Customer Reviews

True Lies

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In the maelstrom surrounding media bias in the wake of the recent CBS scandal and the Fair and Balanced Parody that is Fox News, this book is a welcome change. It covers critical stories about civil rights, the electronic voting scam and the real dangers to our troops in Iraq with candor that is unmatched. While most of the criticism is leveled at the Bush Administration, I consider this book to be a truly fair and balanced look at the issues the media refuses to cover on account of rampant corporate control over the major networks and the failure of journalists to do anything more than report what they are told by their corporate/governmental masters. I'm an Independent voter and found this book to be extremely enlightening. Don't read it if you have anger management issues.

A comprehensive review of the most intense under-reported investigations of recent years, True Lies mercilessly describes exactly how the mainstream media have deliberately sidestepped and even downplayed these unwelcome news items. These stories include the questionable promotion of unauditable voting machines (as a remedy for election miscounts?), the debilitating effects of exposure to dust contaminated from the detonation of DU-tipped weapons used heavily in Baghdad, and the FDA's blind and submissive role in "regulating" the DoD's compulsory experimental use of substandard vaccines on servicemen and women in the armed forces.

Crisp, poetic sentences and transparent, original investigative reporting are trademarks of GNN, the brash, aesthetically aggressive production company the authors co-founded, that spearheads the mounting campaign to mobilize a new generation of analytical, evidence-driven citizen muckrakers. Inspiring by example with a harrowing account of their own field tests to measure radioactivity levels around battlefield sites and junkyards in Iraq, Stephen Marshall and Anthony Lappé challenge their fellow media guerrillas to create "a highly branded, charismatic, and controversial" field of competition in the lagging, consolidation-driven information market.

True Lies is evidence that their ambitions are firmly rooted in the world of today's possibilities. This is a comprehensive survey of the most urgently relevant (yet publicly marginalized) of current events, news stories that have been reported only in the alternative press. In unfolding these stories and celebrating the triumphs of investigators like Mark Benjamin and Bev Harris, who have raised their voices against the deafening silence of a broadcast news system that seems to function as the Washington establishment's push-button intercom device, they document an ascendant revolutionary underground news culture fit to seriously threaten the media giants' rigged lock on America's public knowledge base.

The state of journalism today is horrible and sickening. I've worked in the field for 15 years. When I was majoring in journalism in college the first rule of journalism was, accuracy, accuracy, accuracy. But that ethic has been used as an excuse not to report anything at all. What happened to Gary Webb (RIP) and what happened to the employees at CBS was deplorable. One or two inaccuracies, while unfortunate do not denounce the truth their stories present. This is what happens to journalists who try to bring you the truth, which is also why REAL investigative journalism in the U.S. is all but dead. It is absolutely essential today for people to find alternative sources of news, because mainsteam media is not there to inform you... it is there to control and influence what you think. This book is a great start for people to re-educate themselves on today's current events so they can begin to make sensible decisions and take actions in their own lives.

I picked up this book out of increasing interest in the current state of media politics, but also largely because of my curiosity in what GNN was trying to push. I was not disappointed in the least. This is easily one of the most engaging books I've read recently.

I'm currently reading Amy Goodman's The Exception to the Rulers, which is also good, but is upon reading the subtitle (Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media that Love Them), is immediately identifiable as having a leftist bias (which to an extent probably limits readership). What impressed me most about True Lies, was that while it's progressive, it doesn't come off as leftist propaganda. In a time of increasing political polarization and media bias, Lappé and Marshall bring some dignity back to the field of journalism. They dig deep to uncover answers themselves rather than regurgitate the garbage most mainstream media tends to pass around in its incestuous circle. Not only do they tackle important issues and questions surrounding 9/11, the war in Iraq, and our own elections, but they do it with integrity. Instead of trying to push an angle, they present multiple viewpoints that are many times not fully conclusive. This might sound like somewhat of a letdown, but to the contrary, it sets a tone that engages readers to take it one step further and start questioning these issues on their own.

And on top of being professional, engaging and informative, this book is very accessible. As someone who is only now becoming more increasingly engaged in politics and media awareness, this book was very easy to read.

