Buy new:
$11.30$11.30
FREE delivery:
March 13 - 15
Ships from: Santanatecllc Sold by: Santanatecllc
Buy used: $8.78
Other Sellers on Amazon
FREE Shipping
94% positive over last 12 months
FREE Shipping
100% positive over last 12 months
& FREE Shipping
70% positive over last 12 months
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Follow the author
OK
Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington. Hardcover – November 4, 2014
Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.
View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.
Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.
Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.
Purchase options and add-ons
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
Seasoned reporter and author of The Smear, Sharyl Attkisson reveals how she has been electronically surveilled while digging deep into the Obama Administration and its scandals, and offers an incisive critique of her industry and the shrinking role of investigative journalism in today’s media.
Americans are at the mercy of powerful figures in business and government who are virtually unaccountable. The Obama Administration in particular has broken new ground in its monitoring of journalists, intimidation and harassment of opposition groups, and surveillance of private citizens.
Sharyl Attkisson has been a journalist for more than thirty years. During that time she has exposed scandals and covered controversies under both Republican and Democratic administrations. She has also seen the opponents of transparency go to ever greater lengths to discourage and obstruct legitimate reporting.
Attkisson herself has been subjected to “opposition research” efforts and spin campaigns. These tactics increased their intensity as she relentlessly pursued stories that the Obama Administration dismissed. Stonewalled is the story of how her news reports were met with a barrage of PR warfare tactics, including online criticism, as well as emails and phone calls up the network chain of command in an effort to intimidate and discourage the next story. In Stonewalled, Attkisson recounts her personal tale, setting it against the larger story of the decline of investigative journalism and unbiased truth telling in America today.
- Print length432 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper
- Publication dateNovember 4, 2014
- Dimensions6 x 1.33 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100062322842
- ISBN-13978-0062322845
Frequently bought together

Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Editorial Reviews
Review
A deep, nuanced and indignant indictment of the players who have made investigative journalism harder to conduct, even if those actors are other journalists. — Kirkus Reviews
“Attkisson offers a harrowing and gripping account of journalism as practiced these days in Washington. She skillfully unveils how she discovered the secret scheme to spy on her. The larger and more disturbing takeaway is how the mainstream are falling down on the job.” — Jeff Gerth, Pulitzer Prize winning former investigative reporter for the New York Times
From the Back Cover
Who’s been hacking Sharyl Attkisson’s computers? Computers that turn themselves on in the night, make strange noises, then shut themselves down. Whoever is doing it is using highly sophisticated spyware available only to our top intelligence agencies. Is someone sending Attkisson a message?
Washington, D.C., has always been a tough town for investigative journalists. But in the age of Obama, the government has taken the tried-and-true techniques of bureaucratic stonewalling to unprecedented heights. What’s more, it has added harassment, intimidation, and outright spying to the mix.
Through more than thirty years as an award-winning investigative reporter, Sharyl Attkisson fought tirelessly to uncover wrongdoing by those in power, whether major corporations, government officials, or presidential administrations of both parties. But when she started looking into stories involving the Obama administration’s mistakes and misjudgments in a series of high-profile cases—stories few in mainstream journalism would touch—she was confronted with the administration’s use of hardball tactics to discourage, block, and actively suppress her investigative work.
A dogged reporter with a well-earned reputation as a “pit bull,” Attkisson filed a series of groundbreaking stories on the Fast and Furious gunwalking program, Obama’s green energy boondoggle, the unanswered questions about Benghazi, and the disastrous rollout of Obamacare. Her news reports were met with a barrage of PR warfare tactics, including emails and phone calls up the network chain of command, criticism from paid-for commenters and bloggers, and a campaign of character assassination that continues to this day. Most disturbing of all, Attkisson reveals that as she broke news on Fast and Furious and Benghazi, her computers and phone lines were hacked and bugged by an unrevealed but tremendously sophisticated party.
Stonewalled is the story of the Obama administration’s efforts to monitor journalists, intimidate and harass opposition groups, and spy on private citizens. But it is also a searing indictment of the timidity of the press and the dangerous decline of investigative journalism and unbiased truth telling in America today.
