapse of local journalism laid the foundation for the Council for National Policy's information war and listens in on the hardline broadcasting its members control. And she reveals how the group has collaborated with the Koch brothers to outfit Radical Right organizations with state-of-the-art apps and a shared pool of captured voter data - outmaneuvering the Democratic Party in a digital arms race whose result has yet to be decided.

In a time of stark and growing threats to our most valued institutions and democratic freedoms, Shadow Network is essential reading.

Rules to live by from Roger Stone, master of political dark arts, advisor to Donald Trump, and subject of the award-winning documentary Get Me Roger Stone

Here are the lessons of a lifetime of work helping influence America's politics and culture, learned from working for Richard Nixon and use to help make Donald J. Trump the 45th President of the United States.

Roger Stone is a freedom fighter to his admirers, a dirty trickster to his detractors. He is flamboyant, outrageous, articulate, and extraordinarily well-dressed. Here he lays out the maxims that have governed his legendary career as a campaign operative for four American presidents.

As a raconteur, pundit, prognosticator, and battle-scarred veteran of America's political wars, Roger Stone shares his lessons on punking liberals and playing the media, gives an inside look at his push to legalize marijuana, details how much linen to show at the cuff of an impeccably-cut suit, lays out how and why LBJ orchestrated the murder of JFK, and reveals how to make the truly great marinara sauce that is the foundation of Stone's legendary Sunday Gravy.

Along the way, Stone dishes on the cloak and dagger nitty-gritty that has guided his own successes and occasional defeats, culminating in the election of the candidate he first pushed for the presidency in 1988, Donald J. Trump.

First revealed in the Weekly Standard by Matt Labash and commemorated by CNN's Jeffrey Toobin, the blunt, pointed, and real-world practical Stone's Rules were immortalized in the Netflix smash hit documentary Get Me Roger Stone--part Machiavelli's The Prince, part Sun Tzu's The Art of War, all brought together with a highly-entertaining blend of culinary and sartorial advice from the Jedi Master of political dark arts.

From Attack, attack, attack! inspired by Winston Churchill, to Three can keep a secret, if two are dead, taken from the wall of mob boss Carlos Marcello's headquarters, to Stone's own It is better to be infamous than to never have been famous at all, Roger Stone shares with the world all that he's learned from his decades of political jujitsu and life as a maven of high-style. From Stone's Rules for campaign management to the how-to's of an internet mobilization campaign to advice on custom tailoring to the ingredients for the perfect martini from Dick Nixon's (no-longer) secret recipe, Stone has fashioned the truest operating manual for anyone navigating the rough-and-tumble of business, finance, politics, social engagement, family affairs, and life itself.

This resource uses evidence-based documentation to examine the veracity of claims and beliefs about the state, nature, and extent of media bias in American news media, including social media, television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and other media outlets.

The book provides students and other readers with a clear and accurate understanding of claims of media bias (both conservative and liberal) in the United States by refuting falsehoods, misunderstandings, and exaggerations surrounding this topic - and confirming the validity of other assertions. In addition, this sourcebook examines claims and assertions about media bias in other realms of American life, from popular entertainment to social media platforms.

Media Bias: Examining the Facts has been specifically crafted to give readers the tools for a fuller and more accurate understanding of the facts surrounding controversial issues, policies, and laws that occupy center stage in American life and politics. Specific areas of focus in this volume include defining and understanding conscious and unconscious bias; the evolution of the news industry and partisan news sources in the digital age; the ways in which political polarization exacerbates media bias, laws and practices that govern the operations of news media; and clear examples of conservative and liberal bias in such media sectors as cable and broadcast news, radio, newspapers and magazines, talk radio, and online platforms.

How the entertainment narrative of upward mobility distorts the harsh economic realities in America

In an age of growing wealth disparities, politicians on both sides of the aisle are sounding the alarm about the fading American Dream. Yet despite all evidence to the contrary, many still view the United States as the land of opportunity. The American Mirage addresses this puzzle by exposing the stark reality of today's media landscape, revealing how popular entertainment media shapes politics and public opinion in an increasingly news-avoiding nation.

Drawing on an eclectic array of original data, Eunji Kim demonstrates how, amid a dazzling array of media choices, many Americans simply are not consuming the news. Instead, millions flock to entertainment programs that showcase real-life success stories, such as American Idol, Shark Tank, and MasterChef. Kim examines how shows like these leave viewers confoundingly optimistic about the prospects of upward mobility, promoting a false narrative of rugged individualism and meritocracy that contradicts what is being reported in the news.

By taking seriously what people casually watch every day, The American Mirage shows how rags-to-riches programs perpetuate the myth of the American Dream, glorifying the economic winners, fostering tolerance for income inequality, and dampening support for redistributive policies that could improve people's lives.

