Sound and Fury: The Making of the Washington Punditocracy [Paperback]

Eric Alterman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2000

For this new edition, Eric Alterman has made revisions throughout the book, with new material on the impact of the O. J. Simpson trial and the rise of MSNBC as well as on the Clinton scandals, the media's obsession with Monica Lewinsky, and the resulting conflation of investigative reporting with gossip.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This is a revised and expanded version of a 1993 book in which Nation columnist Alterman lamented the decline of political discourse in America and blamed its sorry state on the rise of political pundits--those talking heads and self-proclaimed experts who appear on television so frequently. We now live in a Punditocracy, Alterman wrote; our very democracy is "imperiled by the decrepit state of our national public discourse." This edition has been revised to reflect the changes in that discourse over the past six years--especially the Clinton era explosion of punditry and the rise of cable television wonks. Alterman still tends toward hyperbole and overstatement, but he nonetheless astutely points a finger at the superficial, vitriolic state of American political discussion and seeks to revive enlightened discussion in public discourse. Recommended for public and academic libraries.
-Michael A. Genovese, Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Cornell University Press; Rev Sub edition (January 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801486394
• ISBN-13: 978-0801486395
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #791,185 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Blind leading the Blind..., August 3, 2000

By 

Ben Nedivi - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sound and Fury: The Making of the Washington Punditocracy (Paperback)

This is a powerful and eye-opening book from Eric Alterman. He takes off where Noam Chomsky (Manufacturing Consent) and Neil Postman (Amusing Ourselves to Death) left us wanting more. If you don't believe me, watch the Republican Convention, or as I like to call it, a 4-day television commercial, and you will understand...Thank you Mr. Alterman...I'm looking forward to your next one.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Important Topic; Impressive Effort, January 19, 2004

By 

wildbill (Tacoma, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sound and Fury: The Making of the Washington Punditocracy (Paperback)

Although this revised study of the chattering class incorporates some of its author's liberal-left proclivities and perspectives, Mr. Alterman seems to this reader to try to be as objective as he can be.

Alterman's relative objectivity is crucial because his topic is so important: public opinion in the United States is often shaped by clever phrases, memorable sound bites, and comfortable beliefs spouted into popular culture via broadcast or written media. Alterman's contention is that conventional beliefs are molded and common sense is formed in large measure through the influence of observers who are more famous than informed.

Pundits rule America, the author argues, by constructing and maintaining "informed opinion" that marginalizes alternative perspectives left and right. Commentators narrow the possibilities and discount the imponderables, thereby deepening troughs in the stream where the opinion-shapers feel most comfortable. If these spinmeisters succeed in moving this or that trough closer to the opinions fashionable in their own circles, so much the better. Their most important goal, however, is to preserve, protect, and defend the mass-mediated mainstream in which they are reckoned to be authoritative.

This "dredging" narrows the diversity of acceptable facts, beliefs, perspectives, and insights that will be carried in mass media. As a consequence, novel critiques, original thinking, and perceptive syntheses usually cannot penetrate sequences of fabricated, exaggerated threats and reassurances that characterize everyday debates on television, the Internet, or radio and in newspapers and periodicals. This conventional wisdom tended by the pundits not only amplifyies the problem that so many ordinary Americans know little about politics, government, their own country, and the world but also exacerbates the difficulty that so many people who trouble themselves to follow the news know so much that is not true.

Alterman deftly describes and documents how pundits set themselves up as experts by making themselves well known for being well known (to steal Daniel Boorstin's phrase). Many of them know a little about a little. Through marketing and self-promotion, they pose as knowing much about nearly everything. The reader is first amused and then amazed at how little it takes for this columnist or that essayist to become a frequent guest on chatfests. The more that the pundit pretends to know without actually risking his or her "authority" (often pundits have no "authority" in any subject to begin with; they have merely recognition or notoriety) and the more memorable their snappy patter, the more invitations that television is likely to extend. If you have wondered how Alec Baldwin or Martin Sheen or Ann Coulter or Peggy Noonan came to populate cable "news" shows, this book will suggest some plausible hypothesies.

When Alterman documents how succinct phrases and other arts of punditry actually clash with genuine knowledge and merited authority, the reader begins to appreciate how the sound and fury of these media creations have diminished politics and impoverished discourse.

P.S. Does anyone else suspect that the customer review from "A reader from Alexandria, VA USA" was crafted by some lefty to imply that one who disliked Alterman's book due to Alterman's writing would himself or herself write so poorly?

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Let the Fur Fly, July 17, 2003

By 

John G. Hilliard (Toronto Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sound and Fury: The Making of the Washington Punditocracy (Paperback)

I am a self confessed political junky which means that as well as reading a number of books on the American political process I also indulge in a few hours a week of pundit television. With that said I was more then a little excited to read this book given that basically it covers the people that cover the politics I like. The book is not just a review of the major TV personalities of the day. The author starts out with something of a history of the pundit profession. This section held the least interest for me and I found myself skipping a few pages here and there. The author also covers the major print columnists that are making their voices heard.

The real interest for me was the details on the television personalities. Even though this book was written in 92, many of the same people are still the pundits stars now. The author has a sharp wit, which he uses with deviating effect on these masters of the sound bite. He takes on each of the pundits and gives you his opinion and all the gossip that is fit to print. He comments run from sharp to down right nasty. For some reason this author has a rather large chip on his shoulder and is not shy about venting his dislike via this book. He also lets many of his personal political views slide into the writing, at times I think he really wanted to do a review of Reagan / Bush presidencies.