American Radical: The Life and Times of I.F. Stone
By D.D. Guttenplan (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2009)
A biography of the famed muckraker, Guttenplan’s lively, provocative book makes clear why so many of Stone’s pronouncements have acquired the force of prophecy.
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women
By Susan Faludi (Crown, 1991)
An in-depth, well-documented analysis of the media backlash against feminism.
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: A Tale of Billionaires and Ballot Bandits
By Greg Palast (Seven Stories, 2016)
A close election in November could well come down to contested states or even districts–an election decided by vote theft? It could happen this year. A searing indictment of the American electoral system.
Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues
By Bill Moyers (New Press, 2011)
All collection of interviews with some of the defining figures of the 20th and 21st centuries, with commentary from the renowned public broadcaster.
Blowing the Roof Off the Twenty-First Century: Media, Politics, and the Struggle for Post-Capitalist Democracy
By Robert W. McChesney (Monthly Review Press, 2014)
All collection of interviews with some of the defining figures of the 20th and 21st centuries, with commentary from the renowned public broadcaster.
By Invitation Only: How the Media Limit Public Debate
By David Croteau and William Hoynes (Common Courage, 1994)
Incorporates Croteau and Hoynes’ classic studies of Nightline, the NewsHour and PBS that document the establishment bias of “prestige” television.
Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media
By Jeff Cohen (Polipoint, 2006)
FAIR founder Jeff Cohen offers a fast-paced romp through the three major cable news channels–Fox, CNN, and MSNBC–and delivers a serious message about their failure to cover the most urgent issues of the day.
Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy
By Robert W. McChesney (Seven Stories, 1997)
A concise explanation of why corporate media domination matters.
Cracked Coverage: Television News, the Anti-Cocaine Crusade and the Reagan Legacy
By Jimmie L. Reeves and Richard Campbell (Duke, 1994)
Explores TV’s role in the shifting myths of the War on Drugs.
Culture, Inc.: The Corporate Takeover of Public Expression
Herbert I. Schiller (Oxford University Press, 1989)
Analyzes the corporate structure of mass communications and how it constrains expression in a wide range of news and entertainment media. See also Schiller’s The Mind Managers, Beacon Press, 1973.
Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy
By Robert W. McChesney (Seven Stories, 2016)
An important book skewering the assumption that a society drenched in information in a digital age is inherently a democratic one.
Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America
By John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney (Nation, 2014)
Fresh from the first 10 billion election campaign, two award-winning authors show how unbridled campaign spending defines our politics and, failing a dramatic intervention, signals the end of our democracy.
Deciding What’s News
By Herbert Gans (Vintage, 1980)
A sociologist takes apart the functional criteria for what qualifies as “news.”
Democracy Without Citizens: Media and the Decay of American Politics
By Robert M. Entman (Oxford, 1989)
A deft academic examination of how institutional patterns deprive us of a “free press.”
Don’t Believe the Hype: Fighting Cultural Misinformation About African-Americans
By Farai Chideya (Plume, 1995)
A fact-filled refutation of various media myths.
The Essential Chomsky
Edited by Anthony Arnove (New Press, 2008)
A compilation of the iconic dissenter’s most enduring writings and polemics.
The FAIR Reader: An Extra! Review of Press and Politics in the ’90s
Edited by Jim Naureckas and Janine Jackson (Westview, 1996)
A collection of articles from Extra! that document media’s role in shaping the politics of the 1990s.
Feet To the Fire: The Media After 9/11, Top Journalists Speak Out
Edited by Kristina Borjesson (Prometheus, 2005)
Candid, often alarming conversations with America’s most distinguished journalists and news executives, revealing what they really think about the companies they work for, the Bush administration, and much more.
Fooling America: How Washington Insiders Twist the Truth and Manufacture the Conventional Wisdom
By Robert Parry (Morrow, 1992).
An inside account by one of the country’s leading investigative reporters of the elite media culture that sabotages news reporting.
Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater
By Gene Lyons (Franklin Square, 1996)
A persuasive critique of the coverage of Clinton’s scandals.
The George Seldes Reader
Edited by Randolph T. Holhut (Barricade Books, 1994)
A compilation of writings from the dean of American media criticism.
The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Global Capitalism
By Edward S. Herman and Robert W. McChesney (Cassell, 1997)
An inclusive examination of the increasing integration of the global media industry.
The Haunted Fifties, In a Time of Torment and Polemics and Prophecies
By I.F. Stone (Little, Brown, 1989)
Three-volume series of edited writings from an eminent independent journalistic and media critic.
Inventing Reality: The Politics of the Mass Media
By Michael Parenti (St. Martin’s, 2nd edition, 1992)
A concise and insightful analysis of U.S. news media bias.
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
By Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky (Pantheon, 1988)
A probing expose of biased reporting on human rights and foreign policy issues.
Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America’s Warfare State
By Norman Solomon (Paradigm, 2007)
A unique weave of personal narrative and historical inquiry, this book documents five decades of rising American militarism and the media’s all-too-frequent failure to challenge it.
