The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them (Paperback)

~ (Author), David Goodman (Author) "THE MORNING STARTED LIKE every other. It ended like no other..." (more)
Key Phrases: crony connections, oil dictatorship, deportation officer, United States, New York, East Timor (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Journalist and radio host Goodman brings her hard-hitting, no-holds-barred brand of reporting to an array of human rights, government accountability and media responsibility issues, and the result is bracing and timely. Goodman isn't about to let anyone slide by with easy explanations, not even then President Clinton when he called in on her daily Pacifica news show. And she is fierce and tireless in her commitment to dig behind official versions of the facts to get to very different stories. Her analysis of Iraq War contracts won by certain key Bush campaign donors will open many eyes, not only with its neat comparison of donation amount with contract value but also with its bold presentation of "Crony Connections." A gadfly's life in these turbulent times is neither restful nor boring, and Goodman's perspective on events like genocidal massacres in East Timor and mainstream coverage of the Jessica Lynch rescue is both important and alarming. Instances in which newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post have published stories based on leaked reports from unnamed government sources only to have to retract the stories later as being unfounded allow Goodman to argue that sophisticated news management techniques of spin, disinformation and controlled access to sources are undermining the reliability of media reporting. How, she asks, could journalists "embedded" with U.S. troops in Iraq be objective reporters of all that was occurring there, and whose interests were being served? These and other provocative questions power Goodman's stirring call for a democratic media serving a democratic society.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Goodman's high-octane blend of investigative journalism and political activism has been the force behind Pacifica radio's Democracy Now!, earning her praise and vitriol alike (not to mention nearly getting her killed by Indonesians in East Timor). Her first book, coauthored with her brother, David, recounts some of her most hard-hitting confrontations with corporate types and politicos of all persuasions, covering much of the same territory as other anti-Bush books and then some, at a compelling, breathless pace. Her real target, however, is not the oil-defense-politics Establishment, but their enablers, the media, which are cowed less by their corporate owners than by their own capacity for self-censorship in the guise of patriotism. NPR listeners, New York Times readers, you're not off the hook; Goodman is just as frustrated with your news outlets' silence when it comes to dead Iraqi civilians and antiwar viewpoints. Although her suggestions for how, exactly, to infuse media with integrity are perhaps quieter than her condemnations of hypocrisy, Goodman's vision for media's role in society is as vigorous as her confidence in the power of motivated communities. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion (March 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140130799X
• ISBN-13: 978-1401307998
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (81 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #419,036 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

108 of 113 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shattering lame-press expectations, April 2, 2004

By	Nikolas Sokol (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Exception to the Rulers, The: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them (Hardcover)

Amy Goodman effectively expresses a rare and necessary voice in The Exception to the Rulers. Few, if any, journalists have so tirelessly investigated, analyzed and articulated to the public the innumerable, disheartening examples of failed policies of US power politicians and profiteers and the resulting dire consequences. This awesome work has the potential to slice through the media cloud that typically veils these people and issues for what they really are. Congratulations to the Goodman's, Pacifica and the Democracy Now team.

113 of 122 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent but frightening, April 29, 2004

By	Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Exception to the Rulers, The: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them (Hardcover)

If a reader has to choose one exposé book on the Bush Administration amongst those of Woodward, Clark, Dean, etc. the Goodman siblings is the one to select. One just needs to read the authors' logical argument on the Bush "oilopoly" to understand why especially in light of the alleged oil deal with the Saudis and the oily résumés of much of the leadership.

The Goodmans' analysis of the Iraq War ignores the pronounced ever changing root reasons for armed combat, but instead follows the money of who gained (via contracts); the authors make a powerful case that major Bush campaign donors are the winners while soldiers and their family members, and the American tax payer pay the price. Underlying this and other arguments is their basic tenet that professional gurus manipulate the media using incredible spins and leaks of "dis and misinformation" that Spielberg would envy, and the worst gimmick to date is the in your pocket access that rigs the journalist's feelings. Can one really say something negative about the troops who feed a reporter, keep them safe, and share stories about home? Though readers will wonder why Amy has not been declared an enemy combatant, this insightful cautionary tome condemns the loss of truth, justice and the American way of freedom under the pretext of spreading democracy to oil slicks.

