Ryan Holiday, minus the laughs, is the Jon Stewart of the web.
After reading the first 40 pages of Trust Me, I'm Lying, you will never read news from Business Insider, The Daily Beast, Drudge Report, BuzzFeed, Politico or Huffington Post with your old credulity again.
A recovering PR practitioner, Holiday explains how starving web journalists work; and how greedy publishers and wanton publicists exploit their hunger every hour of every day.
"Bloggers eager to build names and publishers eager to sell their blogs are like two crooked businessmen colluding to create interest in a bogus investment opportunity—building up buzz and clearing town before anyone gets wise," Holiday writes. "In this world, where the rules and ethics are lax, a third player can exert massive influence. Enter: the media manipulator."
With the same aplomb that Silent Spring laid bare corporate greed and The Pentagon Papers government secrecy, Trust Me, I'm Lying exposes the utter corruption that plagues web journalism—and the noxious effect it has on all of us.
