The problem is that click-bait is the only way to keep the lights on for most of these sites. They just don't make that much money.

Consider how this translates to employee pay and, in turn, the incentive for these employees to pursue virtuous journalistic careers and invest the time required to keep things on the straight and narrow.

As a result, we don't get journalism - we get op-ed and clickbait. We get toxicity.

This is part of a vicious cycle. Toxicity and clickbait are more profitable.

It is in human nature for us to have our interest piqued by negative headlines and bad news. Our brains work by recognizing patterns and relationships between facts and situations. We've evolved to be more interested in the facts that jut out and are potentially more threatening to our survival.

So, bad news and negativity gets clicks. Weird-ass headlines gets clicks. Misinformation drives clicks. Toxicity drives traffic. Clickbait drives traffic.

Go look at the headlines and "hot" articles on top gaming blogs. You'll see tons of negative articles or headlines that stir toxicity.

• The more people get upset, feel that they're getting taken advantage of, or feel threatened, the more likely they are to click.
  
  
• The more inflammatory the article, the more likely people are to comment.
  
  
• The more likely they are to comment, the more likely they are to return to the article.
  
  
• The more likely people are to return to an article, the more page views the blog gets.
  
  
• The more page views the blog gets, the more they make.
  
  So, if you're the editor for a gaming blog site, what do you do? Even if you're not intending to run toxic content, you might unconsciously start becoming conditioned to run toxic content through the positive feedback you get through page stats.
  
  In systems like Forbes where anyone can submit and the most popular articles get featured, it's easy to see how the most divisive and potentially toxic content gets featured.
  
  Consider this. Here's a fictional made-up quote we can use for the sake of argument.
  
  > "In the new game, the brothers go to Africa. It's a fascinating place," said Jim Drawerson, artist on Super Plumber Brothers 2. "It was hard to capture all of the culture and ethnic diversity, but I think we did a good job."
  
  Which of these three headlines do you think will get the most clicks and comments?
  
  > 1. Super Plumber Brothers 2 artist interview
  
  > 2. Super Plumber Brothers 2 artist talk about setting game in Africa
  
  > 3. Super Plumber Brothers 2 artist slammed for racist comments
  
  For the third headline, all you have to do is find a few people on Twitter who were offended (someone is always offended about something), screenshot their comments, and paste them into your article.
  
  The third headline will drive clicks, even if it's not accurate. But who's going to hold the gaming bloggers accountable?
  
  Gaming blogs are largely not accountable to anyone except the stats that keep the doors open. I'm not going to name names or sites, but I can tell you that, having worked in the industry, there are a handful of very popular sites that do not fact check and do not run corrections. It should come as no surprise that these sites also make most of their revenue on click bait.
  
  So what can we do?
  
  
• Do not click on clickbait. Look at the headline of an article and ask yourself - Is this going to help me understand or know more about gaming?
  
  
• Do not comment on inflammatory articles. This only gives toxic clickbait more views.
  
  
• Question sources. What are the facts that the author is asserting? Where did they get these facts? Did they talk to the developer/publisher?
  
  
• Question credentials. Who wrote this article? What is their qualification? What kind of articles do they typically write? Have they contacted the publisher/developer to get the facts?
  
  
• Question authority. Who is writing this? Do they have special knowledge? Do they have special access?
  
  
• Tell authors and editors when you see clickbait and you don't like it. Do this through Twitter - not through the site. Do not contribute to toxic comments sections.
  
  
• If you find a factual error in an article, tell the author. Do this for Twitter. They will probably censor you in the comments section.
  
  
• Comment on articles that are well-written and contain facts and thank the author.
  
  It's a huge effort, but a lot of the toxicity in the gaming community comes from ignorance. And that ignorance is driven, willfully or not, by clickbait.
  
  
  At the end of the day, there's just not that much gaming news. So someone has to stir up drama to fill columns and drive clicks.
  
  EDIT -- This is a great book that covers some of this subject matter. Very quick read.
  
  http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285
  
  To be clear, I am not affiliated with this book and am not using Amazon affiliate to make money on clicks/purchases of this book. I think it's a great resource for people who would like to know more about this topic.

I remember reading a story in "Trust Me, I'm Lying; Confessions of a Media Manipulator" where the agent of an author wasn't getting any good marketing coverage for his client's new book, so the agent starting pulling the "angry consumer" shtick, calling/writing into different media outlets (bloggers, radio, etc..), pretending to be pissed off about the book. No one had heard of it, but eventually some of them started writing about how insulting & disgusting it was, just based on the agent's complaint.

It worked. No publicity is bad publicity.

---
edit: Since people are seeing this, you should read this book. The guy (former American Apparel advertising exec) did this tell-all book because he saw the media's standards dropping and his industry's tricks starting to be used in things like politics. It will destroy your confidence in ever believing anything you read on the internet, reddit definitely included. Good for honing your bullshit detector.

edit 2: I am not affiliated in any way with this book. You are not being manipulated 😜

It's not just gaming journalism, it's all modern journalism.

Ryan Holiday - Read his books.

https://www.amazon.com/Growth-Hacker-Marketing-Primer-Advertising/dp/1591847389?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc

https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc

No, no, no. Wrong. I have a PhD in media studies. I've studied this particular area of media studies extensively. This fact was not made up by a blogger. It is a fact studied most extensively by a great social scientist and journalist named Ben Bagdikian. He tracked this phenomenon in a series of 6 or 7 books called "The Media Monopoly."

It's very unfortunate that this blogger did not cite his sources and this is a huge part of the problem here, but I have no doubt that the work of Ben Bagdikian and other researchers in this area are the source of this information. It saddens me, actually, that a blogger like this would present this information unsourced because it (A) leaves the information vulnerable to this kind of criticism and (B) it presents the information as if the blogger came up with the information himself.

Note: there are many reasons why it's important to cite your sources, and this is a great example why.

Other authors to check out on the subject include Robert McChesney, C. Edwin Baker, and Eli Noam, among others.

Funny how an extensive area of research gets posted by a blogger and then incorrectly "refuted" by a random, anonymous Redditor.

As much as I wanna say this guy is a douchebag/idiot and karma will come back around... that’s not how the internet works. We’re all giving him free press right now.

https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285

I completely agree re the NBC/Comcast merger. For what it's worth, Susan Crawford (author of the FT article) has a great book on Comcast, which discusses the NBC merger at length: Captive Audience. The writing is a bit clunky, but the substance is super important.

>The AT&T/T-Mobile merger feels like a comparable anti-trust issue. The #1 and #4 telecom carriers weren't allowed to merge. Here you have Comcast (#1) and Time Warner Cable (#2 cable provider in the US) in a similar market dynamic. Why is this any different?

I think the companies would argue (with a degree of accuracy) that AT&T and T-Mobile were clearly direct competitors -- in nearly all parts of the United States, consumers could choose between those two companies (and others, like Verizon). If those companies merged, there would be fewer competitors, and less direct competition, in the mobile telecommunications market.

The situation is a little different with cable, because Comcast and TWC don't directly compete in many markets. Rather, they have regional monopolies. The logic is that since they don't compete head-to-head as it is, the merger won't reduce competition.

The problem with that is that Comcast and TWC have allocated territories and customers (itself an antitrust violation), and have most likely agreed (tacitly if not expressly) not to encroach on each other's markets. In other words, the reason they do not currently compete head-to-head owes at least in part to prior anticompetitive agreements.

https://www.amazon.com/Presstitutes-Embedded-Pay-CIA-Confession/dp/1615770178

Edit: Did some research and apparently there's an English translated version with a different title. Not sure how legit it is so don't take my word for it!

You should read Trust Me I'm Lying if you want to know exactly how easily online media can be deceived.

It's ridiculous and I've used some of the tips in it to get stuff I've made into some fairly prominent magazines.

TL;DR in case you don't want to read the book:
They don't give a shit if it's not reliable, they get the page views (and hence advert hits) regardless of if it is legit. The edit isn't retroactively sent to everyone who previously read it. Plus they can even get a double dip of hits when they write the article about how they were tricked.

You should read Trust me I’m Lying by Ryan Holiday. It brilliantly digs into the media ecosystem and explains exactly why you are right.

https://www.amazon.ca/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285/ref=asc_df_1591846285_nodl/?tag=googlemobshop-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=292905515425&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2803731859655008491&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9061024&hvtargid=pla-406163954633&psc=1

Spoiler: media went through this in the early 1900s when newspapers were sold individually. Subscriptions to papers is what Bred modern journalism as a virtuous pursuit like we understand it.

