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

by Ryan Holiday

Online, outlets have to publish so much so quickly and at such razor-thin margins that no media outlet can afford to do good work. But of course, no one can admit any of this without the whole system collapsing.

“It’s difficult to get a man to understand something,” Upton Sinclair once said, “when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

it illustrates a part of the media system that is hidden from your view: how the news is created and driven by marketers, and that no one does anything to stop it.

Political blogs need things to cover; traffic increases during election Reality (election far away) does not align with this Political blogs create candidates early, gravitating toward the absurd and controversial; election cycle starts earlier The person they cover, by virtue of coverage, becomes actual candidate (or president) Blogs profit (literally); the public loses