I can't wait to see what's next.
(*on that note - if you enjoy this book, make sure to check out GNN's documentary "BattleGround: 21 Days on the Empire's Edge," which is easily one of the best documentaries I've ever seen, for all the same reasons True Lies is so well done.)

Lappé and Marshall have written a phenomenal book on a myriad of under-reported topics in a wity and engaging style. But what truly separates True Lies from the pack of lesser 'reporters` is a genuine dedication to the hallmarks of responsible journalism-namely, a fact-driven journey with credible refernces and relevant personal accounts...an approach the mainstream media needs to seriously rediscover.

A book that should be read by all, from the layman to the president. Instead of relying on commercial news sources, these gentlemen took it upon themselves to dig as deep as possible to find the REAL stories behind the spin. Working with primary sources and avoiding conspiracy theories that often sink such efforts, they have produced a book to be read and studied by hard core conservatives, bleeding heart liberals, and most importantly, the vast majority of us in between.

GNN.TV has done it again,

After exhaustive research into the world of real, GNN.TV has finally found what the anonymous Bush Admin official meant when he said they were no longer in the "reality-based community" (as quoted in the October 17th edition of the New York Times Magazine by Ron Suskind.

With powerful and cool-headed writing the authors describe in vivid detail the abundance of misinformation and self-censoring being perpetuated by the traditional media outlets. From the actual events in the NBC newsroom on the infameous "calling" of florida for Bush in 2000, to the overt suppression of information by the whitehouse and CNN transcripts of press conferences (with embarassing questions) TRUE LIES lays it all out.

It is impossible for any rational and "reality-based" individual to read this book and not question the self-deceiving nature of our society. How could we rise as an empire in the world when we don't believe that we are an empire (that we were actually BORN from one!).

Written in the GONZO-BEATNIK fashion a freeflowing consciousness of stories and events that take us from the crash site of flight 93 to the streets of baghdad, TRUE LIES is a wild ride and a must read for anyone with ears to hear and an eye to see.

This is a guaranteed must-read for people interested in media studies, the double-edged sword between media and political connections and undecided voters before November rolls around.

Lappe and Marshall (a widely-published journalist dedicated to informing and reporting [rather than promoting the status quo], the other an award-winning filmmaker [the GNN movie "Battleground" just won a Silver Hugo @ the Chicago Int'l. Film Festival]) expose a concise and insightful look into the questions surrounding S-11, political-industrial-military-corporate connections and a discussion on the view of the American mainstream media's transformation since deregulation.

Simple calculations that could have easily questioned the speed of Air Force planes on the morning of S-11, as an example, is shown how the American mainstream media has become a voice for powerful interests at an exponential rate over the past 20 years.

As a former journalist for both a small-town newspaper and a closely-knit political newspaper, this reviewer will agree that reporters are asked to question and dispute a consistent flood of information that can turn into a continuous conveyor belt of propaganda, if it leaves no room for a reporter to argue or if an editor/publisher has a hidden agenda of their own.

In closing, we can see the results of the media developing into a corporate mentality, by guarding itself and its highly-regarded information sources from internal differences, such as the internal attack against Jon Stewart. The AP calls his well-stated comments as 'an outburst' on Crossfire and appears to make a mockery of his appearance to be on 60 Minutes. It is almost as if an ombudsman in any industry is a thing of the past in American culture... that is, if the message ever got out.

A palapable excitement and enthusiasm exudes from the razor-sharp reporting herein, the psyched-up zing of a player in top form smacking out linedrive truthballs and cruising on the high of doing the right thing... Lappe and Marshall peel off the pudding skin of America and find both the curdled mayo of deceit, and remarkably, the rich sweetness of undersung heros fighting the good fight. These adventurous journalists and their skillfull storytelling (as opposed to talltale-telling)take the reader on a rough, readable and rewarding ride as they report the under-reported.

This is the reaction that I believe most Americans will have when reading the important, relevant, and entirely suppressed stories in True Lies. Lappe, Marshal et al do a meticulously researched and beautifully stylized job of presenting the most important news items you've never heard. In this new media age, it is more important than ever to have dedicated journalists who aren't afraid to rake through the rubbish tossed our way by the white house to find the truth embedded in the lies.
From hacked elections to media driven character assassinations to radioactive weapons used by the US, if you didn't read about it here, chances are you didn't read about it.