Let's go ahead and jump down the rabbit hole here.

1 - Reddit is a business. It's a subsidiary of Advance Publications. Technically any content or comments you post here are unpaid contributions to someone's bottom line. Controversy and lies are amoral in this context, meaning that if something gets hits and views it's gold. Doesn't matter if it's bullshit feminism, a post about some cool archaeological dig in Siberia, or a post hating on mods and admins. Even this box I'm typing is gifted content.

2 - The internet itself is a fucking business. And it's about as cultish as you can get. Memes, viral videos, comment circlejerks, flaming, are all part of a "cult"ure we've built around the rights and wrongs of interacting with each other through electronic means. Anything desirable but "other" is quickly categorized and integrated. Anything undesirable is simply ignored. That means controversial is actually desirable because it generates back-and-forth. This dynamic is super fucking easy to manipulate, meaning...

3 - It's all marketing now. When companies exhaust their technological or practical advances, they turn into marketing machines. And those machines are as vicious as they are effective. Just try reading more than half of Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator without wanting to throw your computer and phone in the trash and move into the mountains. If you post in an online forum, you're becoming part of 100 problems at once. You can weigh the pros and cons and decide against participating if you like.

4 - People trying to market and make money off of PUA, Red Pill, or anything else are as varied as any other self-help group. Some are completely full of shit. Some are so-so. Some are downright fucking necessary and totally worth your money. Now the ones that are worth the money and time, I want them to have exposure and visibility. I want them to have a voice that effects others because that means eventually I'll hear about their awesome idea, read it, and change my life.

5 - Just because you engage in a few activities in a community does not mean you're in a cult. I've seen real cults hidden off in the backwoods, actual physical groups of people that truly indoctrinate their youth with mantras like "I beat my body and make it my slave." It might be scary to think that people go into those things without any critical thought, that they become automatons for some fake "greater good."

But I'm going to go off the rails here and say: Why not?

Why not drop your ego sometime and join up with a group that demonstrates effective methods of self-development? I remember being invited to a secret meeting of a Christian teen group off in the woods where they had an "Honor Ceremony." Basically these kids had worked their asses off studying and working out in pure isolation. They learned about God and all that stuff - to each their own - but the end result was a group of extremely committed, extremely in-shape young adults.

I mention this ceremony because the message was not what I expected from any Christian sermon anywhere:

(paraphrasing) "The moment you leave this place, everyone is going to want to have sex with you." That was their graduation message, and it wasn't a lie. These kids had been holed up away from civilization and honed into fit little soldiers of Christ and then told the most honest thing ever: the outside world would find them hot and innocent. They would be irresistible.

So maybe some become lifelong Christians. Some get into drugs. Some, like the girl I took back to my dorm (they kicked her out after she spent a weekend with me), just fast-tracked from slut to married life and forgot the place altogether. Basically it all evens out. The cult thrives off of those few who both become successful and maintain their beliefs. Everyone else is just forgotten.

I personally think Red Pill is most effective when it feels like a cult for the first little bit and then once you get past the basics and realize it's about living your own life and thinking for yourself, you realize the entire fucking message is do what you want. If you want to join a cult, sure. If you want to climb a tree and piss on people on the sidewalk, great. As long as it's your decision apart from the "oh man are other people judging me" voices, it's still your life.

>I wonder whether online work changed things because there are few occasions for people to have conversations that socialize them into the ethical expectations of the profession.

Journalism didn't have ethical expectations a hundred years ago, because every story was sold on 'hot sheets', cheap 2-page papers sold by newsies. The most sensational headlines made the most money and there was zero accountability.

Then for 50+ years, journalists became dependent on monthly newspaper subscriptions and reputation and audience trust became paramount. Suddenly, ethics were necessary to do the job.

Now, news is all click-driven and we're back to zero accountability. Trust Me, I'm Lying is a great book about our current era of news and how it can be manipulated.

A big problem, and it somewhat coincided with Dominic's rise to editorial power at the paper as news editor, is that at some point they decided to eschew being an arts weekly with some news coverage to focus mainly on generating web traffic through flamebait and controversy. And while that works, the problem is that there's a host of other web outlets that do it better and on a larger scale than the Stranger ever could... and of course those outlets probably pay better even if the workload is great. It was only a matter of time before the Dominics and the Lindys would run off and take a better paycheck to go do it for someone else.

Problem is those writers were able to build a rep of credibility in the paper's prior life before they and the paper went that route, and passing the torch isn't possible when no one gives a shit about Ansel Herz trying to be a more obnoxious version of Dominic, and no one really wants to see Paul Constant, Charles Mudede or Brendan Kiley stumble out of their pay grade to try and do hard hitting journalism. They already had Bethany Jean Clement pulling extra duty out of her comfort zone before she left.

I frankly would not be surprised if Savage got bored of the tedium and just decided to shut the paper down in a couple years. He already makes a lot of money from his touring, book, syndication of his column, etc, and doesn't really need the paper anymore.

You can buy it under a different name...

Presstitutes Embedded in the Pay of the CIA

​

https://www.amazon.com/Presstitutes-Embedded-Pay-CIA-Confession/dp/1615770178

I looked up Crawford's book on amazon, and it has quite a few 1-star reviews. I might be overly suspicious, but I think at least some of them were written by lobbyists or are otherwise fake.

Matt Drudge broke the Lewinsky story, which had been embargoed by the mainstream media. It's probably hard to appreciate how big a deal this was at the time, but I'll try to explain.

For generations, television, radio, and print media had been seen as utterly trustworthy because they made a big deal about how impartial they were. Some conservatives felt that the media was overly harsh on Republicans and overly protective of Democrats, but they were mostly looked at as conspiracy kooks. But, generally speaking, much editorial content was openly left-leaning, leading conservatives to wonder if all reporters were left leaning and, if so, how they could maintain impartiality.

Then deregulation came to talk radio, and with it, the rise of conservative talk radio. It was cheaper to reach a mass audience with radio than with any other medium, and conservatives flocked to FM AM radio, mainly to hear their viewpoints shouted back at them. This helped them reassure themselves that they were no longer alone. You see, in spite of Ronald Reagan's victories, conservatives always felt culturally isolated, as most of the media and entertainment in this country is produced by people to the left of the political spectrum, and everybody knows it. This led to a siege mentality on the part of conservatives and helped sow the seeds of doubt about the impartiality of the media.

FM AM radio was the only cultural phenomenon (aside from sports) that conservatives could truly feel comfortable with, you see.

Then came Drudge. A nobody with a website (how many people even knew what a website was back then?) who broke a story that the press was sitting on. FM radio exploded in a frenzy, pointing out (with justification?) that if Ronald Reagan or Richard Nixon had gotten a blow job in the Oval Office, it would have been front page news. Then came Ken Starr's investigation, which forced the mainstream media to start covering the story (you can't exactly ignore the Independent Council investigating a sitting President, can you?) and then the whole fucking thing snowballed into the clusterfuck we all remember.

A couple of press scandals later (I see Dan Rather was on the top of /r/all the other day talking about integrity like he didn't run a story he should have known was fake), and now we have half the country who flat out don't believe a word the press says, especially when it comes to politics.

And now we have Trump, and we have half a country that literally doesn't give a shit about any of his scandals, because they figure either the stories about his scandals are overblown or just fake.

Read Drew Curtis' book Fark. He saw this phenomenon coming ten years ago, and described how the media could have corrected course and regained the trust of the American people. Unfortunately, trust is hard earned, easily lost, and almost impossible to regain.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1592403662/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487166868&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=fark&dpPl=1&dpID=51ucbpaahQL&ref=plSrch

I've been saying this since the last election.

"Sex sells" is dead. We've successful removed any and all shock value on that one.

