The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media

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The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media

by Brooke Gladstone (writer), Josh Neufeld (Goodreads Author) (Illustrator)

3.86 of 5 stars 3.86 · rating details · 980 ratings · 263 reviews

Nearly one million weekly listeners trust NPR's Brooke Gladstone to guide them through the distortions and complexities of the modern media. This brilliant radio personality now bursts onto the page as an illustrated character in vivid comics drawn by acclaimed artist Josh Neufeld. The cartoon of Brooke conducts the reader through two millennia of history-from the newspape...more

Hardcover, 172 pages

Published May 23rd 2011 by W. W. Norton & Company

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Feb 05, 2013 Agile Kindergarten rated it 5 of 5 stars

Gladstone used graphic non-fiction to deftly communicate the historical, psychological and sociological truths of the media's influence in society. From Caesar's Acta Diurna, the first daily news which pressured the Roman Senators to be accountable (and reminiscent of the Daily Stand-Up Meeting) to the digitally borne diseases stemming from the homophily echo chamber (where people only consume media "facts" that substantiate their entrenched belief systems resulting in polarization), our relatio...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Noa R. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Have you ever watched the news? Read a magazine? A newspaper? If so, you have engaged in the media by consuming it. If you have engaged in the media, do you agree with it? Do you think that it is accurate? That it shows objectivity and has no bias? These are some of the topics that Brooke Gladstone addresses in her non-fiction memoir The Influencing Machine. The author is very knowledgeable on the topic and (aided by the format) shows the information clearly. The Influencing Machine is written...more

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Nov 01, 2012 Yvonne Powderly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Gladstone is both narrator and visual tour guide, popping up throughout Neufeld's comic panels as both her contemporary self and camouflaged alongside historical figures.

The comic book format permitted me to read and learn about a subject I would not have attempted in a formal book format; the graphic format makes sense as a way to ease the "pain".

Beginning with the Incas, Herodotus, and the Acta Diurna of the Roman Senate, she wends her way to the present. The history’s always interesting, and...more

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Oct 05, 2012 Matthieutc rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book offers a robust opinion on the state of the media and explains why there is still a lot of work to do but no reason to despair. A lot of insight is gleaned from the history of journalism but also from technology experts like Clay Shirky or Cass Sunstein. The author is also the co-host of On The Media. Here are my lecture notes.

# The Influencing Machine

The influencing machine is a typical invention of the mind that is trying to explain in a somewhat paranoiac way how ideas are spreading...more

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Aug 10, 2012 Lisa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Brooke Gladstone is wonderful. And Josh Neufield is an able illustrator/ comic artist. If each could be judged apart from one another, I would rate them both much more highly on their individual merits.

Unfortunately, I think Gladstone should have just written a proper book. The writing achieves its aim of balancing the light and entertaining with the heavy and intellectual but when rendered as a comic it starts to feel super heavy and dense. (A woman next to me at a coffee shop, who clearly rea...more

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May 16, 2012 Adam rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a very entertaining and interesting read, exposing me to a lot of concepts, points of contention, types of bias, and a few historical facts about which I was previously unaware.

The first half of the book seems to be declaring that there is no Media with a big 'M', controlled by public manipulators, or any other sorts of organized conspiracies. I have to wonder who her intended audience is here, since anyone who doesn't believe it doesn't need to be told; and anyone who does believe it,...more

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Apr 22, 2012 Aneesa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics-graphic-novels

An interesting history of journalism, but I don't think Gladstone quite proves her point that the readers control journalism, despite the fact that journalists to varying degrees at different times in history try to give the people what they want (as opposed to what they need), keeping to the "sweet spot" of "legitimate controversy" but away from the sphere of "deviance," which "the mainstream of society rejects as unworthy of being heard." Perhaps therein lies the problem--she equates "us" with...more An interesting history of journalism, but I don't think Gladstone quite proves her point that the readers control journalism, despite the fact that journalists to varying degrees at different times in history try to give the people what they want (as opposed to what they need), keeping to the "sweet spot" of "legitimate controversy" but away from the sphere of "deviance," which "the mainstream of society rejects as unworthy of being heard." Perhaps therein lies the problem--she equates "us" with "the mainstream of society"--but how many readers of this book believe their ideas are mainstream, those which she claims the media mirrors?

