Battling the big lie : how Fox, Facebook, and the MAGA media are destroying America

Author

Dan Pfeiffer

Call Number

• 320.014 P526 (CEN, OSH)

Browse similar titles by call number

Edition

First edition.

Publication Information

New York : Twelve, 2022.

Physical Description

xv, 316 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Summary

"In BATTLING THE BIG LIE, bestselling author Dan Pfeiffer returns to lay out how the Right Wing built such a robust and successful disinformation machine, how they have used it to amass power despite representing a dwindling share of the country, and how readers can fight back against disinformation with step-by-step guides on spotting fake news, becoming their own fact checker, and talking to their conspiracy theory-obsessed relatives. Over the last twenty years, the Right Wing has built a massive media apparatus that is weaponizing misinformation for political purposes. The Right Wing media ecosystem personified by Fox and fueled by Facebook is waging war on the very idea of objective truth--and it's winning. This misinformation campaign is at the root of much that is rotten in America and around the world. Trump is a product of this eco-system as is the immense polarization and division and our inability to deal rationally with immense threats like COVID and Climate Change. Here, Pfeiffer lays bare the tactics used by the Right Wing propaganda machine and how to combat them, including: QAnon and its proponents, from Facebook groups to members of Congress ; the optimization of Facebook as the ultimate carrier of Right Wing clickbait ; educating the Left to "fight fire with fire" and nurture progressive media ; how to have hard conversations with the Fox News-watching, conspiracy theory-believing relative in your life. A functioning democracy depends on a shared understanding of reality. America is teetering on the edge because one of the two parties in our two-party system views truth, facts, and science as their opponent. As BATTLING THE BIG LIE proves, time is running out to fix this problem. There are no easy answers or quick fixes, but something must be done." --

Contents

• Introduction
• I: What happened. Canaries in the international coal mines ; From Russia with love ; How Trump almost stole the 2020 election ; A short history on the war on truth ; Why Republicans need to lie to win ; The anatomy of MAGA megaphone ; The best disinformation money can buy ; Roger Ailes and the evil genius of faux journalism
• II: How it happened. Disinformation and the destruction of local news ; Facebook: too big to succeed ; Poking holes in Facebook's defenses ; The media's conservative bias ; Debunking the dumbest myth: why MSNBC is not "liberal Fox" ; Message versus megaphone: the real reason Dems suck at messaging
• III: What we do about it. The high stakes of the battle against the big lie ; Get on a war footing and win hearts and minds ; A modern model of journalism ; Preaching to the progressive choir ; Starve the trolls: how liberals can stop being owned online ; Build and army of keyboard warriors ; Signs of hope.