Now it's "Outrage Sells". And they even write books about how to use it.

https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285

https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285

link for the lazy

if you have a couple dollars to spend Adam Ruins everything did a great video on how the telcom mergers that have already happened have been a step to far. (unfortunately the one part of that video that isn't free to watch is the part that covers it.)

https://youtu.be/ApMrczWqtmo?list=ELweFMwP-075DqQ79y2kQpEw the good part starts around the 6 min mark.

the sources he lists in the video are free to read though. Here are the relevant sources.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/upshot/why-the-us-has-fallen-behind-in-internet-speed-and-affordability.html

http://www.newamerica.org/oti/policy-papers/the-cost-of-connectivity-2014/

http://gizmodo.com/5830956/why-the-government-wont-protect-you-from-getting-screwed-by-your-cable-company

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/04/price-gouging-cable-companies

http://scrawford.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/The-communications-crisis-in-America-final.pdf

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/1/8321437/maps-show-why-internet-is-more-expensive-us-europe-competition

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/isp-lobby-has-already-won-limits-on-public-broadband-in-20-states/

https://www.amazon.com/Captive-Audience-Telecom-Industry-Monopoly/dp/0300153139

But the long and short of it is that that unless we bring the hammer down on these telcom companies hard, IMO, they will just keep trying to do what they do. I can't fault them for that... it makes them money... its the equivalent of taking a dump on free market principles but it makes them money. But as the punishment is not as severe as the profits gained from the crime, companies will continue to operate in the manner that makes them the most money. Breaking them up seems to be the best way to make them loose the amount of money where they wont try to do this again.

The 1996 Telecommunications Act wasn't the beginning, not even close. Benjamin H. Bagdikian wrote a book in 1983 called The Media Monopoly, in which he warned that mergers and deregulation had caused 90% of US media to be controlled by 50 companies. Critics called him an alarmist. By 2011, 90% of US media was controlled by just 6 companies.

The book is now translated to English by a small publisher and under a different title

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1615770178/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

Reminds me of Trust Me, I'm Lying

>Why isn't this a bigger deal for people? GMA just got scammed and no one is making a fuss about.

Well, it happens literally all the time. Ryan Holiday wrote a book about it and how stupidly easy it is back in 2013. "Whenever you see a malicious online rumor costs a company millions, politically motivated fake news driving elections, a product or celebrity zooming from total obscurity to viral sensation, or anonymously sourced articles becoming national conversation, someone is behind it. Often someone like Ryan Holiday." But, nobody cares. Or not enough to matter, anyway.

And even if people did, care... who's going to report on it? The media? You think they're gonna let you know how stupid and easy to manipulate and constantly wrong they are?

Book is called "It's Not News It's Fark". Good read. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000V5075M/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Fuck all of these Republican corporate lackeys, obediently serving their greedy masters.

This is only one of (at least) dozens of issues on which they disgust me. To be fair, some Democrats are not worthy of my vote... but it's damn near guaranteed that I'll never vote for a Republican.

Also, as its author is cited in the article, read this book.

I disagree that it's any sort of new trend, the people's desire for lies and gossip and hyperbole has always been there. I've lived it long before the last ten years of Huffington Post and Upworthy and Buzzfeed.

Tangentially related, you'd probably love the book Trust Me I'm Lying

I came across this story in Ben Bagdikian’s book earlier this year, and found it unsurprisingly shocking. It includes this addendum:

“The books were destroyed; McCaleb and his staff resigned. Warner Communications sold Warner Modular to another firm and the small subsidiary disappeared shortly thereafter. When I wrote to Sarnoff asking if McCaleb’s account coincided with his I received a one-word answer: “No!” He did not answer my request to elaborate.

It was five years later that Sarnoff attended the press conference in Atlanta and heard Harold Roth, president of Grosset & Dunlap, publisher of Warner’s Nixon book, telling reporters in obvious sincerity that ‘if we abridge the freedom of any one writer or publisher we effectively abridge the freedom of all’ and that points of view ‘should not be censored because of one’s political persuasion.’”

It's always been like this. If you're interested check out:

Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times by R. McChesney

Necessary Illusions : Thought Control in Democratic Societies by N.Chomsky

Our Unfree Press: 100 Years of Radical Media Criticism by R.McChesney

Beyond Hypocrisy: Decoding the News in an Age of Propaganda by E.Herman

Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media by M.Parenti

Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America by R.McChesney

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by E.Herman and N.Chomsky

Constructing Public Opinion by J.Lewis

The More You Watch the Less You Know by D.Schecter

The Political Economy of Media: Enduring Issues, Emerging Dilemmas by R.McChesney

Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Critical Reader by Dines and Humez

Beyond Consumer Capitalism: Media and the Limits to Imagination by J.Lewis

Propaganda by E.Bernays

Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment by M.Parenti

When News Lies by D.Schecter

Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda by N.Chomsky

Will the Revolution Be Televised?: A Marxist Analysis of the Media by J.Molenyeux


All these guys have youtube lectures if you aren't much of a reader. Alternatively check out the following documentaries:

Manufacturing Consent

The Myth of the Liberal Media

The Power of Nightmares

Psywar

Class Dismissed: how TV frames the working class

The Power Principle

Project Censored: Is the Press Really Free?



Or you could even do a course in media literacy and watch Sut Jhally's lecture series on Media, Public Relations and Propaganda.

Is there any proof though that this has any effect? The only thing in this piece is speculation that it MIGHT do something. But the only thing its been used so far is to enforce to mcconnells supporters the word witchhunt. Not that that's not a reason to do it since they'd do it anyway, but its weird how much, without literally any evidence, we're believing this narrative. Its a dangerous illustration of gullibility when we want to believe and we should learn about this aspect of ourselves so it's not used in a more malicious bit of manipulation. Its actually a great example of the kind of story snowballing that becomes true by repetition described in Trust Me I'm Lying [1]

[1] Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591846285/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_g5buDbC06QP43

For social media you should check out different company blogs. Those are really helpful. I like the Buffer and Hootsuite blogs a lot.

But books are way better than online websites

For marketing you should read Traction by Gabriel Weinberg

Ryan Holiday's Growth Hacker Marketing and Trust Me, I'm Lying are insanely informative and fun to read.

I've been really put off by the way they have been marketing Series 8 (I think a lot of the "leaks" (including the leaked scripts/episodes and the rummor about Jenna) have been intentional and part of their marketing strategy). I have questions about just why Matt's contract wasn't renewed and about what happened to Chris to make him leave after one series.

All of that goes to your "I wonder what's happening at BBC right now." comment. I've been wondering too, but about different things.

There's a book about self-help books that really helped me: SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless. It's a skeptical investigation of the Self-Help and Actualization Movement (or SHAM) that will help you identify which books not to waste your money on.

That said, if you are looking for a cognitive behavioral therapy book, Feeling Good seems to be legitimate. I haven't read the latest edition, but early editions were free of woo and it describes practices that represent the current thinking on cognitive-behavioral therapy among medical professionals. I tend to look down on self-help books with scorn, but this one appealed to my sense of logic and reasoning.

Since we're talking about Lawrence Lessig, people might be interested in Susan Crawford, was was TA for Lessig while at Stanford. I got to know Susan, when she was a Law Professor at the University of Michigan and I was on the Cable Commission as an elected member of Ann Arbor City Council. Anyone concerned about the Internet and Net Neutrality should read Susan's book: Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age https://www.amazon.com/Captive-Audience-Telecom-Industry-Monopoly/dp/1491528745

Depends if it's the kind of thing that (1) you are looking to find people or (2) where you want people to find you.

1. For example, you created a product that solves a problem: Talk to bloggers and journalists and try to get them to write about you. Comment on blogs. Post on reddit. Ryan Holiday's book Trust Me, I'm Lying is great for this.
   
   
2. For example, you run a mold removal business and need people looking for your service to find you. I've found Search Engine Optimization to be the best technique for this. People are looking on Google. You want to show up on Google results. The easy way: pay for Adwords. The hard way: build links and optimize your site. Nick's Traffic Tips is full of good info on this.
   
   Good luck with your business!

Worth pointing out as I haven't seen this book mentioned here so far.
Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator

I have been reading the book and the first edition is a little disjointed but still gets the point across.

this is legit. the article is from over a year ago. he wrote a book about it

Et dans ce cas il tourne la réthorique selon comme quoi EM utilise la justice (corrompu) pour entérer la vérité.

Au final quoi qu'il arrive ils consolideront leur base électorale.
Cet article explique assez bien cette stratégie :
http://observer.com/2017/02/i-helped-create-the-milo-trolling-playbook-you-should-stop-playing-right-into-it/

Et y'a même un livre :
https://www.amazon.fr/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285/?tag=ryanholidayfr-21

This is actually the central premise of the book, Trust Me I'm Lying:

https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285

Essentially, now that most media is online, and advertising sales are driven by clicks, clicks become the all important goal of most articles. And this is ushering in a new era of yellow journalism.

