NETWORK of LIES: THE EPIC SAGA of FOX NEWS, DONALD TRUMP, and the BATLLE for AMERICAN DEMOCRACY (audiobook) by Brian Stelter

Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in

November of 2013

Read by the author, Brian Stelter

Duration: 11 hours, 16 minutes.

Unabridged

Brian Stelter is a former CNN commentator. While in college, he started a blog about news commentary shows and the personalities that make them what they are. In a way, he has been working on this book for more than 15 years. 

Stelter pored over the paperwork from the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox News to help write this 2020-2023 history of the cable news giant. 

He spends the most amount of time looking at the biggest show with the biggest host on Fox News at the time - Tucker Carlson. He goes over a litany of Tucker's Greatest Hits - the Great Replacement Theory, The January 6 Insurrection was just a tourist event, Ukrainian biolabs, transgender conspiracies, and, of course, the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

He looks at the power dynamics at the top of Fox News, including Rupert Murdoch, the board at Fox News, the advertisers, Murdoch's kids and the various women that Murdoch has been married or engaged to. 

Of course, the most powerful players were not actually present in the room. The most powerful players were (and still are) the viewers. Stelter demonstrates that the viewers were given a steady diet of misinformation and outright lies and, after a few years of this, refused anything but misinformation.

When Fox News tried to back off from the bombastic, crazytown commentary that passed for news after the January 6th Insurrection, viewers fled in droves. Where did they go? They went to the two networks that were even more bombastic and even more crazytown - OAN and NewsMax. Fox News could literally see the data that showed that they lost viewers and OAN and NewsMax gained a big chunk of them.

An actual screen shot from Carlson's
February 1, 2023 broadcast.
Anyone can see they had committed 
themselves to serious journalism.

This caused a reversal of policy and a resumption of the crazytown news. There were open discussions via email and text that showed that everyone knew that the "Stop the Steal" claims were bogus, but they were also hyper-aware that the viewers refused to hear anything of it - they left Fox News to go to the people that told them their comforting stories, whether they were true or not. So, Fox News decided to keep feeding them the equivalent of news garbage in order to keep them watching.

And that led to the lawsuits, the firing of Tucker Carlson, and even more lying to the viewers of Fox News (almost as if losing 3/4 of a billion dollars in a lawsuit is not a good bit of feedback that tells them that they are doing news all wrong.)

Stelter tells a story that would be unbelievable if I hadn't lived through it all and seen the rough outlines of it for myself. 

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: NETWORK of LIES: THE EPIC SAGA of FOX NEWS, DONALD TRUMP, and the BATLLE for AMERICAN DEMOCRACY by Brian Stelter.

HAS ANYONE SEEN the PRESIDENT? (audiobook) by Michael Lewis

Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in 2018.
Only available in audiobook format.
Read by the author, Michael Lewis.
Duration: 0 hours, 54 minutes.

Unabridged.

Originally, Has Anyone Seen the President was originally written for Bloomberg View, the editorial/opinion site of Bloomberg News. Lewis went to Washington. D.C. during the run up to President Trump's "State of the Union Address". Lewis visits the press room in the White House, speaks with a former press secretary from the Obama Administration and visits with Trump advisor Steve Bannon. He also spends time with a former ethics official in the government who quit because President Trump and his administration openly flout the standards for ethics that were established in previous administrations (like divesting your portfolio of investments that could be a conflict of interest with your position in government). Finally, Lewis ends up watching the State of the Union with Steve Bannon in Bannon's home with running commentary from Bannon.

Michael Lewis, for me, is best known as the author of the books that inspired the movies Moneyball and The Blind Slide.  Turns out that he also writes a lot about finance and politics. Who knew? Well, a whole lot of people did, so I guess I was just out to lunch on Michael Lewis and his many facets.

Steve Bannon

The biggest coup of the entire book is the access to Steve Bannon. Bannon is widely regarded as the man who masterminded Trump's 2016 election win. There used to be people that would say that the secret to Ronald Reagan's success was to just "let Reagan be Reagan" because his folksy charm would work wonders. Bannon was the one advisor that would push to "let Trump be Trump." He recognized that Trump's abrasive style and quirky speaking style repelled people by the millions but it also attracted just as many diehard supporters and that was the secret to victory.

If you are part of the group that is repelled by former President Trump, this book will only confirm that repulsion. Bannon's hired gun style is obvious, but he does nothing to betray former President Trump. If you are a fan of the former president, this book will not shake you from those convictions. It is all old news, albeit old news packaged in an interesting story told by a talented story teller. 

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here:  HAS ANYONE SEEN the PRESIDENT? (audiobook) by Michael Lewis.

ON TYRANNY: TWENTY LESSONS from the TWENTIETH CENTURY by Timothy Snyder

 

Published in 2017 by Tim Duggan Books, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Timothy Snyder is a historian that specializes in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1930's and 1940's. This coincides with the rise of the Nazis in Germany the rise of the USSR as a world power. 

In On Tyranny, Snyder has written up several mini essays about the dangers that he sees in modern day politics that are actually echoes from the past. Or, as he puts it: "History can familiarize, and it can warn." (p. 11) He also warns, "We might be tempted to think that our democratic heritage automatically protects us from such threats. This is a misguided reflex." (p.13)

The author, Timothy Snyder

Snyder is clearly warning against the movement that brought Donald Trump to the Presidency, but as a Never Trump Republican, I am of the opinion that both parties do all twenty of these things. But, I am a Never Trump Republican because I am certain that Donald Trump went and keeps going too far. 