About the Author
In 2013, she received an Emmy Award for OutstandingInvestigative Journalism for her reporting on "The Business of Congress," whichincluded an undercover investigation into fundraising by Republican freshmen.She received two other Emmy nominations in 2013 for "Benghazi: Dying forSecurity" and "Green Energy Going Red." Additionally, Attkisson received a 2013Daytime Emmy Award as part of the CBSSunday Morning team's entry for Outstanding Morning Program for her report:"Washington Lobbying: K-Street Behind Closed Doors." In September 2012, Attkisson received the Emmy for OutstandingInvestigative Journalism and the RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence inInvestigative Reporting for the "Gunwalker: Fast and Furious" story.
Attkisson received an Investigative Emmy Award in 2009 forher exclusive investigations into the Bush TARP bank bailout. She received anInvestigative Emmy Award in 2002 for her series of exclusive reports about Red Cross mismanagement. She has received numerous Gerald Loeb Finalist awards, including in 2016, and Emmy nominations for reporting on Follow the Money, Congressional oversight, aid to Haiti, Firestone tires, and dangers of prescription drugs and vaccines (including links to autism).
Attkisson is one of the few journalists to have flown in aB-52 on a combat mission and in an F-15 fighter jet Combat AirPatrol flight. She's a fourth degree black belt in TaeKwonDo.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper (November 4, 2014)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 432 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0062322842
- ISBN-13 : 978-0062322845
- Item Weight : 1.35 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 1.33 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #373,066 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #350 in Journalism Writing Reference (Books)
- #529 in Journalist Biographies
- #1,663 in U.S. Political Science
- Customer Reviews:
Important information
To report an issue with this product or seller, click here.
About the author

Sharyl Attkisson is a nonpartisan, five-time Emmy Award winning investigative reporter, recipient of the Edward R. Murrow award for investigative reporting, and a fifth degree black belt Master in TaeKwonDo. She is author of the new book "Slanted" to be released in late November of 2020, and the New York Times bestsellers "The Smear" and "Stonewalled."
Attkisson hosts the nonpartisan Sunday morning national TV news program "Full Measure," which focuses on investigative and accountability reporting. For thirty years, Attkisson was a correspondent and anchor at CBS News, PBS, CNN and in local news.
Attkisson has helped expose the deep astroturf network of political and special interests that influence and control politics, government, the media, social media and much of what people ready every day on the Internet. She is currently suing the U.S. government after multiple independent forensics exams provided evidence that her work and home computers were monitored by unauthorized intruders using software proprietary to a U.S. government agency, as she reported her Emmy award winning stories on alleged government wrongdoing.
In 2013, Attkisson received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for her reporting on "The Business of Congress," whichincluded an undercover investigation into fundraising by Republican freshmen. She received two other Emmy nominations in 2013 for "Benghazi: Dying for Security" and "Green Energy Going Red." Additionally, Attkisson received a 2013 Daytime Emmy Award as part of the CBS Sunday Morning team's entry for Outstanding Morning Program for her report:"Washington Lobbying: K-Street Behind Closed Doors." In September 2012, Attkisson received the Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Journalism and the RTNDA Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence inInvestigative Reporting for the "Gunwalker: Fast and Furious" story.
Attkisson received an Investigative Emmy Award in 2009 forher exclusive investigations into the Bush TARP bank bailout. She received an Investigative Emmy Award in 2002 for her series of exclusive reports about Red Cross mismanagement. She has received numerous Gerald Loeb Finalist awards, including in 2016, and Emmy nominations for reporting on Follow the Money, Congressional oversight, aid to Haiti, Firestone tires, and dangers of prescription drugs and vaccines (including links to autism).
Attkisson is one of the few journalists to have flown in a B-52 on a combat mission and in an F-15 fighter jet Combat Air Patrol flight.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviews with images
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Former CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson has written a blockbuster of a book with a blockbuster title: Stonewalled: My Fight For Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington. Despite the attempts to denigrate her in the media (which ironically follows the same pattern of "controversializing" an opponent which she describes in her book), she is eminently qualified to write this book. She has been a working journalist for more than thirty years (over twenty years of that time being with CBS News) and has been described in the Washington Post as a "persistent voice of news-media skepticism about the government's story." She is the recipient of five Emmy Awards and an Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting . Her work has appeared on the CBS Evening News, CBS Sunday Morning, 48 Hours, and CBS This Morning. Up until recently, Sharyl Attkisson has been "an insider's insider." She has done multiple investigative stories critical of both Republicans and Democrats.