She also spends a good portion of the book showing that we have always been afraid of how new media may change us, so we shouldn't be afraid of the Internet, but not enough on what to do--given what she has supposedly shown. We should: "play and active role in our media consumption" by [only] "trusting reporters who demonstrate fairness and reliability over time," which I think is a lot harder than she makes it out to be, and may continue the same cycle was have now of media consumers only believing media which echoes their previously held opinions.

She also (briefly) implores us to use our networks to draw attention to unreported information. She's preaching to the choir... or will we only be preaching to the choir when we do this? She quotes researchers who show that people who use the Internet and social media are more likely to seek out opinions different from their own and discuss important issues with people who don't agree with them... but how much more? I do have one Tea Partier friend on Facebook, but that doesn't make me feel like my posts are changing anybody's minds. Gladstone also suggests that the research shows that Democrats are more skeptical of our current media outlets than Republicans, and her examples of ways in which "netziens" have brought about change in the world (as well as the ones I can think of) are so few. I don't think she quite recovers from the idea that the Internet creates so many expansive communities of like-minded people that, like any situation when one's surrounded by people who all agree, it promotes extremism. (Plus, who can really say what's "extremist" without knowing how history will look back on us in the future?) She sites research which compares people using the Internet (seeking out different opinions than their own) and people watching TV news (only watching what they already agree with). But once everyone's primary news source is the Internet? There are so many places to seek refuge in your own beliefs, I'm not convinced that we'll continue to see the increase in people working to seek out what they don't want to hear.

Gladstone's final example of how we can easily spread news and act to influence what happens is the most uninspiring: famine relief. Yes, bringing issues like hunger, disasters, and diseases to the forefront does increase the number of people who see it and donate, but it takes a lot more than that to "influence" the political system which causes or does not help to prevent those problems which we can help simply by donating money in the first place. I am not convinced that we should not be alarmed (Gladstone quotes Douglas Adams: "Don't panic") by the current discourse on controversial issues. Unless I look at the long, long view... in which case, who cares?(less)

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Apr 04, 2012 Bruce rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of "On the Media," Scott McCloud, Jon Stewart, and Rush Limbaugh (just to piss him off)

Inspired by Scott McCloud, Brooke Gladstone was brimming with ideas about the history of journalism and the impact, evolution, and continuing relevance of the media. So she called up Josh Neufeld out of the blue (with help from her agents) and asked him to help her unburden herself. What resulted was this excellent manifesto. I just picked this off the library shelves out of curiosity and then we got this week's Muse magazine, which coincidentally includes an excerpt from the book. So then I had...more Inspired by Scott McCloud, Brooke Gladstone was brimming with ideas about the history of journalism and the impact, evolution, and continuing relevance of the media. So she called up Josh Neufeld out of the blue (with help from her agents) and asked him to help her unburden herself. What resulted was this excellent manifesto. I just picked this off the library shelves out of curiosity and then we got this week's Muse magazine, which coincidentally includes an excerpt from the book. So then I had to go grab it back from my 4th grader, despite the fact that all Gladstone's references to bias, gatekeepers, and cognitive dissonance would seem to find a better landing place among college graduates. I'm happy for him to read it if he likes, but this one is Samuel Clemens, not Mark Twain.

Gladstone covers virtually every aspect of free speech you can think of, save, I dunno, maybe three. She doesn’t get into law, theory, or the arts. Rather, she’s driven to answer what she perceives as the public’s eternal love-fear relationship with the published and broadcast word. That polarity infects every page of this book, Gladstone swings between good news and bad news, tracking studies, claims, counterclaims, threats, movements, achievements and diminishments, highlights and lowlights, and finally peering into the wired-in future. I'd offer a preview, but it's just too dense for that, just watch this promo video.

Her message is fair: as media consumers we should trust, but verify what we read and hear. Cassandras have been around forever citing the various evils of an unfettered press, but in the main, the boons outweigh the bogeymen. “Our” press will always remain courageous, honest, and true; while “theirs” will ever be incompetent, libelous, seditious drivel. The trick to unpacking reality from our Rashomon comfort bubble lies in remaining open (just enough) to multiple sources, especially primary sources.