Harriet Klausner

42 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Disturbing Examination of American News Media, May 26, 2005

By	Steve Koss (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The Founding Fathers of the United States, well-versed in the principles of Athenian democracy, understood the relationship between democratic government and an educated, informed electorate. To choose just one from among those distinguished framers and implementers of our Constitution, James Madison wrote: "A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy. A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives them."

Amy Goodman, the tirelessly crusading host of radio and public access television's "Democracy Now!" program, brilliantly demonstrates in THE EXCEPTION TO THE RULERS just how far we have strayed from Madison's (and Jefferson's) ideals of an educated electorate. At a time when Americans have more news sources than ever - newspapers, magazines, radio, public television, cable television, books, 24-hour news channels, weblogs and Internet websites - we are less well-informed than ever. Rather, we are more ill-informed than ever, bathed every day in such news as the six major corporations who control over 75% of our media outlets choose to present.

As Ms. Goodman aptly illustrates, these six companies are not only motivated by profit, they pander to government officials to preserve their all-important access to even more government propaganda. Ms. Goodman identifies their collective failings as sins of both commission (one-sided reporting, willingly adopting the official government viewpoints, and allowing themselves to be co-opted through such techniques as embedded reporting) and omission (failing drastically to present alternative viewpoints). The end result is a dramatic failure to inform the populace. Parroting official government pronouncements, limiting access to public airways to those who represent or side with government, suppressing or trivializing dissent, fearing government retaliation for too-critical reporting, refusing to demand meaningful answers, kowtowing to business interests - what sounds like the press in Communist China is now what constitutes the mass news media in the United States. If this sounds exaggerated, read Chapter 10 of this book, entitled "Killing the Messengers;" George Orwell and Aldous Huxley were right.

EXCEPTION TO THE RULERS is a stunning indictment of modern news media. Amy Goodman offers numerous examples, ranging from the shameful, pre-war shilling of the New York Times's Judith Miller to the collective media failure to report on U.S. involvement in Indonesia's 15+-year genocide in East Timor. In addition to her own experiences in East Timor and with Bill Clinton and Sally Jesse Raphael, she describes the failings of post-9/11 reporting, the run-up to Afghanistan and Iraq, the Jessica Lynch propaganda fiasco, the death sentence of Mumia Abu-Jamal, domestic use of psyops (Psychological Operations) techniques during the current Iraq war, and Michael Powell's near-dismantling of the FCC's regulatory function. One quote alone from Mr. Powell is worth the price of this book: "The night I was sworn in, I waited for a visit from the angel of the public interest. I waited all night, but she did not come. And in fact, five months into this job, I still have had no divine awakening and no one has issued me my public interest crystal ball." Aside from its appalling, Brobdingnagian hubris, could any single comment speak more to the current Bush Administration's blatant disregard of democratic principles?

Still, this book is not a mere academic diatribe. What makes EXCEPTION TO THE RULERS so powerful is that Ms. Goodman speaks from firsthand knowledge - she risked her life in East Timor, she reported from the streets of Seattle during the 1999 WTO demonstrations, and she had the nerve to confront Tom Brokaw. Ms. Goodman is a model of journalism in its proper sense, as a search for truth and a stubborn insistence in asking the difficult questions. Her life is not the gleaming, pampered, high-profile, content-free, uncontroversial, corporate party line reporting of Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings, but the down-and-dirty work of a journalist seeking the other side of the story. Her approach characterizes the news media we idealize in a democratic society, yet sadly these voices are in danger of disappearing or being marginalized into irrelevance.

Where are the Jeffersons and the Madisons when we need them to remind us of the critical underpinnings of democratic government? Read this book and weep for what has been lost, and what more we are in danger of losing as the Amy Goodman's of the world are forced into steadily smaller corners.