What drives clicks are anger / outrage/ fear / hate/ humor / sex - things that produce 'emotional valences.'

So take two headlines examples.

1. "Trumps election due to democrats's failure address the economic concerns of middle america, research shows."
   
2. "10 reasons why debate is pointless, and flyover state conservatards need to be put in re-education camps."
   
   Article 1 could be a wonderfully written, deeply researched article with a nuanced world view and actionable advice for winning in 2020. Yet, its not an exciting headline, and certainly does not spike a readers emotions. It gets 12,000 clicks.
   
   Article 2 could be raging drivel; an emotional , opinion based listicle with 250 words and 10 memes stolen from Reddit. But that headline is pure click gold. Those who are angry/hateful about trumps win will click, while trump supporters angry/afraid about the prospect of being put in political re-education camp will also click. Further, both sides will share this article with their 'sides' of the aisle online. Result, 1.2 million clicks.
   
   While article 1 is much better quality, article 2 is far more profitable for attracting advertising. As such, writers and editors will pursue more 'stories' like article 2.

I highly suggest Trust Me, I'm lying if you have not read it yet.

http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285

It's been reprinted under a new title.

Queria partilhar depois em tópico próprio para criar alguma discussão. Se calhar o melhor é lançar o desafio de ler, e meter a malta a ler o livro e só depois discutir, né?

É este. Se quiserem alguém quiser ebook envie PM.

EDIT: Tópico próprio

https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285

One of the first things he talked about was promoting a shitty book by a guy named Tucker Max who makes up fake stories. And he went out, defaced the billboard for the book, then wrote in an anonymous message with the picture of the defaced billboard. And put up fliers for a protest for the book then sent that in for people.

And he just emailed writers at HuffPo and Breitbart and other such sites, he didn't even post it to Digg (this was before Reddit). Nowadays he could probably just post the stuff on Reddit and people would give it thousands of upvotes without a thought or clue.

Edit: Good fragrance, 60+ upvotes: https://np.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/4v5yke/s_a_u_s_a_g_e/d5vsglq

Bad fragrance, downvoted immediately (-2): https://np.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/4v5yke/s_a_u_s_a_g_e/d5w6999

Someone's monitoring the thread...

Right now I'm reading Trust me, I'm lying. It's pretty much ruined the internet for me, and I couldn't recommend it more if I tried.

The media.

The DNC leaks proved that the Media was acting 100% as a surrogate for Hillary Clinton throughout the primaries and the general election. The problem is, the media lies.

They do not do reporting any more. They do opinion pieces, editorials and propaganda for their special interests. They dabble with identity politics and do hate-baiting outrage click bait pieces for money. They cannot be trusted.

I could write a book about this, but I don't really have to because it's been written already - Trust me, I'm lying

Absolutely should. Many people don't necessarily like seeing how the sausage is made, but Ryan Holiday's book is a great start.

It seems this is the English translation, it just took ages to be published. I do agree that his political stance is more than a bit concerning, but it still might be a worthwhile read.

> The book is now translated to English by a small publisher and under a different title
>
> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1615770178/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

Here's a whole book for you to read:
Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power

Reminds me of the book, The Saturated Self. We are constantly changing roles and scripts as we move through our day. Step into an elevator, your role and your self changes. Etc.

One of your above links also cites https://www.amazon.com/Image-Guide-Pseudo-Events-America/dp/0679741801

which was published in 1962 ..... Almost 60 years ago, and yet here we are, driving headlong further down that rabbit hole.

Do we learn nothing? *smh*

Spot on. They shouldn't have it both ways. Unfortunately, America has a history of insufficient legislation, regulation, and consumer protections when it comes to major industries.

I see so many parallels between the new frontier of internet companies and the railroad / telephone / cable industries of past and present. They want to define themselves as "common carriers" (beholden to different rules as a platform where commerce takes place, supposedly agnostic, and often receiving subsidies their contributions to the public). Invariably, of course, they are never truly neutral because there's a lot more money to be made when companies start showing favoritism to who's goods they carry and charging exuberant rates to others. And then you close the loop because money equals influence over legislation, which in the form of deregulation, erodes enforcement and gives companies more favorable conditions to make money.

Hooray.

Edit: Recommended reading: Captive Audience by Susan Crawford

http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/159184553X

Archives for the links in comments:

• By finalremix (loc.gov): http://archive.fo/E1qFX
  
• By The-Rotting-Word (amazon.com): http://archive.fo/UkEbV
  
• By hga_another (amazon.com): http://archive.fo/nFfxI
  
  
• By hga_another (amazon.com): http://archive.fo/71ta6
  
  ----
  I am Mnemosyne 2.1, Watch out for moon rocks! ^^^^/r/botsrights ^^^^Contribute ^^^^message ^^^^me ^^^^suggestions ^^^^at ^^^^any ^^^^time ^^^^Opt ^^^^out ^^^^of ^^^^tracking ^^^^by ^^^^messaging ^^^^me ^^^^"Opt ^^^^Out" ^^^^at ^^^^any ^^^^time

Your example with Chernobyl is absurd. It would require that every single news organization follow the same policy, and "sell the news" to you via subscription. That could never happen in the free market. In the free market, some news sites run ads to gain revenue, some will sell subscriptions, some will push agendas for money and so on and so forth.

I still don't see why charging for a monthly subscription is such a "disgusting" business practice. Your argument with Chernobyl was a simple reduction to absurdity. If a site puts out quality content that people deem worthy to pay for, let them. I think that relying on clickbaiting, manipulation and sensationalism is much more disgusting and harmful. That's the real problem with news today, not those few subscription-based sites, who are at least honest with their business practice.

You also pay for your newspaper. In this sense, "selling news," as you put it, is very much standard practice, and it always has been throughout history. You also take issue with that?

By the way, Trust me, I'm lying is an insightful and thought-provoking book on the subject, even more topical today than when it was originally released, I highly recommend it.

It's called Trust Me, I'm Lying. I'm actually reading it for a class I'm taking on Communication Ethics. I'm not super well-versed on the subject so I don't have any other recs for you. This book was a quick read and the info was presented in an interesting way.

I just finished reading Trust Me, I'm Lying, which has plenty of good examples of how easily the author (and others) have leaked bullshit into the news. This very much applies to serious stuff as well.

Highly recommend the book!

You should read Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator which explains the complete absence of fact-checking in online media - and increasingly on the mainstream media which uses it as a source. These days, if its not The Guardian or BBC News, I assume its anywhere from 50% - 100% fake/lies/spin/manipulated/Alt-News

The way PR and marketing works with these bottom-feeding websites which churn out garbage-tier "content" to feed the click-farms, is that they MUST keep it churning. Churning, churning, controversy, clicks, anger. etc.

This is just a taste. Clickety-click.

I have definitely done this with great results. Just make sure you target the right blogs, be VERY personable and SHORT in your email... have one or two lines that makes you better/interesting to try and hook them. These two lines or so should be the only copy/paste you do on every email.

• If they sense any copy/paste format, you will be in their trash.
  
• Be very short, if you can't hook them on your greatest feature/differentiator, a full paragraph/story won't do it or be read.
  
  Seriously consider reading [this book: Trust me, I'm lying to you] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1591846285).
  
  It will teach you how blog posts go "up the chain" of media broadcasting, what it takes to set that off, how to find which blogs the high traffic sites pull articles from, and overall is an interesting read for marketing. You may be able to find the info for free, he is a blogger/writer... so trying Googling: Ryan Holiday up the chain
  
  Again... seriously get this info. I read it in a few hours or day or so.

http://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-News-Fark-Media-ebook/dp/B000V5075M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421809710&sr=8-1&keywords=fark

Yeah and I mean no offense, but this seems a bit much:

> He sucks, as does the writing for this season. This is the opinion I hear almost universally in face to face conversation. The only place I see good things said about him is online. That leads me to believe that there is a major covert marketing push being made.

>I no longer trust what I see here as being representative of the community.

