Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
HarperCollins Publishers (1992), Hardcover, 352 pages
Description
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.
User reviews
LibraryThing member ABVR
Alterman, a media critic more recently known for "What Liberal Media?," here dissects what he calls the "punditocracy:" The high-profile columnists and commentators who, he argues, wield far too much opinion-making power in Washington and other centers of power. The problem with pundits, Alterman
The fact that the first edition of the book (the one I read) ends on those notes reflects the extent to which the now-available revised edition had become necessary. When Alternan first wrote, conservative talk radio had just begun its ascendancy, Bill Clinton was unimpeached, George W. Bush was a marginally well-known governor, and the Twin Towers still stood. We've come a long way since 1993, yet (to judge by the undiminished power of the punditocracy) we've come no way at all.
Show More
argues, is that they peddle a kind of pseudo-journalism: Opinion, ideological cant, and outright speculation clothed in rhetorical garments that imply a solid factual basis and an unassailable level of certainty. Their pronouncements may be entertaining, he admits, but we mistake them for reality at our peril. Alterman traces the rise of the punditocracy from Walter Lippman in the 1930s to the likes of George Will, Charles Krauthammer, William Safire, and others in the early 1990s. His principal concern, however, is to show that the emperor has no clothes. He does this by dissecting the prejudices, ideological hobby-horses, journalistic skills, and track record of a dozen or so key members of the punditocracy--skewering them with scrupulously cited quotations from their own work. This approach reaches its zenith in the final chapters, where he analyzes conservative pundits' steadfast refusal to come to grips with the fall of the USSR, and lambastes pundits of all political persuasions for mindlessly beating the drums of war after the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.The fact that the first edition of the book (the one I read) ends on those notes reflects the extent to which the now-available revised edition had become necessary. When Alternan first wrote, conservative talk radio had just begun its ascendancy, Bill Clinton was unimpeached, George W. Bush was a marginally well-known governor, and the Twin Towers still stood. We've come a long way since 1993, yet (to judge by the undiminished power of the punditocracy) we've come no way at all.
Show Less
Subjects
Language
Physical description
352 p.; 9.4 inches
ISBN
0060168749 / 9780060168742
Local notes
READIN, wien
discussed:
walter lippmann, george wills, robert novak, william safire, patrick buchanan, 'the new republic', martin peretz
john mclaughlin, 'the mclaughlin group', fred barnes, agronsky and company', inside washington', 'this week with david brinkley', david brinkley
cnn, 'the capital gang', 'new york times', 'washington post', 'wall street journal'
ronald reagan, george bush, mikhail gorbachev, cold war, communism, anticommunism, operation desert storm
discussed:
walter lippmann, george wills, robert novak, william safire, patrick buchanan, 'the new republic', martin peretz
john mclaughlin, 'the mclaughlin group', fred barnes, agronsky and company', inside washington', 'this week with david brinkley', david brinkley
cnn, 'the capital gang', 'new york times', 'washington post', 'wall street journal'
ronald reagan, george bush, mikhail gorbachev, cold war, communism, anticommunism, operation desert storm