A revealing look at how today's bureaucrats are finding their public voice in the era of 24-hour media

Once relegated to the anonymous back rooms of democratic debate, our bureaucratic leaders are increasingly having to govern under the scrutiny of a 24-hour news cycle, hyperpartisan political oversight, and a restless populace that is increasingly distrustful of the people who govern them. Megaphone Bureaucracy reveals how today's civil servants are finding a voice of their own as they join elected politicians on the public stage and jockey for advantage in the persuasion game of modern governance.

In this timely and incisive book, Dennis Grube draws on in-depth interviews and compelling case studies from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand to describe how senior bureaucrats are finding themselves drawn into political debates they could once avoid. Faced with a political climate where polarization and media spin are at an all-time high, these modern mandarins negotiate blame games and manage contradictory expectations in the glare of an unforgiving spotlight. Grube argues that in this fiercely divided public square a new style of bureaucratic leadership is emerging, one that marries the robust independence of Washington agency heads with the prudent political neutrality of Westminster civil servants. These Washminster leaders do not avoid the public gaze, nor do they overtly court political controversy. Rather, they use their increasingly public pulpits to exert their own brand of persuasive power.

Megaphone Bureaucracy shows how today's senior bureaucrats are making their voices heard by embracing a new style of communication that brings with it great danger but also great opportunity.

An Exclusive Collection of President-Elect Donald Trump's Most Outrageous Tweets If you have been paying attention to politics in the past year, you'll know that Donald Trump has mostly been at the center of attention in politics for most of the past year. Trump has overcome harsh criticism, career threatening scandals, and controversial recordings to become the 45th President of the United States. Over the course of Trump's campaign, Twitter has been one of Trump's favorite resources for communication with his audience. Trump uses Twitter as a powerful platform to speak his mind and attack his enemies, including celebrities and politicians alike. Trump currently has 19.7 Million followers on Twitter, which is growing by the day. During his presidential campaign and the time leading up to it, Trump has said things that no presidential candidate has every thought about saying. These include insults to American allies, attacks on journalists, and other insults to his opponents. This book is a collection of the most outrageous, hilarious, offensive, and even deleted tweets Tweets that Trump has posted on his Twitter page over the last few years. After each tweet, I provide some commentary to either give context or add my two cents to the tweet. This book was intended to be as unbiased as possible and simply focus on what was said via Twitter by Trump. Don't miss this exclusive collection of Donald Trump's best Tweets, get your hands on a copy of Trump Tweets today

Disinformation is as old as humanity. When Satan told Eve nothing would happen if she bit the apple, that was disinformation. But the rise of social media has made disinformation even more pervasive and pernicious in our current era. In a disturbing turn of events, governments are increasingly using disinformation to create their own false narratives, and democracies are proving not to be very good at fighting it.

During the final three years of the Obama administration, Richard Stengel, the former editor of Time and an Under Secretary of State, was on the front lines of this new global information war. At the time, he was the single person in government tasked with unpacking, disproving, and combating both ISIS's messaging and Russian disinformation. Then, in 2016, as the presidential election unfolded, Stengel watched as Donald Trump used disinformation himself, weaponizing the grievances of Americans who felt left out by modernism. In fact, Stengel quickly came to see how all three players had used the same playbook: ISIS sought to make Islam great again; Putin tried to make Russia great again; and we all know about Trump.

In a narrative that is by turns dramatic and eye-opening, Information Wars walks readers through of this often frustrating battle. Stengel moves through Russia and Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and introduces characters from Putin to Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Mohamed bin Salman to show how disinformation is impacting our global society. He illustrates how ISIS terrorized the world using social media, and how the Russians launched a tsunami of disinformation around the annexation of Crimea - a scheme that became the model for their interference with the 2016 presidential election. An urgent book for our times, Information Wars stresses that we must find a way to combat this ever growing threat to democracy.

An enlightening examination of what it means when Americans rely on family and friends to stay on top of politics.

Accurate information is at the heart of democratic functioning. For decades, researchers interested in how information is disseminated have focused on mass media, but the reality is that many Americans today do not learn about politics from direct engagement with the news. Rather, about one-third of Americans learn chiefly from information shared by their peers in conversation or on social media. How does this socially transmitted information differ from that communicated by traditional media? What are the consequences for political attitudes and behavior?

Drawing on evidence from experiments, surveys, and social media, Taylor N. Carlson finds that, as information flows first from the media then person to person, it becomes sparse, more biased, less accurate, and more mobilizing. The result is what Carlson calls distorted democracy. Although socially transmitted information does not necessarily render democracy dysfunctional, Through the Grapevine shows how it contributes to a public that is at once underinformed, polarized, and engaged.