Try

You Are Not So Smart:
http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-So-Smart/dp/1592407366

Trust Me, I'm Lying: {the second part of the book}
http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator-ebook/dp/B0074VTHH0/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374416648&sr=1-1&keywords=Trust+Me%2C+I%27m+Lying%3A+Confessions+of+a+Media+Manipulator

And this are not books but they will open your eyes {I strongly suggest you dont watch this if you can't stand blood or violence }

Interview with a Cannibal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BosZxa1bYcE

Karachi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgIl1vmIchA

Slaves of Dubai
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMh-vlQwrmU

It's straight up media manipulation.

WaPo making money off legitimizing Breitbart is wrong.

You are right to criticize this.

Overall I think this is a great first step to start to shake the cable companies. For too long they have directed what we watch, how we watch it, and how much it costs. This has resulted in windfall profits, while not creating simple customer service. The current regulatory environment doesn't leave any room for innovation. Innovation will drive cost down by creating competition. I hate that even though I don't watch any sports, a large portion of my cable bill goes to subsidize ESPN.

For an interesting, albeit dry, read check out Captive Audience.

Recommend this book: Indie and Small Press Book Marketing

And these subs: r/write2publish & r/selfpublish

This is a really big topic, and I won't be able to list everything, but I'll try to hit the highlights.

• I do the best I can to be professional. I write the best book I can, and hire editors to help me make it as good as possible. This also involves pushing myself to be the best writer I can, and to be ambitious about the topics I address.
  
• I do the best I can to appear professional. I invest time and money in cover design, book formatting, and website design and content, so that it looks good to other people.
  
• My core audience are people who are intimately involved in technology and the future of technology: programmers, CTOs, venture capitalists. So instead of sending my book out to science fiction book reviewers, who are probably inundated with books to review, I send out review copies to programmers, tech startups, CTOs, etc. For The Last Firewall, I used Tech Crunch to find 50 fast-growing startups, and sent a physical copy of my book to each of their CTOs.
  
• Early on, when I didn't have any audience, I used Facebook ads, and carefully targeted people who were fans of particular books that had a lot of overlap with my book. I had a $5 daily budget, and ran the ad for about three months. This helped me get the first few hundred readers, and eventually word of mouth started to take over.
  
  I've also written a book about the topic: http://www.amazon.com/Indie-Small-Press-Book-Marketing-ebook/dp/B00AOOXZ9K
  
  I've seen a lot of authors do it a lot of different ways, and there's no one path that's right. It's just what works for you. Conduct lots of little experiments, and see what works.
  
  

I'll just leave this here.

http://www.amazon.com/Captive-Audience-Telecom-Industry-Monopoly/dp/0300153139/

The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America by Daniel Boorstin. It's about how many events in American life, particularly regarding the fame of individuals, are created by public relations and advertising. It was written in the early 60s, but the ideas are very relevant to today's world. I had never heard of it before grad school, and it made a huge impact on me.

The problem is that the consolidation is probably a lot worse than you think it is. It's a little dated (but there have been updates), but The Media Monopoly is a great read on the subject.

This book was first written about the subject in 1983. He was very prescient.

Well, I guess there's my first mistake. I wasn't aware that there was a style guide (I haven't taken any PR classes aside from Intro to PR this semester). So I didn't follow one (I wasn't aware there was one, I looked up PR assignments and how to write press releases from various professor sites). I'm guessing that I can learn from these though, right?

http://www.prsa.org/AboutPRSA/GuidelinesLogos/PRSAStyleGuide.pdf

http://smile.amazon.com/The-PR-Styleguide-Relations-Practice/dp/1111348111?sa-no-redirect=1

You have to be conscious of perception to avoid being hassled. That's exactly why I didn't bring this book on a plane, even though it's obviously not about bombs:
http://www.amazon.com/Smartbomb-Quest-Entertainment-Videogame-Revolution/dp/1565123468

you're spot on. people actually do this sort of thing for a living. Reddit's been manipulated like this in sometimes positive ways. But a lot of the time, it's pretty nefarious.

Check out Trust Me, I'm Lying by Ryan Holiday. This guy did similar campaigns for other people/business entities. One was for the movie I hope they serve beer in hell. He was able to manipulate the blogworld (which includes these "news" outlets like The Atlantic and the LA Times) into getting women's rights groups to actually stage protests. He faked profiles. None of the editors for these outlets ever checked. Or cared. The whole incentive system set up for these blogs is this: more views = more cash. and with the need to deliver news 24/7 in order to stay competitive, sources just need to be provocative instead of reliable.

In the end, Ryan Holiday gave a lot of heated exposure to that movie. it flopped, but it got nationwide exposure (and is now a DVD cult classic).

he eventually gave up on manipulating the internet, and now works as an exec for marketing for American Apparel. it's a shocking read

How do you respond to the negative reviews for your book on amazon, which claim that the real reviews are made up? I'm a bit confused.

http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/product-reviews/159184553X/ref=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_one?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addOneStar

Już nie chciałem wnikać w szczegóły bo kolega padlina by mnie zlinczował , ale ja tak naprawdę to głównie słucham książek. Do tego słucham sporo tzw pop science , ale z ostatnich ciekawych pozycji to mogę polecić :

Trust me, I'm Lying - Ryan Holiday

Never Split the Difference - Chris Voss

Influence - Robert Cialdini

Thinking fast and slow - Daniel Kahneman

Daj znać jeśli coś z tego Cię zainteresuje.

The suggestions here are good. In addition I recommend , 'Trust Me, I'm Lying': https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285

This book gives you a good idea about the consequences of Postmodernism - at least, the toxic method of simply deconstructing anything to the point that nobody knows what is 'true' or even that some things might be more 'true' than other things.

If were posting long shit rather then defending our position ourselves heres a book on why you should ignore the news http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285

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

I am reading it currently. It's so beautiful and eye-opening.

Hey, welcome to the subreddit.

I don't post here much these days because although I'm fairly outraged at the things I see here, I don't have a ton of energy for activism since building positive things in my own life consumes much of my energy. I can tell you that I'm engaged, in a relationship with inverted gender roles, and that my fiancée and I are helped vastly more by what we've learned here (and what we learned in our neuroscience and other courses) than what I learned in my WS studies. I consider myself an egalitarian, and I consider the current egalitarian move to be a backing of the Men's Rights Movement.

In the spirit of giving you a higher order of discourse than you find in SJW circles, as has been my experience here, I can highly recommend a book on this topic that I think you'll find enlightening. Trust Me, I'm Lying by Ryan Holiday. For example, he was the former press guy for American Apparel and planted many, many of the stories you now associate with Dov Charney. The SJW machine came up with more, and now the man's out of a job. Is he probably a sleazeball? Sure. Would I want him to date my daughter? Definitely not. Does he belong on a sex offender registry for the rest of his life? I seriously doubt it.

The book contains more than just his personal stories, as Holiday has done his homework on journalistic history and business and so on. But from what I can tell from his book and my observations elsewhere, the answer to your question appears to be a solid yes.

I heartily recommend you stick around here. There's a lot of anger and pain, sure, but you will learn a fuck ton of useful shit.

Phil, have you read Trust Me I'm Lying? The book is hyper aware of what is wrong with the current state of the news-media-blog system. It might even be funny to see you use the tactics outlined in the book to exploit the system and reveal it's inner machinations.

Someone that starts a business. Thats it. Everything else is someone selling you bullshit.

oh

Look

At

all

These

people

Making

Money

Telling you how to be an entrepreneur

Oh that last one shows you how and why bullshit sells.

These books came quickly to my mind:

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz

Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator by Ryan Holiday Some priceless marketing lessons here.

A ton of post-it notes.

For the agent provocateur, I am just pointing out that we do not know the details. The agent could either be from a law enforcement group or possibly a media outlet who wants a story.

The book www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285 talks about how he went and slapped sexist posters around town and then took pictures of them to create a story.

> Well done ! Now just keep that in mind (i.e. the far bigger risk caused by right wing groups when it comes to violence) and think again about the death threats from reactionary men. Hint : violence/death threats, right wing/reactionary.

Since the 1970s leftist groups have pretty much stopped violence/death threats etc. They now resort to media stunts and these sorts of things. Meanwhile among the right wing groups the opposite appears to be the case.

Personally I would say the elites have shifted from supporting the right wing to supporting the left wing since they see them as less of a threat.

> For the agent provocateur, I am just pointing out that we do not know the details.The agent could either be from a law enforcement group or possibly a media outlet who wants a story. The book www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285 talks about how he went and slapped sexist posters around town and then took pictures of them to create a story.

