Hate, Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another

When journalists are pressured to entertain instead of inform, beware - because it's very doubtful that you are getting the real story. What you are getting is something that appeals to your ego, confirms your bias, and serves the ultimate goals of the state and the corporate entities they serve.This constant diet of hate has made it so that we can no longer talk to solve our common problems. Whatever someone's political philosophy, most of us have common ground; we love our children, we want clean air, we want political and corporate corruption to stop. Average people on both sides of the political spectrum want fair wages, want an end to medical price gouging, and most people when asked even want medicare4all. But the media presents these demands as if we are all divided on wanting a decent world, and we all buy-in - because hate and outrage are like little hits of dopamine..We are not each other's enemy. As long as we continue to punch across, we are too busy to look up and hold accountable the scoundrels who are bleeding us and our nations dry.

I have been a fan and avid follower of Matt Taibbi since he joined Rolling Stone, and I've voraciously devoured everything of his I could get my hands on. But this book (and "Strangers in Their Own Land") have brought me to a crisis of conscience of sorts.Over a lifetime, our society conditions us to think in polar terms such that some of us can't pick up a piece of red or blue candy without the unconscious reflex of thinking "us" or "them" based on its color and their political party. Our ideas, our sources, our media are pure, accurate, and good, but anyone and anything from the other side is not.Taibbi's bold and devoted updating of "Manufacturing Consent" calls into question this social conditioning and the media's role in creating a political climate so fractured that writers have to embark on an ethnographic expedition to their own country to learn how to navigate the empathy divide (as in "Strangers in Their Own Land," which while Taibbi might deride the necessity of such a sojourn, the result was nevertheless revelatory to me). At times, I've cheered Taibbi's central thesis--that the media must be impartial and never serve as a form of tribal blinders--and at others, I've been brought to an existential crisis of sorts. Part of me worries I have been contributing to this culture war by having deeply held beliefs and that I ought to seek communion with my fellow man, while another part of me feels that there are limits to tolerance that should not be crossed, not least of which there being literal Nazis on our streets.I don't know what the path forward is for us in this country, but I do know this political and media divide cannot stand. I also know this book is an essential and vital read that will challenge your views, whichever side of the divide you're on.

Although I agree with much of the author’s criticism of cable news, and it’s incessant and mostly biased coverage of politics, I do not agree with the comparison he draws between the likes of Sean Hannity on Fox with Rachel Maddow in MSNBC, nor his use of her photograph on the cover implying she is a purveyor of hate, due to the provocative title used to help sell the book.Taibbi doesn’t draw a distinction between Fox News right wing propagandists, and a journalist who does her homework and at least tries to get a story right.He spends a long chapter complaining about Maddow’s mistakes in covering the investigation of collusion between Russia and Trump et al.I don’t think that the Mueller investigation was really able to learn exactly how the Russians interacted with the Trump campaign, and we may never know, but it seems probable that they did in some form or fashion.So now an otherwise good book will cause readers to focus on Taibbi’s diatribe against Maddow and her probably excessive coverage of Trump’s 2016 election shenanigans up through the Mueller report being released. Where there’s smoke there’s usually fire, and I take the view opposite of Taibbi that with Trump’s likely, but not legally provable, collusion with the Russians in 2016, that absence of evidence is not automatically evidence of absence.I’m a long time reader and fan of Matt Taibbi, and it doesn’t make me happy to criticize him thusly, but if in the future more compelling information becomes available about Trump and his Russian pals working together in 2016 to undermine Clinton (she did enough to undermine herself anyway, but I think that Putin helped grease the skids for her), then the author will end up with a damaged reputation. And that’s a sad thing for me to say.

Everyone should read this. The story of making money off promoting hate in America on both sides

It is not well balanced. and he personally let's his bias describe others especially Trump in a very defamatory way. I thought that he would not let his personal bias interfere, but sadly it has.

This is a collection of articles that were published by Taibbi on the media in the US. It highlights a number of key trends over the last few decades as well as some major debacles (Iraqi WMD, the rise of Trump and Russiagate). Overall it's a very interesting read although I was hoping for bibliography or footnotes for the examples he references.There are some takeaways for the media in other countries too as similar trends are playing out.

Incredibly insightful deep dive into all that's wrong with today's journalism (should I put that word in quotes?), and a worthy successor to the media criticism of Chomsky. Greatly readable too.

Well written and full of interesting insights on the media since Trump. You'll seldom go wrong with Matt Taibbi.