Spin Masters: How the Media Ignored the Real News and Helped Reelect Barack Obama

by David Freddoso, David Cochran Heath (Narrator)

The biggest story of the election was how the media ignored the biggest story of the election. Amid all the breathless coverage of a nonexistent war on women, there was little or no coverage of Obama's war on the economy--how, for instance, part-time work is replacing full-time work, how low-wage jobs are replacing high-wage ones, how for Americans between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-four there are fewer jobs today than there were when the recession officially ended in 2009, and fewer, in fact, than at any time since mid-1997. The downsizing of the American economy wasn't the only story the media missed--or suppressed--there was also the unraveling of Obama's foreign policy and the deadly scandals at home (Fast and Furious) and abroad (the terrorist attack that killed the American ambassador at Benghazi). But instead of serious, substantive journalism, the media reported ad nauseam on trifles (Big Bird), Republican-baiting hysteria (how everything the Republicans said was allegedly "racial code"), and distortions of Romney's remarks (such as the "47 percent" comment). The media dropped the ball in covering the 2012 election, says David Freddoso, editorial page editor of the Washington Examiner, and in doing so, the media failed in their responsibility to keep politicians honest and the public well-informed. Freddoso, a New York Times bestselling author and former congressional reporter for National Review, fills this volume not only with outrageous examples of media bias but also with dozens of real stories that genuinely inquisitive reporters should have relished but that the overwhelmingly liberal press didn't even bother to cover.Full of the news you didn't hear about in 2012, David Freddoso's Spin Masters: How the Media Ignored the Real News and Helped Reelect Barack Obama will be the most provocative and accurate take of just how Barack Obama managed to get reelected amid the worst economic times since at least the 1970s--and how the media helped him do it.

Genres: Nonfiction

MP3 CD

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have ever wondered how, with a flagging economy (replacing full-time work with part-time and low wage jobs), failing foreign policies (Benghazi attacks), and scandals upon scandals (Fast & Furious,IRS targeting of conservatives to say nothing of the many additional scandals to come in his second term), how did Obama still manage to get re-elected in 2012, you're not alone. In his book, Spin Masters: How the Media Ignored the Real News and Helped Reelect Barack Obama by David Freddoso, provides some clues and at the center of it is the press's almost complete focus on pursuing the democrat narrative about a supposed "war on women" and the assumed racism of conservatives as well as other talking points. This, of course, left them little time such as the trivial issues that people really wanted to know about such as those mentioned above. And although Obama got less votes than he did when first elected in 2008, with the help of the media he managed to drive down the republican turnout enough that it didn't matter. Romney did help much with a few gaffs that were amplified by the media as well. Still think there's no liberal bias to the mainstream media? Read this book!

[David Broussard · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are a conservative, or a Republican then the 2012 election cycle likely didn't leave you very happy. What with losing the Presidential election, failing to regain control of the Senate, and losing ground in the House...it was a bad year by any measure. There has already been plenty of speculation as to why the GOP lost, and, as always, media bias is one of the potential reasons.

Media bias has been a cause celebre for conservatives since Bernard Goldberg wrote his seminal work Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News in 2003. Mr Goldberg, a former CBS News reporter, wrote a book that laid out that the bias in the media isn't purposeful, but rather because the news arms must make money as opposed to be a public service, and because of the culture of the people who trend to news as a career. More recently Tim Groseclose wrote an excellent book called Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind that looked at the effect of media bias on politics and analysed how biased the media is.

In Spin Masters, David Freddoso looks back over the 2012 election with an eye towards the performance of the Media in covering the election. Mr Freddoso is well qualified for this role being an editor at the Washington Examiner. In the book he looks at the specific performance of the media in covering the major stories of the election. Mostly he looks at the number of stories on trivial items as opposed to more important ones. Its an disturbing read to see how the media willfully chose to not pursue stories that were critical to the administration.

In the end Mr Freddoso's call to action is to get involved and more importantly to get informed. There can be no fundamental change in the media mostly due to the nature of the people who work it. I second this and continue to agree with my friends in the media that reporters do their best to actually write unbiased news. Unfortunately being in a culture where everyone is the same viewpoint leads to selection bias...fortunately the mainstream media isn't the only way to get information anymore. It means more work, especially validating stories, but information is out there, and we should all become more informed by using those new technologies and sources.