Of course you'll never know the details. That is why you have to use your brain. What were the outcome for those involved ? Where those outcome predictable ? You can then probably assume that the predictable outcomes where the goals of the perpretretors and infer their motives / identity.

Have those threads resulted in a crackdown on videogame misogyny ? Have they helped the target or harmed/destroyed their (professional) life ?

>Personally I would say the elites have shifted from supporting the right wing to supporting the left wing since they see them as less of a threat.

The elite support both right-wing and left wings on social issues (gay marriage), so as to pretend that we have a healty democracy, laughing all the way to the bank.

I'm reading this book right now. Should be required reading for anyone in KiA.

Pretty sure that's already a thing. Currently reading "Trust Me I'm Lying" by Ryan Holiday

https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285/

I'm going to leave this book here.

Anyone who thinks that this wasn't planned is deluding themselves.

This is a little bit off-topic but there is Flat Earth News by Nick Davies for general media bias which touches on state censure and propaganda, there's also Trust me I'm lying by Ryan Holiday which is mainly about PR.

I could only find a bootleg PDF which looks weird and unintelligible. Bootleg pdf: http://www.agmiw.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/GekaufteJournalisten-UdoUlfkotte.pdf

The only official version I can find is the German book on Amazon but it's twenty dollars. https://www.amazon.com/Gekaufte-Journalisten/dp/3864451434/ref=pd_sim_14_1/135-6879697-5879016?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=3864451434&pd_rd_r=baa083fb-8892-4434-8ef6-8e49892b1f4c&pd_rd_w=IY1d6&pd_rd_wg=e1Wih&pf_rd_p=04d27813-a1f2-4e7b-a32b-b5ab374ce3f9&pf_rd_r=4BRBSJD9CKQJ9GBBANFQ&psc=1&refRID=4BRBSJD9CKQJ9GBBANFQ

Last month it seems a very small independent publisher seems to have copied the original book in English and published it under a different title which is sold here at a very expensive 30 dollars: https://www.amazon.com/Presstitutes-Embedded-Pay-CIA-Confession/dp/1615770178/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0/135-6879697-5879016?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1615770178&pd_rd_r=3e0a83df-f0f1-4ab1-bde6-298b65c9a020&pd_rd_w=QdjMV&pd_rd_wg=8EyBK&pf_rd_p=5cfcfe89-300f-47d2-b1ad-a4e27203a02a&pf_rd_r=7SD24B75M7DGK0K7P3VD&psc=1&refRID=7SD24B75M7DGK0K7P3VD

Here's the book, feel free to get this "forbidden knowledge" for only 35 dollarydoos. https://www.amazon.com/Presstitutes-Embedded-Pay-CIA-Confession/dp/1615770178/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=presstitutes&qid=1573810601&sr=8-1

Eh? Things are way worse than what you described already. Read Manufacturing Consent by Chomsky. The CIA is involved as well. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1615770178/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1#customerReviews

Link for the lazy: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0074VTHH0/

I highly recommend the book Trust Me, I'm Lying. Does a pretty good job of explaining the hows and whys of media coverage, and why easy stories are often promoted over important stories.

"Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator" is a good read on that topic.

Have you read Best Seller Code? They used machine learning trained on best sellers to find patterns. Very enlightening stuff. Even if the AI isn't writing it completely, it could act as "tools" for writers. I think the cyborg relationships might work best? Future will be interesting. That's for sure. I wonder about the virtual worlds too. Will they all be scripted to perfection like West World, thereby needing human writers?

If you need to feel better, look how far some companies will go to leave suspicious 1-star reviews: Susan Crawford's book about telecom monopolies.

Also relevant: http://www.amazon.com/Saturated-Self-Dilemmas-Identity-Contemporary/dp/0465071856

It depends on what "we" care about in the future.

I think his legacy will be mixed, as all (or most) presidents' legacies are mixed. Presidential favorably is quite fluid. Ronald Reagan (hailed as a god by conservatives) is not as fondly looked at these days. Warren Harding was one of the most popular presidents when he died. Only months later when scandals came out did his popularity plummet. He's viewed as incompetent today. People like Andrew Jackson are still pissing people off on both sides. Even Lincoln, FDR, and Washington made decisions that were and still are very controversial.

He will get a lot of credit for the economic recovery. However, that recovery only really happened for the wealthy. It's also confusing, as fiscal policy was a game of chicken from 2010-2016. Congress and the president often did things that hampered the recovery by introducing massive uncertainty to markets.

I think "we" will judge our presidents based on the theories laid out in Boorstin's The Image. Psuedo-events will dominate our news and political culture over actual policy, data and governance. We will continue to judge and talk about press conferences, interesting quotes, moments and actions. We won't judge people on strategy, consequences or lasting effects of policy. This will favor Obama over the next several years, as his cerebral, confident, restrained image will be used to contrast DJT's bombastic, controversial, shoot from the hip image.

One major uncertainty of Obama is that he's really young and could still remain a force in public policy and government. Similar to Carter, Hoover, and others who lived long tenures after their presidency. He might go full Taft and go for a court spot. He's a constitutional lawyer after all. His "legacy" may be not complete at all. Who knows really.

As far as I am concerned. both Obama and Trump are presidents that greatly understand psuedo-events and the bully pulpit, and have used them highly effectively to paint pictures of themselves, their political causes and political enemies.

We'll see if history sees them kindly for it. I get a feeling that a lot of people think it's dishonest. I tend to agree with that.

The Image by Daniel J. Boorstin. It was written in 1962 and very perfectly predicts the current state of affairs in the US, particularly with respect to news media and entertainment, actually pretty depressing but a major eye opener.

Indeed. She's certainly not the only one. While not specifically about the "professional wrestling" aspect of the news media, I highly recommend Daniel Boorstin's "The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America"... written in 1961.

The Media Monopoly

>Reality is I don't even have any way of knowing that what you say is true. In fact, given your post history and utter failure to back up what you have to say with any sources whatsoever that it's not accurate.

Verifying everything I said is pretty easy for anyone that knows how to do basic research, especially since I broke down most of the points.

​

>Why didn't I think you were a journalist? Because most people who say "THE MEDIA NEEDS TO COVER THIS" aren't a part of the media.

I didn't say the Media Needs to Cover This, I asked a question, " Why aren't any news outlets covering the truth about what's going on with Vaping and Big Tobacco?"

​

>They're capable of recognizing that it's a complex ecosystem filled with different competing organizations with different competing interests.

It's more like competing journalists and it's not that complex of an ecosystem given that there is even more lateral movement in the industry today than there was twenty years ago and there was a lot back then. If you're not a Chomsky fan you should at least check out Bagdikian.

https://www.amazon.com/New-Media-Monopoly-Completely-Chapters/dp/0807061875

If you are interested in this subject, check out this book:
http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Media-Monopoly-Completely/dp/0807061875/ref=pd_sim_sbs_14_1/192-6714861-5499914?ie=UTF8&refRID=1FRF0HBTPN9ZTXGSTCV4

I know. The New Media Monopoly (book)

Manufacturing Consent (documentary)

Independent liberals are allowed to talk about these things. Right-wing corporate whores are not, and attack anyone who does as being a "socialist" who "hates America." That's been my experience, anyway.

A cruised around looking for some books to help ya. This book and this book come highly recommended from Amazon

Also, I'm not sure how music licensing works anymore, or for commercial stations, but at the college station, record companies would send us CDs with the latest singles on them for free so we'd play them on air. It didn't happen as much when we got less popular, however

Need a pdf of the following textbook by Monday, Sept. 17 at 1:00 PM EST. Willing to pay $4 through Paypal or Venmo.

The PR Styleguide: Formats for Public Relations Practice https://www.amazon.com/dp/1111348111/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_XYrNBb9VGWXA4

You're using the wrong acronym. This is part of the Self Help and Actualization Movement - so you should call it SHAM.

Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless
Review of the book

That's part of it...which they're really only able to do because of their economic power and localized monopoly status. (See Susan Crawford's book on this.) Anti-trust law is so unenforced in this space that Comcast and TWC volunteered that they had agreements not to compete anyway as a reason why their merger should have been allowed.

But fundamentally, NN is about non-discrimination. Hence, "neutrality." What you're saying would not have had Al Franken calling it the "First Amendment issue of our time." What you're discussing is a standard price gouging concern that is a collateral consequence of lacking NN, but I don't think it's at the core.