In surveying and distilling her sources (which are extensive and range in writings from Plato to Kurzweil, with stops at John Milton; Thomas’ Paine, Jefferson, and... ugh... Helen; including nods to Albert Camus; Marshall McLuhan; and Douglas Adams (“Don’t Panic!”); and with imagery spanning from Williams Hogarth and Hearst all the way to The Watchmen), Gladstone offers two good reasons to remain optimistic in today’s helter-skelter welter of information sensation and noise. We are all media consumers. We are all the media. People are social animals whose experience of the universe is essentially mediated, so provided we continue our collective journey on the planet, we must all remain tuned in to us.

What a great book. You can read it in one night, but will find something new in it every night, as every page is jam-packed with goodies. The only downside I can think of is that annoying Booby McFerrin ditty that’s stuck in my head. Now every time I pass the little metal kiosks by the metro, I’ll be hearing a little voice that endlessly repeats, “Don’t worry. Be happy.”(less)

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Mar 04, 2012 Courtney Johnston rated it 4 of 5 stars

A wise and challenging little book (and one that makes me feel negligent for not listening to Gladstone's NPR show).

Journalism and Americanism are heavily entwined concepts for me - take the season of The Wire that exposed the workings of a Baltimore newspaper. Gladstone describes 'the American exception', where at the end of the 18th century, the American legal system decided that truth could be used as a defense against libel charges, removing the government's right to suppress criticism of it...more

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Dec 11, 2011 Nathan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: other-non-fiction, popcomp

Newspapers (now broadened to "the media") influence public opinion and the course of political affairs. This deft little book tells the story of media and influence, historically and technologically, and manages to be not just readable but also extremely difficult to put down. I read it in one sitting and got a lot from it. It is easy to read because it is both well-written and well-illustrated--most of the book is in the form of a comic: panels, pictures, captions. The potentially dry topics ar...more Newspapers (now broadened to "the media") influence public opinion and the course of political affairs. This deft little book tells the story of media and influence, historically and technologically, and manages to be not just readable but also extremely difficult to put down. I read it in one sitting and got a lot from it. It is easy to read because it is both well-written and well-illustrated--most of the book is in the form of a comic: panels, pictures, captions. The potentially dry topics are made interesting because the words and the illustrations go hand-in-hand.

The book explores the relationship between politicians, public, media, and technology. English parliamentarians who legally constrain presses; American free presses; the rapid introduction (and reintroduction and reintroduction) of censorship bills by Presidents; contempt for journalists; the trends and herd mentality of reporters; news that just isn't true; the different types of bias that could manifest in journalism; can journalists have opinions and still be fair or objective; what the hell IS objectivity; how political war machines use journalists; how journalists are complicit in those machines; transparency as a substitute for objectivity; cognitive biases; the ineffectiveness of facts to change opinions; and more. It's thoughtful difficult stuff, but always seems natural and interesting because every point is illustrated (literally and metaphorically) with eye-watering examples from history. (And she uses the word "feculent", which I love)

Some bits I particularly liked:

By the 17th century, many urban Europeans can rely on weekly or even some daily papers for news of the world. But not the news of the country in which they're printed. That's because printers operate at the pleasure of the authorities, and the authorities do not find local coverage pleasurable. First, England bans newspapers for six years. Parliament rules that every printed word must be approved--licensed--before publication. In 1644, John Milton complains. "We must not think to make a commodity of all the knowledge in the Land, to mark and license it like our broad cloth, and our wool packs. Believe it, Lords and Commons, they who counsel ye to such a suppressing, do as good as bid ye suppress yourselves."

Eventually the courts revoke prior restraint, but printers can still be ruined by the charge of "seditious libel" for publishing criticism of the government. And truth is no defense. Legal doctrine holds that "the greater the truth the greater the libel"--the greater the threat to Divine Right.

[Thomas Jefferson] writes this in 1799: "Our citizens may be deceived for a while, and have been deceived; but as long as the presses can be protected, we may trust to them for light." He writes this in 1807: "Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle." What happened to Tom? In 1801, Tom becomes President. The press hates presidents.

