Red White & Blind

Old-school book reviewer Kirkus has published a review of Red White & Blind. Over the years, this venerable publication has grown famous for savaging otherwise well-received books, so it was with some trepidation that I opened my browser to read its review. I was anxious moreover because RW&B is an independent critique of the mainstream media establishment.

Drum roll…

To my pleasant surprise, the review begins with an accurate account of my path to writing the book. From there, the reviewer quite fairly describes the book’s thrust and thesis. The Kirkus appraiser even highlights the book’s political and thematic balance as well as the depth of the research it presents.

The reviewer describes the book positively as

a detailed history of media manipulation throughout US history, from World War I propaganda to deliberate CIA misinformation campaigns.

The review goes on to praise the book as “convincing” and “impressive.” In particularly, the reviewer highlights its balance:

The book’s convincing critiques of the current state of American media are balanced by later chapters that are more optimistic in tone, offering readers pragmatic advice on how to consume a “Balanced Media Diet” and tips for informational literacy.

Read the full Kirkus review >

Publisher’s Weekly, too

Through their BookLife imprint, industry mag Publisher’s Weekly also reviewed Red White & Blind this month. More effusive and positive than the Kirkus review, PW marked it an “Editor’s Choice” book and published what I think can only be called a glowing review.

Brasunas persuasively backs up the positives and negatives that he sees in our current press, while shedding light on media manipulation of the past. His surveys of the history of “objectivity” in journalism are engaging and provocative, ranging from the dawn of the concept to the ways that media “fact-checkers” “play a powerful ‘meta’ role in reinforcing propaganda and censorship.” (Terms like “propaganda” and “bias” are rigorously defined and distinguished from each other throughout.)

The reviewer praises the inspiring tone of the book’s latter chapters, as it describes “the New Enlightenment.”

This sweeping and persuasive introduction to media manipulation in the U.S. is surprisingly hopeful.

Read the full Publisher’s Weekly BookLife review >

Now, It’s Your Turn

If you have read—or are currently reading—Red White & Blind, it would mean a tremendous amount to me if you would consider writing a review of the book on Amazon. Your words will help others discover the book, as very few reviews of RW&B appear currently on the website of the Bezos Behemoth. It takes just a few minutes.

You can of course write a review elsewhere, too. I don’t mean to recommend or prop up Amazon, which is doing just fine without any propping up. But whether I like it or not, Amazon remains the primary place where Americans discover books, and reviews are the metric its algorithms use when selecting books to display on customer searches.

It’s extremely easy to do, and I’ve even set up a guide with a link directly to the right page on Amazon to make it simple as pie:  Write a Review >

If you’ve found the book—or my work in general—to be useful or helpful, writing a sentence or two as a review will significantly help the word get out.

And of course you’re under no obligation to be as positive as Kirkus or Publisher’s Weekly.

Thank you.