Tragedy And Farce

Thomas Frank called Tragedy and Farce an appeal to reason in a dark time. Including the sharpest analysis of 2004 election coverage yet and the first detailed look at the burgeoning media reform movement, this book is both an expos and a call to action. In it John Nichols and Robert McChesneytwo of the countrys leading media analystsargue that during the 2004 election and throughout the Iraq war and occupation, Americans have been starved of democracys oxygen: accurate information. More than anything John Kerry, George Bush, or even Karl Rove did, the medias miscoverage of the campaign and war decided the election. Most disturbingly, the flawed coverage reflects new, structural problems within U.S. journalism. Tragedy and Farce dissects the media failures of recent years and shows how they expose the decline in resources and standards for political journalismas well as the methodical campaign by the political right to control the news cycle. In our highly concentrated media system it has become commercially and politically irrational to do the kind of journalism a self-governing society requires.