"Journalists are like dogs--whenever anything moves they begin to bark." -- Arthur Schopenhauer

The story of the atomic bomb was deeply disturbing and provocative. Of course, the US government worked hard to hush up news of the damage done by the bomb. Journalists were kept out of the area and censored. The newspapers were fed a rabidly pro-atomic line by a pet journo stooge. But, eventually, when the news of the massive human damage (civilian centers were bombed, not military bases) the public were finally horrified. That horror is what the government sought to avoid, yet it's precisely that horror which ensured public opinion went against dropping more of them and which, it seems plausible to me, helped to prevent further such horrors. This is the power of news at its best: a moral force, a preventative to unchecked power.

The best part of the book for me, though, was Daniel Hallin's donut:

Historian Daniel Hallin divides the journalists' world into three spheres. The donut hole is the sphere of consensus, "the region of motherhood and apple pie". Unquestionable values and unchallengeable truths. The donut is journalism's sweet spot: the sphere of legitimate controversy. Here issues are undecided, debated, probed. The sphere of deviance is the air around the donut. Limbo. The place for people and opinions that the "mainstream of the society reject as unworthy of being heard." In fact, says Hallin, the press plays gatekeeper, by defining and defending "the limits of acceptable political conduct."

I'm already seeing the world and the articles I read online in a different light. I couldn't ask any more from this magnificent book.(less)

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Nov 27, 2011 Stven rated it 2 of 5 stars

Recommended to Stven by: The New Yorker

A lively and informative book on the history of public media. I have a few quibbles along the way, but I'm willing to ignore them because I'm learning some interesting history, competently arranged to get me from points A and B to points U and V with the dots nicely connected. The trouble is that I totally reject the conclusion Gladstone presents, that "We get the media we deserve."

That's bogus. We the people don't control journalism -- despite the nice point she makes that journalism does spend...more

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Oct 17, 2011 Amy rated it 3 of 5 stars

"Everything we hate about the media today was present at its creation: its corrupt or craven practitioners, its easy manipulation by the powerful, its capacity for propagating lies, its penchant for amplifying rage. Also present was everything we admire- and require- from the media: factual information, penetrating analysis, probing investigation, truth spoken to power. Same as it ever was."
"There's a long-standing debate in the media biz over whether news outlets should give the public what it...more

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Oct 15, 2011 Alex Templeton rated it 5 of 5 stars

I saw the author of this book, Brooke Gladstone, speak at the Brooklyn Book Festival, and after returning home I resisted the idea of reading her book: I'd felt her to be patronizing to Jennifer Pozner, author of "Reality Bites Back", which I found fantastic. However, I happened to see this book available at the library a week or so later and decided I'd check it out anyway. I'm glad I did. This is an excellent meditation on the history and role of the media, told in accessible and fun graphic n...more

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Jul 30, 2011 BHodges added it

Gladstone writes: "Everything we hate about the media today was present at its creation: its corrupt or craven practitioners, its easy manipulation by the powerful, its capacity for propagating lies, its penchant for amplifying rage. Also present was everything we admire--and require--from the media: factual information, penetrating analysis, probing investigation, truth spoken to power. Same as it ever was" (20).

This astute observation loses none of its punch despite being situated next to a c...more

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Jul 27, 2011 John Pappas rated it 4 of 5 stars

To call this graphic novel a visual depiction of the history and purpose of the news media would be a vast simplification, and would not speak to the wry wit of both the author and artist as they explore the complexities of how media influence and determine the way we think. With almost up-to-the-minute research (citing books just released in paperback this year and reports still current), Brooke Gladstone (from NPR's On the Media) demonstrates the purposes, biases and motivations of the news me...more

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Jul 07, 2011 Gregory marked it as to-read

From:http://www.boingboing.net/2011/0...

