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Breaking The News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Why, exactly, has the media establishment become so unpopular with so many people?..." (more)
Key Phrases: public journalism, network news operations, media establishment, White House, Bill Clinton, Washington Post (more...)

4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A lot of big-shot journalists didn't like this book, a systematic jeremiad about the current sad state of American political journalism. For instance, both the New York Times op-ed page and the New Yorker took pains to excoriate the book and its author--pretty good hints that Fallows is onto something. His point is that greed and intellectual sloth have fostered a political media elite that increasingly focuses on spin and ignores substance at the very time when solving the country's real problems requires all possible nuance. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Featuring a new afterword, "Fallows's rousing jeremiad is an important beacon for everyone concerned about the news media's poor performance in helping the public make sane choices about the way we live, work and govern," said PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vintage Books Ed edition (January 14, 1997)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0679758569
ISBN-13: 978-0679758563
Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #362,966 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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› Visit Amazon's James Fallows Page

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
Why, exactly, has the media establishment become so unpopular with so many people? Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
public journalism, network news operations, media establishment, military reformers, campaign coverage, mainstream journalism

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
White House, Bill Clinton, Washington Post, New York Times, Newt Gingrich, President Clinton, Cokie Roberts, United States, Hillary Clinton, Bob Dole, The Capital Gang, George Bush, Los Angeles, State of the Union, New Republic, George Will, Social Security, World War, Mike Wallace, North Kosanese, Meet the Press, Steve Roberts, Ronald Reagan, Ted Koppel, Theodore White

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Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats

Citations (learn more)

This book cites 30 books:

The Lonely Crowd, Revised edition: A Study of the Changing American Character by David Riesman on page 151
Under Fire: An American Story by Oliver L. North on page 2
Hot Air: All Talk, All The Time by Howard Kurtz in Back Matter
Causes and Consequences of the Great Depression by Stewart Ross on page 155
Out of Order by England Press New in Back Matter

See all 30 books this book cites

97 books cite this book:

Digital Dilemmas: Ethical Issues for Online Media Professionals (Media and Technology Series) by Robert I. Berkman on page 62, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
Getting the Whole Story: Reporting and Writing the News by Cheryl J. Gibbs on page 24, page 349, and page 364
Custodians of Conscience by James S. Ettema in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East: The Role of Lobbies and Special Interest Groups by Janice Terry on page 15, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
The Rise and Fall of the Media Establishment by Darrell M. West on page 83, page 115, and page 126

See all 97 books citing this book

Books on Related Topics (learn more)

What Liberal Media? by Eric Alterman

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Customer Reviews

21 Reviews

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Average Customer Review

4.3 out of 5 stars (21 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Terrific & Penetrating Look At How The Media Fails Us!, September 5, 2000

By	Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

Few authors are as capable of approaching the unenviable task of explaining the otherwise baffling devolution in both the content and context of the mass media's coverage of the news as brilliantly as is noted journalist James Fallows in this literate, scathing, and thought-provoking broadside against his fellow journalists and the organizations they work for. By illuminating the specific circumstances attending the startling transformation in terms of the way news is viewed and covered by the media, he consistently gives readers reason for concern, and often for alarm. For example, Fallows contends that the viewing public increasingly distrusts the media because the public recognizes they can no longer depend on the media to provide the essential information citizens need to make sense out of current events and the world at large.

In a carefully constructed look at how this has happened, Fallows masterfully describes how several aspects of media's coverage of the news has had the net effect of its become more of an effort to entertain and less an exercise in edifying and informing the public in an objective and disinterested fashion. As a result, the media increasingly presents public life in terms of a "depressing spectacle" rather than in its proper context as one of several vital aspects of a vibrant democratic experiment in progress. By concentrating almost exclusively on those more entertaining elements of the news involves conflict or controversy, the media offers us a glossy, superficial and profoundly inaccurate perspective of the often intricately complicated world outside our doors, and in the process makes the world even less comprehensible to those of us attempting to make sense of it all.

Fallows argues that at least part of this process is propelled by the phenomenon of corporate acquisition of news agencies by large conglomerates whose concern for "the bottom line" has corrupted the news organization's fabled ability to maintain objectivity and disinterest. This results in concerns for competitive ratings, and a desperate attempt to compete with more traditional entertainment programs for audience share. As a result, news programs go for what is shocking, flashy, and provocative, so that "what bleeds, leads" the evening's news coverage. In a similar financial concern for confining costs, a plethora of quasi-news programs featuring "talking heads" featuring well known journalists like Robert Novak who ostensibly discuss the news but are actually offering their contrived punditry for our entertainment. In such a world dominated by a script requiring conflict and controversy, politicians are covered like sports stars, and all political actions, from attempts to pass healthcare legislation to decisions to bomb Iraq, are viewed strictly in terms of their consequence for the politicians involved and seldom discussed or debated in terms of their specifics or substantive elements.