Made Possible By…: The Death of Public Broadcasting in the United States
By James Ledbetter (Verso, 1997)
An engrossing history of public broadcasting, from its initial idealist attempt to reshape the vast wasteland of television.
Masters of Mankind: Essays and Lectures, 1969-2013
By Noam Chomsky (Haymarket Books, 2014)
Noam Chomsky examines the nature of state power, from the ideologies of the Cold War to the War on Terror, and reintroduces the moral and legal questions that all too often go unheeded.
The Media in Black and White
Edited by Everette E. Dennis and Edward C. Pease (Transaction, 1997)
An anthology with a spectrum of perspectives on issues of race and journalism, entertainment and advertising.
The Media Monopoly
By Ben Bagdikian (Beacon Press, 5th edition, 1997)
The classic study of concentrated corporate ownership and its impact on mass media.
Mediaspeak: How Television Makes Up Your Mind
By Donna Woolfolk Cross (Mentor, 1983).
A telling look at TV’s wide range of manipulative techniques.
My Times: A Memoir of Dissent
By John L. Hess (Seven Stories Press, 2003).
A critical look at The New York Times from the inside.
Networks of Power: Corporate TV’s Threat to Democracy
By Dennis W. Mazzaco (South End Press, 1994)
A former TV industry worker gives the behind-the-scenes story of the Capital Cities/ABC merger, documenting how giant media corporations use news and culture to further corporate goals.
The Oh Really? Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel’s Bill O’ Reilly
By Peter Hart and Fairness & Accuracy in reporting (Seven Stories Press, 2003) A short book exposing the bias, error, contradiction, and hard-right political tilt of O’ Reilly.
On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency
By Mark Hertsgaard (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1988) The definitive work on U.S. media performance during the Reagan Era.
Optimism over Despair: On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change
Interviews by C.J. Polychroniou with Noam Chomsky (Haymarket Books, 2017)
A concise and accessible introduction to the ideas of Noam Chomsky.
Prime Time Activism: Media Strategies for Grassroots Organizing
By Charlotte Ryan (South End Press, 1991)
An extremely useful guide for activists that explains sophisticated media strategies that take into account long-term organizing as well as publicity goals.
Public Television for Sale: Media, the Market and the Public Sphere
By William Hoynes (Westview, 1994)
A clear academic survey of the increasing privatization of public TV in the U.S.
Real Majority, Media Minority: The Cost of Sidelining Women in Reporting
By Laura Flanders (Common Courage, 1997)
A wide-ranging look at the effects of media exclusion of women.
The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy
By Howard Friel and Richard Falk (Verso, 2004)
A demonstration of how the newspaper of record in the United States has consistently, over the last 50 years, misreported the facts related to the wars waged by the United States.
Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War
By John R. MacArthur (Hill & Wang, 1992)
A disturbing record of the government’s wartime restriction and manipulation of major media—and of the media’s largely willing acceptance of those restrictions.
The Sponsor: Notes on a Modern PotentateBy Erik Barnouw (Oxford, 1978)
The classic study of the domination advertisers wield over television by the premier historian of U.S. broadcasting.
Through Jaundiced Eyes: How the Media View Organized Labor
By William J. Puette (ILR/Cornell, 1991).
Examines media coverage of labor, cataloging damaging stereotypes, misrepresentation and bias by omission.
Toxic Sludge Is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry
By John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton (Common Courage, 1995)
An expose of corporate P.R.’s opinion-shaping power.
The TV Arab
Jack Shaheen (Bowling Green, 1984)
A probing study of racial stereotyping in news and entertainment.
Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky
Edited by Peter R. Mitchell and John Schoeffel (New Press, 2002)
A wide-ranging collection of transcribed and previously unpublished discussions and seminars with sociopolitical analyst Noam Chomsky.
Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media
By Martin A. Lee and Norman Solomon (Lyle Stuart, 1990)
A vital handbook for seeing through biased coverage of a wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues.
Virgin or Vamp? How the Press Covers Sex Crimes
By Helen Benedict (Oxford University Press, 1992)
Examines how damaging rape myths are perpetuated by the mainstream press and the shifting roles played by race and class bias in coverage.
War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Us Spinning to Death
By Norman Solomon (Wiley, 2006)
An analysis of the key “perception management” techniques that have played huge roles in the promotion of American wars in recent decades.
The Way Things Aren’t: Rush Limbaugh’s Reign of Error
By Steve Rendall, Jim Naureckas and Jeff Cohen (The New Press, 1995)
A meticulous and humorous refutation of the talkshow host’s false and foolish pronouncements.
The White Press and Black America
By Carolyn Martindale (Greenwood, 1986)
A look at mainstream media’s distortions of African-Americans.
Wizards of Media Oz: Behind the Curtain of Mainstream News
By Norman Solomon and Jeff Cohen (Common Courage, 1997)
The latest compilation of “Media Beat” columns and other writings. See also “Through the Media Looking Glass” (1995) and Adventures in Medialand (1993).