Since the book came out last Tuesday, I have read and watched multiple interviews of Sharyl Attkisson. (Not one of these has been with any of the Big Three networks - surprise!). There is one sensational and disturbing section of the book in which Attkisson discloses that both her CBS computer and her personal computer were found to have unauthorized software installed on them that were too sophisticated for anyone but the government to have installed. Almost every interview focuses on this one part of the book, which is indeed incredible and frightening. One of the three separate investigators who analyzed her computers stated that it was "worse than anything Nixon ever did." However, few of these interviews really delve into the bigger picture of what the book is about. In this review, I'm covering the first chapter. I am reviewing the entire book on my blog at waynenalljr.blogspot.com.
Chapter 1: "Media Mojo Lost: Investigative Reporting's Recession"
As a consumer of news for the last forty years (I remember watching the Watergate Hearings gavel-to-gavel when I was ten years old. I was a strange kid!), it has been obvious to me that the national news media was and still is flagrantly biased towards the left side of the political spectrum. The difference between the way that a Republican Administration and a Democratic Administration are reported on should be obvious to any thinking person. However, in Stonewalled, Attkisson not only confirms what I've known all along, but shows how endemic this tendency is, citing multiple examples by playing "The Substitution Game" throughout the book. In each of these sections, she chronicles how the mainstream media covers a story coming from the Democratic side, then posits how reporters would have covered the same story if it had come from the Republican side. One example that she gives is then-Senator Obama's remark in 2008 presidential campaign that he had visited fifty-seven states. The news media by and large gave Obama a pass. While stating that everyone knows that he meant forty-seven states, she states, "the remark, nothing more than a verbal gaffe, didn't make big headlines. Substitution Game: What if Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin had uttered the same misstatement? Do you think the news media would've been so quick to overlook it?" Anyone who paid attention to the way the press excoriated Palin would know the obvious answer to that question.
Yet, Attkisson, in her book, shows that the endemic liberal bias of the press is only one of the barriers to fair and honest reporting of the facts. She also makes the following point:
Pushing original and investigative reporting has become like trying to feed the managers spinach. They don't like the taste, but they occasionally hold their nose and indulge because it's good for them--or because it looks good. They much prefer it to be sugarcoated , deep-fried, or otherwise disguised so that it goes down easier.
She states that the mainstream press as a whole has lost its "mojo", which she describes as the press's "ability to serve vigorously and effectively as the Fourth Estate (and be the) watchdog to government and other powers that may otherwise overstep their bounds." The national news media has become compliant. In many cases, they have allowed the government under the Obama administration to bully them into submission. They also practice "playing it safe."
Playing it safe means airing stories that certain other trusted media have reported first, so there's no perceived "risk" to us if we report them, too. We're not going out on a limb; we're not reporting anything that hasn't already been reported elsewhere. But it also means we're not giving viewers any reason to watch us. Playing it safe can mean shying away from stories that include allegations against certain corporations, charities, and other chosen powerful entities and people. The image of the news media as fearless watchdogs poised, if not eager, to pursue stories that authorities wish to block is often a false image. Decisions are routinely made in fear of the response that the story might provoke.
She later states:
The tendency to stick to mostly "safe" stories means you'll see a lot of so-called day-of-air reports on topics that won't generate pushback from the special interests we care about. Think: weather, polls, surveys, studies, positive medical news, the pope, celebrities, obituaries, press conferences, government announcements, animals, the British royals, and heartwarming features. They fill airtime much like innocuous white noise.
She describes this as "homogenized, milquetoast news." She illustrates this by comparing stories from one evening's news on the Big Three networks:
On February 21, 2014, all three networks lead with three minutes on the troubles in Ukraine. Everyone has two to three minutes on the weather: a new popular favorite dominating the news almost every night. Everyone has stories on the Olympics. Everyone does the exact same feature in the middle of their broadcasts about a woman who saved her baby nephew's life (a story widely circulated on the Web the day before). Everyone reports President Obama's decision to award the Medal of Honor. Two of the three networks devote more than two minutes of their precious, limited news time to tributes to their own network's employees: one who passed away and another who is retiring. Are we producing a newscast more for ourselves and each other rather than the public? What did we really tell America on this night that they didn't already know?
What are some of the stories they could have covered instead?
