Waubonsee Community College

Trust me, I'm lying, confessions of a media manipulator, Ryan Holiday

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-292) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Trust me, I'm lying

bibliography

817263647

Ryan Holiday

confessions of a media manipulator

You've seen it all before. A malicious online rumor costs a company millions. A political sideshow derails the national news cycle and destroys a candidate. Some product or celebrity zooms from total obscurity to viral sensation. What you don’t know is that someone is responsible for all this. Usually, someone like me. I’m a media manipulator. In a world where blogs control and distort the news, my job is to control blogs -- as much as any one person can. Blogs like Gawker, BuzzFeed, and The Huffington Post drive the media agenda. Bloggers are slaves to money, technology, and deadlines. Manipulators wield these levers to shape everything you read, see, and hear -- online and off. Why am I giving away these secrets? Because I’m tired of a world where blogs take indirect bribes, marketers help write the news, reckless journalists spread lies, and no one is accountable for any of it. I’m going to explain exactly how the media really works. What you choose to do with this information is up to you

Blogs make the news -- How to turn nothing into something in three way-too-easy steps -- The blog con: How publishers make money online -- Tactic #1: Bloggers are poor, help pay their bills -- Tactic #2: Tell them what they want to hear -- Tactic #3: Give them what spreads, not what's good -- Tactic #4: Help them trick their readers -- Tactic #5: Sell them something they can sell (exploit the one-off problem) -- Tactic #6: Make it all about the headline -- Tactic #7: Kill 'em with pageview kindness -- Tactic #8: Use the technology against itself -- Tactic #9: Just make stuff up (everyone else is doing it) -- Irin Carmon, The Daily Show, and me: The perfect storm of how toxic blogging can be -- There are others: The manipulator hall of fame -- Cute but evil: Online entertainment tactics that drug you and me -- The link economy: The leveraged illusion of sourcing -- Extortion via the web: Facing the online shakedown -- The iterative hustle: Online journalism's bogus philosophy -- The myth of corrections -- Cheering on our own deception -- The dark side of snark : When Internet humor attacks -- The 21st century degradation ceremony: Blogs as machines of hatred and punishment -- Welcome to unreality -- How to read a blog: An update on account of all the lies -- Conclusion: So... where to from here? -- Appendix A -- Appendix B