Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator

“Trust Me” is an exposé of the inner workings of the fast-paced, always-on, pageview-driven journalism that is practiced today by both blogs and the “mainstream” media. Holiday paints a picture of how news can be easily manipulated and outright fabricated by PR people or really just anyone looking to advance their view of the world. After representing many clients, most notably American Apparel and Tucker Max, he shares some of the unscrupulous methods he used to make sure he controlled what was written about them.

I enjoyed the book - it confirmed for me why I feel like I'm wasting time when I am reading blogs like Gawker or TechCrunch, and it gave a logical, temporal narrative to how media has arrived at the state it is in today. He paints a scary picture of a world where the accountability has been taken out of journalism entirely – bloggers report rumors, and the larger publications report what bloggers have written - without making any serious attempt to write a balanced piece or get both sides of the story. Definitely a book worth reading.

Especially interesting was his discussion of the evolution of today's newspapers, and his comparison of the journalistic environment today with the “yellow press” of the early 20th century.

But the book was not without its flaws. The most glaring is that the author was part of this deception for many years, even creating many of these tactics he shares. In a book that teaches you to question every source of news, his motivations for writing it are unclear. Is he really disgusted with the environment he has helped to create, as he says many times in the book? Or is he just looking to turn an exclusive, inside story into a quick buck? He disparages many bloggers and people he's met inside the book, leading me to wonder if he just got bit by the media monster one too many times and just wanted to lash out.

The book also feels like it was written very quickly. There are typos and editing errors, and it feels as if he's saying the same thing over and over with slightly different words. I think it could have been about half as long and made for a much tighter work.

The book also takes many of the tactics that it disparages in blogs. Holiday doesn't cover the other side of the story - there are some (few) blogs and news outlets on the web that are doing great work. He spends a bit of time discussing the New York Times and other reputable papers, but he doesn't really talk about any blogs that are working, only the worst offenders of the pageview-driven journalism. He also breaks his narrative up into short, digestible segments of a page to a page and a half, giving him more opportunity to repeat himself and less opportunity to develop truly deep thoughts.

Even with the flaws though, this is definitely a worthwhile read. Ryan is clearly a very smart guy and I believe his description is accurate. This book will open up your eyes to the fact that the economic model of online media is totally at odds with the purpose of journalism.