Title: The Forces That Shape the News
Product review: According to Lieberman, a Columbia Journalism Review contributing editor, the "forces" in her book's title are a cabal of conservative think tanks like the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation. She maintains that by inundating news organizations with position papers, self-serving statistics, and talking heads, their operatives have insidiously shifted national debate rightward. Through four exhaustively documented case studies, she revisits the political right's plans to delegitimize both the American Association of Retired Persons and Head Start, "save" (read: cut) Medicare, and "modernize" (read: water down) the powers of the FDA. Scary and compelling, Lieberman's screed gives the lie to the notion of the "liberal media" even as it will be read by some as a product of that same mythic beast.
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