True Enough by Farhad Manjoo

Our latest assignment was to read “True Enough” by Farhad Manjoo. This book was a real eye opener. It broke down various aspects of the media and made the reader re-think it's inter workings. Farhad Manjoo does a great job at trying to change a point of view by using plenty of evidence to back it up.

The problem with the book is it makes you re-think everything with regards to the media. Farhad Manjoo had me trusting nothing in the media. By the end of this book I’m not sure I even trusted what he was saying. It will make you more skeptical than you thought you ever could be.

The section about Video News Releases, or VNR’s ,made me disappointed in news programs at first but with further thought, my opinion changed. VNR’s started in the 1980’s and look like a legit news story but is really just an advertisement. Examples used by the book are National Pancake Day, which is a corporately produced holiday by a pancake batter company Bisquick. This seems like a legit news story but the host is using Bisquick while cooking the pancakes.

A columnist, Robin Raskin started a campaign against porn on Ipads. She was worried about children having easier access to pornographic material. At first I thought this sounded fairly ridiculous. There’s no way to stop children from eventually seeing porn. Even before computers were around, a neighborhood kid got his hands on his father’s stash of Playboy and Penthouse magazines. Curiosity is part of growing-up. We applaud children when they are curious about other things, but frown upon them when exploring sexuality.

Robin Raskin was getting momentum on the porn/Ipad subject and started to gain momentum. She was getting invited to have interviews on various talk and information television shows. Upon interviewing for these shows she started to show items that were “kid friendly.”The interviews became a clever way to push other electronics while frowning upon opponents product.

It turned out that Robin was being paid to push those products and the porn/Ipad subject was just to get her on talk-shows. This happens often with newscasts. It's disappointing and hurts the credibility and prestige of the news. I think news-director’s hands are forced here though. The news budgets are getting cut all across America. This is adding pressure for directors to balance budgets more-so than have all news. The VNR’s are cheaper and easier to put on any given newscast. Most of the public doesn’t even realize what is going on.

A story that really interested me was the Princeton vs. Dartmouth game. It was about a 1951 game that had Princeton winning 13-0 but both sides had felt the other team was playing dirty. I liked this because plenty of times I’ve watched a game of my favorite team and thought the opponent was playing dirty, (Google Buffalo Bills/Miami Dolphins Rivalry). After hearing about this, some researchers sat students from each school down and showed them some clips of the game tape. They found that the students at Princeton claimed to witness an average of ten infractions committed where Dartmouth students saw half as much and most were minor infractions.

As previously found, the fans of each team could not fathom or imagine their team playing dirty. The team they are fans of couldn’t possibly do such a thing. They’re the good team, the good guys. The other guys had to be the ones who were dirty.

People interpret everything this way. If it appeals to you, you’re going to agree with it. A study in this book has students being shown arguments for or against the death penalty. The study found that students found flaws in research that was against there previous believes.

There are countless points made by Farhad Manjoo in this book. I was reluctant to read it and waited until the last possible minute to even buy the book. Once I started reading it, I had no problem continuing on. I do warn you that you’ll start not trusting anyone. You’ll start to lock yourself in your room with no lights and curtains over your windows. The smallest noises will make you think the Government is coming after you. A dog barking outside is an agent coming to kill you. Your parents will call and you will ignore the calls hoping to avoid contact from the outside world. Well maybe it wont be this bad,but it will have you thinking differently. Read the book and enjoy, you'll thank me later

Until next time.....