Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator

by Ryan Holiday

The media, when it’s functioning properly, protects the public against marketers and their ceaseless attempts to trick people into buying things. I’ve come to realize that that is not how it is today. Marketers and the media—me and the bloggers—we’re on the same team, and way too often you are played into watching with rapt attention as we deceive you. And you don’t even know that’s going on because the content you get has been dressed up and fed to you as news.

you see some site air a suspect accusation against someone—say, that a politician had an affair—and then other blogs, readers, and comedians use that as material to make snarky jokes. The way they see it, it’s not their job to prove whether the accusation is true. They’re entertainers. The whole subject’s sketchy or inaccurate origins get lost once the jokes pile up. All that matters is that people are talking about it. And once blogs do this, they will not relent. Not until the subject is reduced to a permanent caricature.

Roger Ebert calls snarking “cultural vandalism.”

SOCIOLOGIST GERALD CROMER ONCE NOTED THAT the decline of public executions coincided almost exactly with the rise of the mass newspaper. Oscar Wilde said it better: “In the old days men had the rack. Now they have the Press.” If only they knew what was coming next: Online lynch mobs. Attack blogs. Smear campaigns. Snark. Cyberbullying. Distributed denial of service attempts. Internet meltdowns. Anonymous tipsters. Blog wars. Trolls. Trial by comment section.

“Well, let’s remember, we have had presidents…from Jefferson, to Roosevelt, to Kennedy, to Clinton, who have been great presidents…. I think we risk losing some of the best people who can run for public office by our obsessive focus on the private lives of public figures.”

You used to have to be a national hero before you got the privilege of the media and the public turning on you. You had to be a president or a millionaire or an artist. Now we tear people down just as we’ve begun to build them up. We do this to our fameballs. Our viral video stars. Our favorite new companies. Even random citizens who pop into the news because they did something interesting, unusual, or stupid. First we celebrate them, then we turn to snark, and then, finally, to merciless decimation. No wonder only morons and narcissists enter the public sphere.

pseudo-events are anything planned deliberately to attract the attention of the media. A quick run down the list of pseudo-events shows their indispensability to the news business: press releases, award ceremonies, red-carpet events, premieres, product launches, anniversaries, grand openings, “leaks,” the contrite celebrity interview after a scandal, the sex tape, the tell-all, the public statement, controversial advertisements, marches on Washington, press junkets, and on and on.

WHEN YOU SEE A BLOG BEGIN WITH “ACCORDING TO A tipster …” know that the tipster was someone like me tricking the blogger into writing what I wanted. When you see “We’re hearing reports” know that reports could mean anything from random mentions on Twitter to message board posts, or worse. When you see “leaked” or “official documents” know that the leak really meant someone just e-mailed a blogger, and that the documents are almost certainly not official and are usually fake or fabricated for the purpose of making desired information public. When you see “BREAKING” or “We’ll have more details as the story develops” know that what you’re reading reached you too soon. There was no wait and see, no attempt at confirmation, no internal debate over whether the importance of the story necessitated abandoning caution. The protocol is going to press early, publishing before the basics facts are confirmed, and not caring whether it causes problem for people. When you see “Updated” on a story or article know that no one actually bothered to rework the story in light of the new facts—they just copied and pasted some shit at the bottom of the article. When you see “Sources tell us …” know that these sources are not vetted, they are rarely corroborated, and they are desperate for attention. When you see a story tagged with “EXCLUSIVE” know that it means the blog and the source worked out an arrangement that included favorable coverage. Know that in many cases the source gave this exclus...

Why does this matter? We’ve been taught to believe what we read. That where there is smoke there must be fire, and that if someone takes the time to write down and publish something, they believe in what they are saying. The wisdom behind those beliefs is no longer true, yet the public marches on, armed with rules of thumb that make them targets for manipulation rather than protection.

The central question for the Internet is not, Is this entertaining? but, Will this get attention? Will it spread?

When intelligent people read, they ask themselves a simple question: What do I plan to do with this information?

There is no practical purpose in our lives for most of what blogs produce other than distraction.