The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media

How this book showed me my own bias

Do you wonder about the media? do you hate the new york times for being too liberal? Do you hate fox news for being right wing propaganda? As a moderate, Do you hate your coworkers lunchtime debates, arguing those two positions? then this book is absolutely a must read for you, and for them. Step back from the heat of the moment, and have some well presented, deep thoughts on the overall way we create our media. This book is a intelligent, understanding and deeply expressive look at all forms of media. This is a well written book, a fun and easy read for people of all ages and all walks of life, and I promise, will teach you something revealing about the media. I'd give it to 15 year olds, and I'd give it to college professors. that's a rare treat to have a book who's ideas are so well presented, yet so deep, that everyone would benefit from reading it. I feel like after reading this book I have a deeper tolerance for the "other side", and for people who hold different opinions than my own. And, most importantly, where I thought I was in the center, I see that Im just a point on a perfectly valid series of spectrums. read this book, explore what bias really means, and start to awaken to ones own hidden beliefs. This book puts whole constellations of complex ideas into understandable stories, two to three pages at a time. The brilliance of this book is that it gives a rock solid view of our media, and as a reflection- of all of us. You will have wonderful jumps back in time, to the history of media, how its shaped human culture, and how its shaping us- and how we shape it. You'll be presented with a real look at both sides of the debate, and then, suddenly, the lights come on about the mechanics of the debate itself, and what then is really the conflict. I learned more about republican media, liberal media, Freedom of media vs government suppression of media. I learned all the ways Bias shows up in the media, and in myself. I learned how media checks the governmen...