Brooke Gladstone, co-host of the excellent NPR-syndicated "On the Media," has teamed up with illustrator Josh Neufeld to produce a fantastic nonfiction comic book called The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media. This is one of those books that feels like the author has been working up to it for her whole life, distilling all her varied experience and insight into one mind-opening, thought-provoking, and incredibly timely volume.
Influencing Ma...more

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Jul 02, 2011 Seana rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'm not much of a radio listener, so the fact that Brooke Gladstone is a well regarded NPR managing editor did not bring this book to my radar. I happened to listen to her highly entertaining talk with our local radio host, Rick Kleffel, and resolved to read it at first opportunity. Brooke claims that she wanted to write a comic book about something even before she found her topic, and with the help of illustrator Josh Neufeld, who has previously done another comic or graphic novel about New Orl...more

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Nov 14, 2011 Krista rated it 4 of 5 stars

A graphic novel that gives you a history of the media in visual bits that bite deep.

The main point; "We hunger for objectivity, but increasingly swallow "news" like Jell-O shots in ad hoc cyber-saloons. We marinate in punditry season with only those facts and opinions we can digest without cognitive distress. I see our most hallowed journalistic institutions crumbling, I see our business model that relied on mass audiences being displaced, with stunning speed, by one that survives by aggregatin...more

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Jul 11, 2011 Kalen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-reads

Not entirely sure what to think of this one just yet. I love the premise but I'm not convinced it was entirely well-written. Having said that, I don't typically read graphic novels or non-fiction so the format took some getting used to and it's possible that was my real challenge.

I laughed when Gladstone cited Douglas Adams' comment that "Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between...more

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Jun 06, 2011 Guy Gonzalez rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels, favorites

"We get the media we deserve," declares NPR's Brooke Gladstone in her excellent The Influencing Machine, an insightful graphic manifesto that sits comfortably alongside Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business and Jaron Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto, both of whom make cameo appearances.

Gladstone, aided by Josh Neufeld's seamless visuals, makes a compelling case that the ills that plague media today -- mass and social -- are nothing new,...more

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Jan 15, 2012 Dan Phillips rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

I had high hopes for this "media manifesto in comic book form," as it seemed to be very similar in style (both graphically and narratively) to Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. McCloud's book maximized the potential of "sequential art" to explain complex issues in an immediate, simple way. And there are some very clever visual choices in The Influencing Machine that manage the same trick.

But ultimately, I ended up feeling the same way about this book as I do about Brooke Gladstone's better-k...more

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Jul 10, 2011 Mza rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Maria Sputnik

Shelves: 2011

As a cool lady and an expert on a topic -- media influence -- that comes up constantly on my feed and inspires waves of heated commentary, Brooke Gladstone seems like a natural candidate for Internet intellectual celebrity, but I never heard of her until this, her first foray into my field of special interest, comix. Following the Scott McCloud model -- in which a shape-shifting narrator speaks directly to the camera, bridging dramatic representations of important concepts -- Gladstone takes us...more As a cool lady and an expert on a topic -- media influence -- that comes up constantly on my feed and inspires waves of heated commentary, Brooke Gladstone seems like a natural candidate for Internet intellectual celebrity, but I never heard of her until this, her first foray into my field of special interest, comix. Following the Scott McCloud model -- in which a shape-shifting narrator speaks directly to the camera, bridging dramatic representations of important concepts -- Gladstone takes us through a history of journalism from the beginnings of written language to a speculative future of nanobots coursing through the human bloodstream. It's a pretty thrilling ride; comfortably paced; organized into 16 chapters, none of which seem superfluous; and thorough, at least from my perspective as a non-journalist and an enthusiastic consumer of American media, without crossing the line into nerdiness or pedantry. Josh Neufeld turns in his best work yet, interpreting Gladstone's ideas in a way that gives the pages a satisfying combination of density and readability. He's no R. Crumb -- his caricatures of well-known faces lack the desired instant recognizability -- but he's always moving the narrative forward, amplifying meanings, and finding fun visual twists for Gladstone's metaphors. Some of the book's hardest punches are purely textual, though:

"Humans run on emotion, assumption, and impulse. We can't function on logic alone. People who can't feel pleasure or preference because of damage to the orbital prefrontal cortex are paralyzed by the simple decisions most of us make effortlessly every day. The blue pen or the black pen? Mary or Sue? Any choice -- whether of a mate or a breakfast cereal -- engulfs them in a quicksand of pros and cons." (128)