In his 5th point, Snyder reminds his readers to remember their professional ethics as a bulwark against authoritarianism. For example, judges need to stay fair and follow the law even if a ruling would reward the President who appointed them. Plenty of  judges that were appointed by Donald Trump wouldn't change their rulings when it came to overturning election results. Attorney General Jeff Sessions wouldn't change his mind about recusing himself from Justice Department Investigations and Vice President Mike Pence would not assert a Constitutional right he clearly does not have in order to stop the Electoral College from voting on January 6. 

His 6th point is to "Be Wary of Paramilitaries", especially when the groups that "...have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh." (p. 42) Witness the Proud Boys and similar groups and the January 6 attack in D.C.

There are 18 other points, some with just some good basic advice like "Contribute to Good Causes" because it helps civil society and keeps the basic building blocks of society strong. Another bit of good advice is to be a patriot, not a nationalist. There's a massive difference.

This small book is a quick, thought-provoking read.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: ON TYRANNY: TWENTY LESSONS from the TWENTIETH CENTURY by Timothy Snyder.

FRONT ROW at the TRUMP SHOW (audiobook) by Jonathan Karl

Published by Penguin Audio on March 31, 2020.
Read by the author, Jonathan Karl.
Duration: 10 hours, 16 minutes.
Unabridged.

Jonathan Karl has had a long relationship with Donald Trump. Karl is a reporter

Jonathan Karl and Donald Trump in 1994 and nowadays.

(The New Republic, The New York Post, CNN and ABC) and he first met Donald Trump in 1994. Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley had just gotten married and were staying in Trump Tower for their honeymoon. Karl convinced Trump to do an interview about why celebrities would want to stay in his building. Trump personally led Karl on a tour of the building.

Over the years, Karl interviewed Trump multiple times for multiple reasons. Because of this relationship, Karl was called on to interview Trump when he toyed with the idea of running for president before 2016 (5 times).

Karl moved on to be the White House correspondent for the Obama administration for ABC and stayed when Donald Trump was elected.

This book will not change a single mind about President Trump, for or against him so I am not going to even delve into his stories. I thought Karl made a series of fair points.  He was also critical of other administrations and their dealings with the press. But, he didn't go into detail on those because it is a book about the "Trump Show".

The book is very listenable. Karl reads his own audiobook and does a great job, which is to be expected considering what he does for a living.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: FRONT ROW at the TRUMP SHOW by Jonathan Karl.

No, They Can't: Why Government Fails - But Individuals Succeed (audiobook) by John Stossel

Libertarianism thought delivered painlessly by nice guy Stossel

Published April 10, 2012 by Simon and Schuster Audio.
Read by the author, John Stossel
Duration: 9 hours, 14 minutes

The title of this audiobook, No, They Can't,  is a play on the 2008 campaign slogan of then-candidate Obama, "Yes We Can!" Stossel, of course, is the TV consumer reporter turned anchor of ABC's 20/20 who now hosts a weekly show of Fox Business News and a series on one-hour specials on Fox News. He has won nineteen Emmy Awards. He begins his book with an explanation of why he left ABC after more than 20 years and how the culture of ABC made it very uncomfortable for him to explore stories in any way except the tried and true politically correct way.

The premise of the this audiobook is that the entire thought process behind that campaign slogan is wrong  - the government cannot do a lot of the things that people want it to do, and even if everyone agreed it should give those things a try, it would do a very poor job of them because government is inefficient at almost everything it does.

Stossel is an outspoken but soft-spoken Libertarian and he makes a very thoughtful presentation of Libertarian thought on a variety of topics. He generally starts with a variation on this phrase: "Intuition tells me...but reality has taught me..." and presents a commonly held belief (like minimum wage laws helping younger workers) and then presents research that shows that that belief is incorrect (many have no skills and having to pay them more than they are worth means they are unlikely to be hired in the first place).

Stossel covers a variety of topics including free trade, how federal regulations can help the businesses they are intended to regulate, food police, government-provided health insurance, the "nanny state" government, gun control and lots more. The strength of the audiobook is not the ideas (they are fairly standard Libertarian fare) but the way that Stossel presents them. Stossel is inherently likable and he has done a lot of thinking and research to present his arguments in clear, everyday language. His "Intuition tells me...but reality has taught me..." format acknowledges the logic of people that disagree with him and then he lays out his arguments with his nice guy style.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. it can be found on Amazon.com here: No They Can't: Why Government Fails - But Individuals Succeed by John Stossel.

Reviewed on May 30, 2012.

Losing the News: The Future of the News That Feeds Democracy by Alex S. Jones

"the nation's traditional news organizations are being transformed into tabloid news organizations..." (p. 51)

Published in 2009.

Alex S. Jones is a journalist who has just about seen it all: he has owned and managed a paper, he has written features, he won a Pulitzer Prize, he has taught journalism, he has done radio journalism and he has written several books. He knows of what he writes.

In Losing the News, Jones is concerned about the evolution of news gathering services (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines) from expensive investigative work to nonsense tabloid stuff (this week it is Tiger Woods - thanks to serious news organizations I know more than I've ever wanted to know about his wife, his doctor, etc. - but just go out and try to get some solid info about the health care debate!)

He bemoans a number of trends, including the synergy type news that ABC, NBC & CBS do to promote new books, movies or shows. He is concerned that the "iron core" of news is being ignored and is shrinking because it is hard to produce and can be costly. By iron core he means the serious analysis news (not opinion pieces) and investigative journalism that the public can trust. He is also unhappy (but not enough, in my opinion) at advocacy "gotcha" journalism that undermines the public's faith.

He includes a nice history of journalism in America and plenty of first-hand examples from his own family's experiences. His analysis of technological trends is spot-on and ties in neatly with the analysis in the book Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson. At the end of the book he offers some interesting predictions about where news is heading.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Losing the News.