I was foolishly mistaken before that dsl necessarily meant some kind of upgrade over dial up, I guess that it doesn't tie up your phone line is supposed to count... but that is all it has got going for it where I live. After hearing about this being discussed, I have to agree that a lot of local ISPs are done laying out/improving networks and just want to sit back and farm what is already there.

while showing its age in the final chapters (which were at time of publication on "now and the future"), if you're doing anything academic about videogames this book is simply a must-read. It's very well done, it is accessible but informed and simply put is as entertaining as it is informative.

To put it into perspective, my love of games is due in large part to reading that book when it came out. (And it doesn't have a goddamn agenda in either direction of the argument, it's just about "what's the deal with videogames? well, these are the people who derped around with them first..." and so on.)

edit: link to book on amazon

My source is being alive and watching the news. Here's a nice summary of a couple items: https://www.liberationnews.org/07-04-03-media-complicity-disinformation-html/

I know there was a book about it too, but I haven't read it: https://www.amazon.com/When-News-Lies-Danny-Schechter/dp/1590790731

This isn't a short and sweet answer by any means, but if you're interested in understanding what it is about modern-day journalism that makes it so intrinsically difficult for honest journalism to flourish, I highly suggest you read Trust Me, I'm Lying by Ryan Holiday. I jut got done reading it a few weeks ago and found it fascinating.

> but most people do

Actually the guy who literally wrote the book on this type of marketing, Ryan Holiday, certainly says otherwise and that it is exactly as I said

Read "Trust Me, I'm Lying" if you're interested in this kind of thing.

Im sure every person working for him has a copy of this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285

Sounds kinda like some the work of Ryan Holiday, (former?) marketing head for American Apparel.

His book is pretty good: http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285

You are asking good questions. I appreciate your openness and I hope I can add something here. I hope we are not divided as it feels sometimes. Also, you might find it comforting that our country has survived division of similar if not greater magnitude before.

" why can’t you adults do the same "- I hope you will find that some of us can. Can you think of a marketing strategy for us? How many clicks/views would this headline get: "Nobody slams anybody- two dudes who disagree have an amicable conversation and agree to keep the dialog open despite disagreement" Are you familiar with the phrase "If it bleeds, it leads" ?

Also, I will note that nuanced argument takes more time and effort than the sort of shit in the two links below:

​

Here is an anti-Trump post relying on an emotional appeal. How much of the Republican party do you think this picture accurately represents? Does it matter what the opposition looks like?

https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalHumor/comments/ceca5l/a_gentle_reminder/

Here is an anti-liberal post based on a straw man argument. (IE- they are dunking on an imaginary liberal, they didn't find a person- let alone a majority of people- who espouse this view)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/comments/cbiydd/the_thought_process_of_the_left/

​

For more on the financial incentives involved in sensational headlines I like this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285

Currently reading: http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285

What do you recommend?

> Hygo Inc., a company focused on search-engine optimization and creating viral social media marketing, according to its website. Zhang's personal logo appears throughout the video.

AKA Media Manipulation; It's incredibly easy to sway blogs & other internet outlets nowadays without them even knowing it. I highly recommend Ryan Holiday's "Trust Me I'm Lying" if you're interested in reading on it further.

For anyone who is interested in this sort of phenomena I would recommend reading:
Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator
and So You've Been Publicly Shamed. They both give great insight into different ways modern media is broken.

>but logically dismantle his arguments instead?

Nobody started to listen Milo because his arguments were logical, nobody stops listening because counterarguments are logical.

>The problem is liberals so easily fall into the traps Mil

Typical liberal problem is to think that logical arguments work. It's all about repetition and rationalization of emotions. People should not protest him, just ignore him. He would create his own protests and controversies against him as is described in the article I linked, but that's different story. Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator is the bible for Milo and others like him.

Definitely gonna recommend Trust Me, I'm Lying by Ryan Holiday.

What with the recent elections and the supreme rise of clickbait articles, this book will redpill you /hard/ on how the media operates and who's behind them

Uh, duh. This is not new information. Ryan Holiday wrote a book exposing this in 2013.

I suggest starting off with Ryan Holiday's book.

Read this book

i've got an audible account, so i'll just listen to it when i'm done with this.

I totally agree with you. Fake news is a new phenomenon that is basically the end result of years of blog-journalism that is driven by clicks instead of reputation. It's almost viral in that, given the envoirnment and incentives we've created on the web, it is sure to happen. Ryan Holiday has been talking about this for years https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285

The problem with using the fact that what the guardian did isn't fake news to dismiss this article is that the guardian itself has been calling partisan media "fake news" and riding the wave. To retreat now would be the classic motte-and-bailey tactic we see with "racism", "sexism" etc.

A group puts out a definition of a wrong such as "fake news" and defines it as "the two teenagers in Macedonia who created fake newspaper web pages for newspapers they made up and then hosted stories like "FBI agent investigating Clinton E-mail found dead" which were entirely made up. Created because click-based advertising made them thousands of dollars when the stories went viral on social media." and nobody has an issue with it.

Then the group says that say Brietbart is "fake news" because they indulge in massive spin, selective reporting and bullshit articles.

Then when the group is challenged about the fact that they do the exact same as Brietbart et al they say "oh that isn't really fake news, like those teenagers in Macedonia".

Point being they can accuse the other side of one thing and then pretend they never meant it THAT WAY, but the damage is already done. It's been one of the biggest rhetorical tactics of the left for years.

Here's another example:
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-words-words-words/

There is an interesting book on the subject.
Basically, today's form of journalism is more focused on being first than being correct.

Sounds like a good read. Thanks!

Link for anyone else interested.

On a side note, anybody else get frustrated when the hard copy costs less than the e-book?

Read this and you'll fully understand: http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285

As I said below, this isn't really a story - It's cotton candy web content. I'm using a press release because It's a formal medium to get someone to share my pictures. In the Book "trust me, I'm Lying: confessions of a media manipulator" he talks about how most people who run blogs, or websites always need fresh content and if you can give that to them, they'll gladly share it.

Now, the author used that to do shady things with that. But the principle remains the same, You serve them some content that will get clicks, and they'll happily share it because it benefits them.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1591846285/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1394117464&sr=8-1

On mobile so can't make the link pretty, deals with guerilla marketing tactics and taking advantage of how blogging networks operate to manufacture press. Very interesting stuff.

People don't care to be educated. That's why they just accept what the media says at face value. The whole "fake news" thing has become big in the Trump era but the media has always done this.

Back in the early days of the internet they had my grandma convinced that a computer virus could be transmitted to people.

I also remember when some dude posted on totse, the temple of the screaming electron about making a drug that involved collecting gas from fermenting feces in a balloon and inhaling it. There was a big scare about teenagers huffing the shit gas known as jenkem even though it was complete bullshit.

This is a great book although it is a bit dated:
https://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-News-Fark-Media/dp/1592403662/

In his book It's Not News It's Fark, Drew Curtis said that some user on his website isolated a freeze frame, and that it spread from there to the news, and I believe it.

> Here's the thing: whether it's extremist feminism or alt-right morons; whether it's over-the-top political correctness or blatant racism; whether it's SJWs-gone-wild or gamergate red-pill misogynists -- they all represent an element that most people never have to interact with in day-to-day life.

This is exactly what I mean. One of these things is not like the other, and I've bolded the one for you that is bullshit.

When you describe /r/JWs, you'll get a description that the members agree with: A subreddit of Jehovah's Witnesses. When you describe T_D, you'll get a description that the members agree with: A get a subreddit of Trump fans.

This is not the case with KiA, the main subreddit of Gamergate. When you just described GG, you described something entirely different from their nature. I was there at its inception, when GG started criticising the gaming press for doing things like giving positive coverage of friends and relationships without disclaimers. I saw that the gaming press retaliated by painting their critics as misogynists. I saw third parties such as some crowds on Something Awful and the GNAA celebrate as the other press uncritically took that over. All it took was asking people on KiA what they thought. But they didn't do that.

KiA is not the fringe of society. It's circlejerky, yes, but its anti-censorship is not fringe at all, and it's far from what you believe it to be. In fact, if these topics piss you off, that is exactly what you share with them. You get pissed off by university presidents that do not tolerate statements like "it’s okay to be white"? You're now getting lumped in with "red-pill misogynists", yay.