Gladstone peppers sharp, provocative quotations throughout, from philosophers, politicians, artists, fellow journalists, etc., all of which are properly cited in the main text or in the book's endnotes. The effect of filtering these voices through Gladstone's narration and Neufeld's cartooning is as if many speakers across history have collaborated on a seamless lecture. In the words of one of those sources, author David Weinberger,

"Objectivity without transparency increasingly will look like arrogance ... Why should we trust what one person -- with the best of intentions -- insists is true when we instead could have a web of evidence, ideas, and argument?" (113)

It's like falling down the most orderly Wikipedia rabbit hole ever, and you don't feel tired and hopeless afterwards.(less)

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Dec 07, 2011 James rated it 4 of 5 stars

I learned about this book from the same ALA "Best Graphic Nonfiction" list that yielded Harvey Pekar's forgettable Beat history. In this case, fortunately, the praise was warranted. The Influencing Machine (Gladstone's central metaphor for the media is to equate it with the mechanical mind-control engines that feature in the delusional fantasies of some famous 19th-century paranoids) is a smart and funny graphic history of journalism and a meditation on the roles and responsibilities of journali...more

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Jul 06, 2012 Scott rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: technology, history, media

3.5 stars. My wife told me about this book via an NPR program she heard, and I've been excited to read it, to say the least. I wanted to read it with the goal of assigning it to one of my media classes as a textbook. The verdict is...maybe.

I wanted it to be more streamlined, perhaps more humorous. As it is, it's pretty deep and insightful. Definitely a good thing. Gladstone definitely is well-researched here, and I like how she is able to put it all together. She picks great sources. I do wish...more

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Apr 30, 2012 Patrick Sherriff rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved this book. Must admit, being on the other side of the world and, er, not American, I hadn't heard of Brooke Gladstone, but the recommendation from the Brain Picking blog was enough to tell me I'd love this book, and I did.

It's a great summary of thinking on the media and with a hefty dose of humour and iconoclasm that you'd expect from being in comic book form. Her argument, that we are the media - so we get what we deserve - seems irrefutable to me, and her anecdotes and references wer...more

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Dec 13, 2011 Barbara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel, non-fiction

The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media is not your typical graphic text. It’s a sweeping look at the history of the media, as well as a forecast on how technology will influence human evolution.

Equal parts philosophy, cultural criticism, and polemic, Gladstone’s Machine shows her reader how news has been reported and how public policy has been shaped from an American perspective.

Compared to a text-based book, Machine sometimes seems to dispense its information in bits and pieces...more

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Nov 14, 2011 Karen rated it 4 of 5 stars

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Aug 27, 2012 Courtney rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-book, non-fiction

It's pretty rare that I read non-fiction, but when it's packaged up all nice and comic-like, it's much easier for me to be willing to pick it up. And this book is well-worth picking up. Brooke Gladstone of NPR takes the reader through an extensive investigation into journalism and the media. If you think you know the media, you likely don't even know a fraction of the story. Gladstone not only tells us of the history of media, particularly American-style reporting, she also reveals the biases of...more

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Nov 04, 2011 James Payne rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics, criticism, history, journalism, media, nonfiction

Disappointing. This book is not "visionary," nor is it particularly "opinionated"as it has been billed; it is certainly not a "manifesto" as that implies the book is articulating some idea outside of normal liberal-establishment orthodoxy. And man, you need some outsized blinders on to consider that orthodoxy coherent.

Gladstone starts the book by saying there is nothing "conspiratorial" about mainstream media - a remark I can only imagine is an unnamed naming of Manufacturing Consent, which, wh...more

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May 02, 2013 Ron Pratt rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Influencing Machine by Brooke Gladstone is a wonderful book!

Its one of those rare titles I didn’t know I wanted and now I can’t live without.

Whether it’s the “liberal media” or “the lame stream media,” we’ve all heard about “media bias.” Most of us now expect our news to be flavored to suit our taste. Isn’t that why we have Fox, MSNBC, CNN, and NPR? So, everyone can partake of the kind of news they like. Brooke Gladstone, however, turns most of our media expectations wonderfully upside down...more

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About Brooke Gladstone

Brooke Gladstone is cohost of NPR's On the Media and a former senior editor at Weekend Edition and All Things Considered. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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