My own network is passing up stories on the crumbling Affordable Care Act; an exclusive investigation I offered about a significant military controversy; an investigation uncovering a history of troubles surrounding Boeing's beleaguered Dreamliner; and massive government waste, fraud, and abuse. Largely untouched are countless stories about pharmaceutical dangers affecting millions of Americans, privacy infringement, the debate over President Obama's use of executive orders, the FDA monitoring of employee email, the steady expansion of terrorism, the student loan crisis, the confounding explosion in entitlements, the heartbreaking fallout from the Haiti earthquake, continuing disaster for government-subsidized green energy initiatives, the terrorist influences behind "Arab spring," various congressional ethics investigations and violations, the government's infringement of and restrictions on the press, escalating violence on the Mexican border, the debt crisis, the Fed's role and its secrecy, to name just a few.
In this chapter, she also describes the many fascinating ways that the government, especially the current administration (which even the press now acknowledges to be the most obstructive in history), manipulates the press for their own ends. In one of the most shocking ways (to me) that they use it what is called "The Astroturf Effect," in which the Obama administration teams up with a cadre of special interests who:
...disguise themselves and write blogs, publish letters to the editor, produce ads, establish Facebook and Twitter accounts, start nonprofits, or just post comments to online material with the intent of fooling you into believing an independent or grassroots movement is speaking.
One of the "astroturf" websites is the ultra-liberal Media Matters, which is an Obama administration sycophant. Even before her book came out this last week, they have been publishing multiple articles supposedly "debunking" this book. Must be hitting close to home!
If the book had only this first chapter, it would have been worth the price of the book. However, there's much more.
You can read the rest of my review on my blog at waynenalljr.blogspot.com.
I've watched her interviews. She makes it clear: Her job is to present the facts, your job to draw conclusions and make determinations. Perfect! Here's my hard-earned money for the Kindle edition, Sharyl. You earned it. And maybe someone will see that real stories, honest stories, penetrating stories DO sell and DO make money. Give us the facts, news outlets. We're big boys & girls, and we can handle it.
Let me climb down off my soapbox for a moment, and tell you about the book itself. It's a very, very important book. Not only must you read it, but you must read every word of every chapter. Then you must lend it to a friend, and re-read it when your friend returns it to you. Then, discuss it widely & often. Even if you think President Obama walks on water or air - because this Administration is just a symptom of the larger problem.
Most likely, this Administration believes that it's fighting "The Establishment", and therefore must do all it can to provide a narrative, protect that narrative & defend against those Powerful Forces. This includes not providing grist for the mill of its adversaries.
In reality, their paranoia & spin control make it likely that they won't be believed with their first & second stories ("No policies were cancelled", "The amount of policies cancelled pales before the newly covered.") because we know there always will be another. And when they finally get to the message they settle on ("Only bad, bad policies were cancelled in favor of these good, good ones!"), we then have to take 3 looks at them to decide if we're being spun. A true story, even if it makes them look silly once in a while, would at least give them the priceless commodity of Credibility.
Put differently, changing their beautiful story 3 times provides more grist for their adversaries' mill than telling the gritty truth the first time. (Parenthetically, I personally believe there are 2 Establishments: the Conservative Establishment & the Liberal one & they're about evenly empowered. Many people have picked a clear side, but the people in the middle - and the thinkers within the 2 groups - have worked to develop radar for when they're being spun by either side.)
Part of Sharyl's job as an investigative reporter is to make complex situations understandable in 50 words or less. This skill makes this book an easy, smooth read even for people that know more about Kanye & Kim than about Fast & Furious.
So don't get scared by the size of the book or the subject matter. Buy it, dig in, finish it, and talk about it at the water cooler: Should White House surrogates be able to make multiple calls to newsrooms? Even before a story airs? Should they control the narrative, or just release information with the bare minimum of context & spin and let us decide? Should corporate sponsors have any say about what gets reported? Should newsrooms report even things that may have a chilling effect on very important legislation, if there's no national security interests involved? Should government agencies be able to hire PR firms for message control or damage control?
Finally, I do have to thank her for letting me know that there may actually be a connection between vaccines & autism. In the past, I accepted the spin that there was none, but now I will look into it and see if there was (when mercury was allowed in vaccines) & if there still is a connection. I'm intrigued, at the very least.
Top reviews from other countries
The take away from this book is that you cannot and should not ever trust the legacy "main stream" media to be giving you the unvarnished truth. It is filtered and homogenized to suit the political and/or monetary interests of the corporate hierarchy. The issue of just why and by whom Ms. Attkisson's computers systems were monitored and tampered with will provide many AhHa moments for the conspiracy lover in all of us.
All in all a great book. HIghly recommended.





