BobHarris.com - "Every ad break features ads for companies that make no products I can buy"

Books! Actual books!

"A rollicking ride of intellectual discovery and emotional growth... his comic timing never fails"

-- The Wall Street Journal

"Pulls you in like a good sports story"

-- The New York Times Book Review

"Endearingly frank... jubilant... lighthearted and fast-paced"

-- New York Newsday

"A surprisingly touching memoir"

-- Entertainment Weekly

"Snappy and informative"

-- Associated Press

"Effortlessly funny and informative... tender, human, and very wise... A must for anyone who loves Jeopardy!, or has ever seen it, or is breathing."

-- Joss Whedon, creator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

"I haven't seen Jeopardy! since I was a kid, and yet I was charmed and amused by Bob Harris's fascinating and surprisingly suspenseful book. Through sheer force of personality, he takes this brainy TV show and makes it funny and easy to relate to."

-- Ira Glass, creator and host, This American Life

"A surprisingly intimate, entertaining book."

-- Orson Scott Card, 4-time Hugo Award winner, author of Ender's Game

"Funny, enlightening -- and just might help you win a million bucks on Jeopardy!"

-- A. J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All

"A masterful job of describing the feel of Jeopardy! in the heat of battle... I knew Bob was a great guy and a fantastic Jeopardy! player. Now I've found that he's also a wonderful writer. I think I'm starting to hate him."

-- Brad Rutter, top money-winner in Jeopardy! history

Books I'm Getting

Who Hates Whom:
Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts,
and Various Things Blowing Up —
A Woefully Incomplete Guide™

“Revelatory... Harris's sly wit and infectious curiosity make understanding world chaos fascinating... witty, horrific, and necessary.”

— Boston Globe

"Brave... irreverent... charges into the thick of the globe's myriad simmering wars... hilariously relaxed."

— New York Observer

"Only Bob could make a user’s guide to our increasingly hostile world this absorbing, this breezy, and—ultimately—this hopeful.”

— Ken Jennings, author of Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs

“Fascinating, enlightening, and surprisingly: NOT TOTALLY DEPRESSING. A gimlet-eyed look at the world we endure that’s also suitable for enjoying with a gimlet.”

— John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise
and correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

"All three [presidential] candidates should read all three of these [recommended] books, but McCain gets first crack at Bob Harris's "Who Hates Whom“... a lighthearted overview of the insurrections and civil wars in the world today."

— Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought, in the New York Times Book Review

Main

Antiwar.com

"Every ad break features ads for companies that make no products I can buy"

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Thursday, 20 October 2005

Have a look at this Kos diary.

If you want to know why the "news" media couldn't be bothered to report enough actual news to prevent an elective war based on lies that were plainly nonsensical at the time -- and why, 2.5 years, tens of thousands of deaths, and hundreds of billions of dollars later, they're still strugging to burp up the obvious -- that diary explains a big part of it.

Personal experience with same issues: when my radio commentaries were syndicated, one of the reasons we didn't get on more stations was because Program Directors were cowed by ownership (often ClearChannel) and afraid some liberal might piss off advertisers, especially in the hysterical post 9-11 climate. Never mind the awards I'd won, or that in over a thousand commentaries, I never once had to retract anything in a single broadcast. The question wasn't quality, accuracy, even entertainment value; it was avoiding any risk of displeasing advertisers and ownership.

Matter of fact, I got canned from the biggest news station in Los Angeles specifically because I was talking about stories the rest of the "news" didn't, even though the new boss who canned me didn't have the guts or honesty to admit it to my face. (He'd grumbled at me for years, but when the day came, he said they were "cutting back all their features," although they a) kept every moralistic right-winger who would never dream of criticizing corporate influence and b) replaced me specifically with the unpointed musings of a Ted Baxterish TV anchorman with remarkably little to say.)

I mention this a) because obviously, yeah, it still bugs me when I'm reminded of it, and b) much more to personally vouch, from direct experience, for the only bias that matters in media. It is real. This is how this stuff works. (Incidentally, management denials of any such bias are almost always sincere; they have drunk the Kool-Aid, they deeply believe what they do actually accomplishes something, and that's a big part of why they succeed.)

These are businesses, after all. You are not the media's customer; you are their product. Their only customers are the advertisers. That is all that matters.

It's right in front of our faces, all the time. Jon gets it right here, too, as I mentioned yesterday.

The anonymous Kos writer isn't perfect, but he gets the gist absolutely correct.