It really reminds me of what happened to the atheism community when Atheism Plus reared its ugly head. This is something you'll eventually encounter too; something you care about will be misrepresented because it works better for the outrage machine. It's media manipulation at its finest.

> it is for people to talk about a place

And yet we have moved all moving/city questions to 'askPortland'.

Antifa and the PB's are TINY FRINGE groups who's activities promote and always end in violence (remember the 'punch a nazi' signs?). This is about 500 people total that show up at these events. Hardly any statistical amount of Portlanders - yet we give them a constant platform to promote their rhetoric and violence.

I say it's time to yank that platform from them or at least stop giving them more screen and news time than their tiny fringe activities deserve. Racism has no place in Portland. Violence has no place in Portland. I stand up to them both. We are a nation of laws. If you got a friggen gripe - then be part of the solution of fixing those systems, changing laws, and creating something great. Not trashing our parks and turning a block or two of our city into thunderdome on a monthly basis.

It's a tactic both the PB's and Antfi are taking full advantage of to make them seem far larger than the few hundred extremists they are. A social media tactic well documented here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0074VTHH0/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

> The expectation only people who live in the city will post on this sub is laughable.

It is laughable - because you were the only one that brought that idea up.


But perhaps you're right. It does seem like attendance at these clown-fests seems to continually be dropping. Maybe people are becoming smarter.

This is how all news on the internet works. You can also use this to make your product/lie you wish to propagate or whatever "go viral". How you do it is basically tip a smallish blog or two and within the next little while bigger blogs/sites will pick it up without crediting the original source so that your little lie becomes truth. To find out more about this you can read Trust Me I'm Lying by Ryan Holiday.

> It was in the 1960s and it was done in an attempt to stifle cable providers and protect the existing broadcast networks.

Sorry no it was so the cable companies had to carry all the local channels. Also so they did not get free content. They have to pay for the content. no free rides.

Regulations opened up the telephone polls to the cable companies. The phone companies did not want them on their polls so they fought to keep them off. Regulations stopped that.

So no free stuff and they got access to the telephone polls. All regulations.

> But the cause of these companies becoming so huge today is largely from their interactions with local govts.

An example of bad regulations and laws. Yes those are out there like I have stated. It's called regulatory capture.

> But whats even cheaper than acquiring a competitor is getting in bed with the govt.

For Comcast to do that they have to get the government to agree to let them buy their competition. The US government use to stop many mergers from happening because it get too much market to very few companies. Until recently they stopped doing that.

> reducing competition in their industry through burdensome regulations that they design

Again you think all regulations are regulatory capture. They are not.

> I'm not saying that private companies aren't bad actors sometimes.

"Any company is going to want to be the biggest and control the most market share. Its not a bad thing to want to be the biggest and best in a competition." - you from an earlier comment.

So being the biggest is not being a bad actor? It's nice you put in the best in a competition but to be the real best one needs no competition. See the best is the company that makes the highest profits. It's not about customers. That's not what the free market is. It's about higher and higher profits. It's called the profit motive. It's not called the be the best motive. It's the profit motive. Removing competition does that.

The phone companies tried to do it to the cable companies by keeping them off their telephone polls and the cable companies try to do it by size. No new player can come in. If they do the cable companies just drop their price in that one area and unless that company can spend billions and take a loss most of that time they will lose.

Google is the one exception and that's because they are also content and they have to do it. If they do not and the cable companies are allowed to be unregulated they will also lose large amount of money to fast / slow lane. The cable companies will squeeze all content providers because they can. Don't like it consumer? Who cares. Go else where. Oh wait there is no real other choices.

Google knows that that's why they are rolling out their own cable.

AT&T stopped rolling out FIOS. It stopped about 2 years ago. Why? They where still making a profit but the cost was cutting into their profit. Profits where not high enough.

Here's a really good book on the subject.
"Captive Audience" It's by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_P._Crawford

She talks about the good and the bad. So she does cover regulatory capture but also rent seeking and monopoly.

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AMYGFXK/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o01_?ie=UTF8&psc=1

> People have a right to spend their money any way they wish. If a corporation spends money on politics, it better be in a way that benefits the shareholders or they're going to lose investors.

Ever heard of the term Maximizing Shareholder Value?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/28/maximizing-shareholder-value-the-dumbest-idea-in-the-world/

To do that companies need to minimize every other stakeholder. That means suppliers, the government (taxes), and the employees. I suspect you have a job where you get a pay check. Maximizing shareholder value says you are making too much money. Why? Money going into your pocket is money not going to the shareholders.

Also the customers need to be minimized they too are a stakeholder. monopolies can and do minimize customers because they can.

The value you get from the company cannot be maximized because that would not allow the shareholders value to be maximized.

I really hope you are a millionaire or better because otherwise you are not a shareholder. You are an employee. And you are screwing yourself.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01B1MWKIU/

It doesn't contain nearly as much information as the blurb seems to suggest it does. It definitely isn't a how to guide on writing a bestseller. Still, some of the insights are really interesting and fly in the face of common beliefs.

read The Image by Daniel Boorstin. It's been like this for quite a while...

This is a must read for anyone who works, or who has worked in radio. It's a hoot.

http://www.amazon.com/Original-Sex-Broadcasting-Handbook-Community/dp/0917320018

How do you feel about your, and the game developers community, portrayal on the book "Smartbomb"?. Is the one star review yours?

http://www.amazon.com/Smartbomb-Quest-Entertainment-Videogame-Revolution/dp/1565123468

Yeah, I don't trust 538 outright but I trust them a lot more than a paper that is basically dedicated to 20-somethings clickbait.

"political slant of Washington Post," third result:

>In spite of its owner's political leanings, The Washington Post is generally considered a center-left publication.

Link 1 was Wikipedia. and link 2 was The Post itself. The Washington Post is a Liberal paper.

>and polls from major media organizations aren't really in the business of editorializing via their polling data

Yes they are. Washington Post's business model is to post sensational headlines for clicks. Trust Me, I'm Lying is a great book about it. News websites have very little incentive to care about their reputation.

Engaging in two-way conversations (not just one-way pitches) and send ideas that are relevant and make their jobs easier.
You should check out, if you haven't already, Ryan Holiday's book "Trust me, I'm lying" (http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285).
It's about media manipulation, and he talks specifically how to get bloggers to write about you (trickling up the pole).
It's a great read and, holy crap, a lot scary. Use with caution and great responsibility.

Read this book: [Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator] (https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285)

How would you know that /u/mandrsn1 is right? Read up on the number of controversies that we've seen. Is Tucker Max still making headlines?

They're all derivative of the same kind of stupid at this point.

Sleeping Giants probably Boston Massacred the actual number of non-wordpress-caliber-websites (which MIGHT be in the teens) up to 2600, and every website that's fishing for instant content ran with it as fact because no one in media fact checks their sources anymore, especially when they operate with a confirmation bias. I don't care what Sleeping Giants puts on their leader's personal Google Doc. None of their shit is vetted any more than the average extremist blog.

I don't support Breitbart, and I do believe there's an alt-right brigade in this subreddit, but there's also a rabid and hostile left wing brigade here as well, it's just as out of control, and I consider you part of it.

Which doesn't match the headline. Another news aggregator's founder made a whole book out of this. It's actually a good read even though I don't go there anymore.

Yes - the bill that's trying to get signatures is not just research. It's advocating for broad legalization in public use - before we even know what it's effects are.

Sure, legalize for labratory tests. But just turning something like this loose on the general population with almost no idea of the short or long term effects is irresponsible. No?

Also, let's us just be honest. This is just the usual Overton window social media astroturfing by the Oregon Psilocybin Society.

Read "Trust Me I'm Lying" by Ryan Holiday. He was doing this stuff long before you guys started.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0074VTHH0/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Read this ...

http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377087001&sr=8-1&keywords=trust+me+i%27m+lying

Actually theres loads of research that proves bad press is easy to make good;

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2019/10/they-re-doing-badly-purpose-why-tories-latest-online-ads-look-so-ugly

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285

I think you need to look at it this way. Tesla have got their truck on the front page of just about every major news outlet, would it be there without the broken windows? Unlikely. Is something the windows breaking actually something buyers would care about? No. A single press release from them saying 'we now have stronger windows' would settle anything people were actually worried about.