All the President's Spin: George W. Bush, the Media, and the Truth

by Bryan Keefer (Author), Ben Fritz (Author), Brendan Nyhan (Author)

New
Paperback
2004
$19.41

Certainly all presidents and prime ministers have engaged in spin to a certain extent, but in the past the media - and the public - checked the extent to which our leaders were able to fudge the truth. However, President Bush has repeatedly used deception, told outright lies, and rewritten history to sell his policy agenda. And thanks to one of the most aggressive public relations teams ever assembled, he has been able to get away with it since he began his campaign. In the wake of September 11, the administration has taken its questionable conduct to a new level by attempting to intimidate critics and has tried to connect virtually every policy initiative to the war on terrorism. Bush has used the same tactics to mislead the public on a wide range of other major policy initiatives, from the environment to homeland security to Social Security - all with little scepticism from the media.

Synopsis

Certainly all presidents and prime ministers have engaged in spin to a certain extent, but in the past the media - and the public - checked the extent to which our leaders were able to fudge the truth. However, President Bush has repeatedly used deception, told outright lies, and rewritten history to sell his policy agenda. And thanks to one of the most aggressive public relations teams ever assembled, he has been able to get away with it since he began his campaign. In the wake of September 11, the administration has taken its questionable conduct to a new level by attempting to intimidate critics and has tried to connect virtually every policy initiative to the war on terrorism. Bush has used the same tactics to mislead the public on a wide range of other major policy initiatives, from the environment to homeland security to Social Security - all with little scepticism from the media.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd
Published: 20 Sep 2004
ISBN 10: 0743262514
ISBN 13: 9780743262514

Media Reviews

Jonathan Chait The New Republic A clinical, dispassionate, and intellectually bulletproof analysis of the ways President Bush has manipulated public opinion. The authors meticulously paint a troubling picture of the way our national debates function. It ought to shame the press corps into mending its ways.
Tucker Carlson CNN Politicians talk so much that hardly anyone pays close attention to what they're actually saying. Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer, and Brendan Nyhan do, staying up late to match words with reality. It's a tough job -- imagine the migraines -- but the rest of us can be glad someone's doing it.
Neal Pollack author of Never Mind the Pollacks A chilling and comprehensive account of how the government has polluted our country with a thick mist of foul propaganda.

Author Bio

Ben Fritz is a reporter for the entertainment trade paper Variety. He also edits the satirical website Dateline Hollywood (www.datelinehollywood.com) and was recently named one of the nation's top thirty business journalists under thirty. Originally from New York, Ben graduated from Swarthmore College and served for a year in the AmeriCorps* National Civilian Community Corps. He lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at ben@spinsanity.com Bryan Keefer is assistant managing editor of Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk (www.campaigndesk.org), which monitors the media's coverage of politics. He has worked at the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union. Bryan lives in New York City, but he left his heart in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he was raised. He can be reached at bryan@spinsanity.com Brendan Nyhan is a graduate student in the department of political science at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. From 2001 to 2003, he managed new projects and later marketing and fundraising for Benetech (www.benetech.org), a Silicon Valley technology nonprofit. Brendan grew up in Mountain View, California, and attended Swarthmore College. In 2000, he served as the Deputy Communications Director for the Bernstein for U.S. Senate campaign in Nevada. In 2003, he received an Award of Distinction in the Paul Mongerson Prize for Investigative Reporting on News Coverage competition. Brendan can be reached at brendan@spinsanity.com.