What am I reading? Trust me I'm Lying




A playbook for the dark arts of exploiting the media
Confessions of a media manipulator

 Okay - this was definitely gangsta-like - if there ever was a click-bait headline for books, this was (& is it).

 One thing Holiday does well, is whip up interest.

 Sadly, it is only thing.

 Part confessional, part accusatory, Trust me I am Lying is mildly interesting.

So the book does deplore the present state of media, justifiably so. The fact that it may not surprise you to learn some of the dirty media tricks itself is testament to the fact how weary we have become and how easily (and correctly) we believe media is malleable.

 Molded in classic whistle-blower style, you'd think this book would do a expose on the ways of the media - and it does. Divided into two parts: How Blogs Work and What Blogs Mean, it touches upon how content is traded up the chain, how publishers make money online, how content publishers trick readers, rants against page-views, blogs as machinery of mockery & punishment and so on.

 The book begins off by exploring the nefarious relationships between publishers, advertisers and bloggers. If you are in the marketing profession, you'd be aware of how this cycle works - perhaps you'd learn how deep the rot fests with some disdain. For those, outside this ecosystem of marketers / media / bloggers, you might find the revelations intriguing, to say the least, if not outright offensive. 

 The book is a smorgasbord of these terms in repetition "fake news", "manipulation", "page-views" - and after some point, honestly, you just wait for the book to take off - it doesn't.

I agree with some of Holiday's [obvious] observations - quality journalism is dying, fact-checking seems to be an obscure art, people working under insane deadlines only care about page-views, manipulation is rife in media, and exploitation [both of bloggers and readers] is rampant.

 Despite knowing how some of these tactics work, my appetite for knowing exactly how the supposed dark arts were put into motion was never satiated during my reading experience. I wanted to know more. What we needed was more teeth - more depth - more rigour to the material.

 I suppose that readers would love to know more about the actual media strategies than the alleged hype about these media strategies. You clamor for the so-called "insider tips" - and keep turning pages, but sadly find none.

Not to say that the book is all bad - you can find interesting tidbits.

 What I think readers might like
  • How trading up works
  • How media manipulation works

What readers might miss

  • Actionable strategies
  • Handling a communications crisis in this self-created media mania [action plans?]
  • More details & depth.
That's all folks! Watch out for my next review of a popular (or not) marketing book.


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