NEW BOOKS FROM DANNY SCHECHTER
 Earlier books and productions at http://www.newsdissector.org/dissectorville


THE DEATH OF MEDIA:
And the Fight to Save Democracy by Danny Schechter

ISBN: 0-9766583-6-4
Price: $10 US/$15 CAN.
Pages: 173 pages
Type: Paperback
Original Pub. Date: November 2005
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Emmy-award winning journalist Danny Schechter, the "News Dissector," takes a close look at today's big media news outlets, the new media that's striving to replace them, and what it means for our democracy. A self-proclaimed "refugee" from mainstream media- Schechter was a producer at ABC's "20/20" and at CNN- he examines the evidence: plummeting newspaper circulation, the dive in network ratings, unprecedented media concentration, and more. It's no wonder, he says, that polls have put media dissatisfaction at up to 70%. Yet a healthy, active media is crucial to the functioning of a democracy.

So, how do we revitalize the Fourth Estate? In a book that is half manifesto and half piercing investigation, Schechter searches for an answer-exploring the promise of new media and considering how these new outlets are fueling the efforts by average citizens to reclaim the public airwaves. THE DEATH OF MEDIA is an inspiring guide to what can be done now. And thanks to Schechter's passion and vast experience, it is also something more: a brilliant and thrilling look at a turning point in our history. DANNY SCHECHTER is executive editor of Mediachannel.org. While a Neiman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University, he was news director of the legendary Boston radio station WBCN-FM. Schechter was one of the first producers at CNN, and later won two Emmys as a producer for ABC's "20/20." His film, WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception, analyzes media coverage of the Iraq war.

WHEN NEWS LIES:
Media Complicity and The Iraq War

ISBN: 1-59079-073-1
Price: $27.95 US
Pages: 146 pages
Type: Paperback
Original Pub. Date: January 2006
Included With Book: DVD and Script of Feature Length Documentary
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A new book from Danny Schechter offers an up to date indictment of the role media played in promoting and misreporting the war on Iraq. It is an analysis of how and why the media got it wrong, pinpoints the failures of journalism and the collusion of media companies with the Bush Administration. The author of EMBEDDED Weapons of Mass Deception (Prometheus 2003), an account of the TV coverage of the US invasion, returns with a more comprehensive, updated and insider look at the media complicity that Schechter argues "made the war possible."

"Most of the anti-war movement focused on the crimes of the Bush Administration ignoring the mainstream media, its far more effective accomplice," says former network producer Danny Schechter (ABC, CNN). "The government orchestrated the war while the media marketed it. You couldn't have one without the other."

WHEN NEWS LIES will be available in November. The book includes the feature-length DVD of the prize-winning film WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception and the complete script.) WHEN NEWS LIES also includes a foreword by acclaimed media writer and Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff and prefaces by independent Iraq reporter Dahr Jamail and information warfare specialist Colonel (Ret) Sam Gardiner, a war analyst for the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer.

Danny Schechter will be doing media appearances and lectures about the book and film.

The film WMD, distributed on DVD by Cinema Libre Distribution, who won top documentary prizes at film festivals in Austin Texas, Denver Colorado and Durban, South Africa. After a theatrical release, it has been seen on television and at festivals.

For more information and to see the trailer narrated by Academy Award winner Tim Robbins, visit http://www.wmdthefilm.com
From Danny Schechter's Prologue:
This is not just an examination of the coverage of the war in Iraq but also of my own attempt, however imperfect, to scrutinize and challenge it. Together, this unique multimedia “package” adds ammunition to the media war I am still fighting against, in the ongoing deceptive coverage of the Iraq War. When News Lies is an appeal for a broader engagement with our media as an issue. I have answered my call to action and now hope readers will as well. This work is one journalist’s cry for truth and media responsibility."

From the Foreword by Michael Wolff:
“While I was seeing the Iraq war as just another grievous example of media incompetence and mendacity which would shortly pass, upstaged—perhaps as soon as Autumn came around—by some other unimagined example of grievous incompetence and mendacity, Danny, more accurately, saw Iraq as, in itself, an epic story…. Danny, not least because he has been covering the media longer and more consistently than anybody else, understood that this what-me-worry, see-no-evil, let’s-get-on-with-the-show countenance on the part of the American media was a sure-fire recipe for the epic disaster that we now have on our hands.”

From the Preface by Iraq War Reporter Dahr Jamail:
"In these times of corporate-controlled media, the job of monitoring what the public is being fed in terms of news has become more critical than ever. ….A one-man watchdog of our corporate media, (Schechter's) work has consistently highlighted the importance of his ongoing job of working to keep the corporate media in check. While he was working each day to provide the facts about the “news” that corporate media outlets were streaming into the homes of Americans, I spent most of 2004 reporting on the daily atrocities occurring in Iraq…"

From the Preface by Colonel Sam Gardiner (Ret):
“If you did not like what went on in the last war, wait until the next one. It will be much worse. We have to take Danny Schechter’s message seriously. The stakes are very high. His is a plea for making our democracy work.” Comment from Riverbend, the Iraqi blogger of “Baghdad Burning.”

"With Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception, Mr. Schechter was one of the first journalists/writers to catalog the media lies leading up to the war on Iraq. "When the News Lies" delves deeper into the subtle, and not so subtle, maneuverings and manipulations of American mainstream media by the Pentagon and the White House both prior to the war and two years into it. It explains the techniques used to pressure, blackmail and lure respectable journalists into lying for the government. Most importantly, however, Danny Schechter- with his usual media analysis advocates the currently unimaginable: that mainstream press and journalists should be made accountable for active contribution to war propaganda."

Book will be released January 10. Order Now.

DVD NOW AVAILABLE:
WMD- WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION

An award-winning dissection of the media coverage of the Iraq War.

"A comprehensive and devastating critique of the TV news networks' complacency and complicity in the war on Iraq... brilliantly argued and scrupulously documented... a must see" -- Chicago Reader

"If BuzzFlash handed out our own Oscars, hands down we’d give Danny Schechter the best film expose' of the media for his gripping new documentary Weapons of Mass Deception." -- BuzzFlash.com

There were two wars going on in Iraq - one was fought with armies of soldiers, bombs and a fearsome military force. The other was fought alongside it with cameras, satellites, armies of journalists and propaganda techniques. One war was rationalized as an effort to find and remove WMDs - Weapons of Mass Destruction; the other was carried out by even more powerful WMDs, Weapons of Mass Deception.

DVD Extras:
• Trailer (Narrated by Tim Robbins)
• Interview with Danny Schechter
• “News Dissector” news retrospective,1968-2004
• Get Involved Resources: Websites, books, and films that make a difference!

To order the DVD and for more information: http://www.wmdthefilm.com/dvd1.htm.

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