Yet clever parlor talk by pontificating pundits does little to help us comprehend or interpret current events or important social, economic, or political issues; in this way our overflowing servings of political entertainment disguised as public service are actually obstacles to public awareness. It is this unintended consequence of the change in the news that Fallows is most concerned with, for to the extent the media becomes an element in managing the news rather than a disinterested purveyor of it, it becomes a potentially anti-democratic vehicle for anyone clever enough and cynical enough to manipulate it. In this sense this book is a call to arms, and a compassionate plea to his colleagues to correct the serious dysfunctions now visiting professional journalism. This is an important book, and one I heartily recommend to all citizens concerned with how the media is increasingly abrogating their civic responsibilities in favor of serving their own parochial secular interests.

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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb book on our most important national issue!, January 14, 2004

By	Tracy Marks (Arlington, MA USA) - See all my reviews

Appalled at the biases, distortions and omissions in the media, which have been worsening since 9-11, I recently launched on a campaign of study in regard to learning about the deterioration of the media and the influence of corporate control - and what we can do to counter it. This is one of the best, most informative and most readable of the six books on the subject I've read. I can't emphasize enough how important it is, how much our corporate-run media influence political thinking, decisionmaking and voting and influence not only the outcome of elections but the agenda and actions of politicians - and how motivated we need to become in order to counter it, to become informed about political realities rather than propaganda and myth, and as a country, to become more of a democracy and less of a plutocracy. The biggest difficult we face is that the media itself is not likely to publicize its own corruption, and is actively blocking attempts of people concerned with these issues inform the public. I also highly recommend the books on media disinformation and reform by Robert McChesney, including his mini-books Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy and Our Media, Not Theirs.

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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Informative and Accurate Account of Politcal Journalism, August 15, 2000

By	Anne Grossman (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

Fallows does a great job of using simple language to convey the complex issues that introduce themself in political journalism. He is surely looking out for the best interests of the public and the values of American democracy in this text. Reading this book will make you a more conscientious citizen, voter, and newspaper reader. The facts that he reveals about journalism should be known by all, and he writes with genuine concern for the state of a fragile American democracy and tainted political journalism. I would reccomend it for both academic and entertainment purposes.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Make what's important interesting

James Fallows' "Breaking the News" is especially timely considering the challenges currently facing the news media. Read more

Published 2 months ago by Cleve Mathews

5.0 out of 5 stars News reporting as sports and gossip
The mainstream media reports on important topics all the time. If the issues are important you have to wonder why it is so boring and seems so irrelevant? Read more

Published 18 months ago by railmeat

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting New Take on Something We Already Know
The author has done a superb job of researching this treatise on a media out of control. Many we illustrative examples are given to prove the author's point and the writing style... Read more

Published on November 24, 2006 by Michael A. Newman

3.0 out of 5 stars good book but not his best work
Fallows is very smart and an excellent writer. This book is very good but I do not believe it to be his best work. Read more

Published on March 8, 2006 by george

5.0 out of 5 stars Liberal vs. Conservative? No Contest
I first met James Fallows online in the early '90s, and then in person several times. For a Rhodes Scholar and Harvard grad, he was surprisingly in touch with the realities I... Read more

Published on October 18, 2004 by David B. Whittle

4.0 out of 5 stars media wanting power
The book Breaking The News:How the Media Undermine American Democracy by James Fallows is a well written book. Read more

Published on March 26, 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond liberal vs. conservative media bias
I found this book admirable for its refusal to take sides in the current "liberal media vs. right-wing propaganda" debate. Read more

Published on August 31, 2003

3.0 out of 5 stars helped to quanitfy what was bothering me but not conclusive
The majority of this book helped to quantify a lot of what was bothering me about the press these days. Read more

Published on April 9, 2003 by kovert

4.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful and insightful
Fallows has written a very thoughtful and insightful analysis of the sorry state of the news business. Read more

Published on November 4, 2002 by James H. Bluck

4.0 out of 5 stars Don't be fooled.
The author cites the many reasons the public is fed up with journalists, thus stirring up the reader's anti-media passions. Read more

Published on March 30, 2002

› See all 21 customer reviews...

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