Book author and Guiford native returns to home state

Eric Boehlert, reporter and author of the highly-acclaimed book Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush, is having a book signing at RJ Julia Booksellers on Monday August 7th at 7 P.M. Boehlert will also be in town to discuss the beltway media's coverage of the Lieberman/Lamont race (which should be interesting to say the least).

This book is a must-read for those who want to understand the story behind the media's unwillingness to hold the Bush Administration accountable for their numerous lies and distortions during the last six years. If you think FOXNews is bad, wait till you read this book that exposes the failure of the entire media to properly inform the public about the Administration's claims regarding such issues as the Iraq War, Terri Schiavo, the NSA wiretapping case and so on. After reading this book, you'll never look at the mainstream media the same way again.

Here's a brief description of this important book.

Lapdogs is the first book to demonstrate that, for the entire George W. Bush presidency, the news media have utterly failed in their duty as watchdog for the public. In blistering prose, Eric Boehlert reveals how, time after time, the press chose a soft approach to covering the government, and as a result reported and analyzed crucial events incompletely and even inaccurately. From WMDs to Valerie Plame to the NSA's domestic spying, mainstream fixtures such as The New York Times, CBS, CNN, and Time magazine too often ignored the administration's missteps and misleading words, and did not call out the public officials who betrayed the country's trust. Throughout both presidential campaigns and the entire Iraq war to date, the media acted as a virtual mouthpiece for the White House, giving watered-down coverage of major policy decisions, wartime abuses of power, and egregious mistakes -- and sometimes these events never made it into the news at all. Finally, in Lapdogs, the press is being held accountable by one of its own.

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Boehlert asserts that the Bush White House never subscribed to the view -- commonly held by previous administrations -- that a relationship with the press is an important part of the democratic process. Instead, it saw the press as just another special interest group that needed to be either appeased or held at bay -- or, in some cases, squashed. The administration actively undermined the basic tenets of accurate and fair journalism, and reporters and editors accepted their reduced roles without a whimper. To an unprecedented degree, journalists too often stopped asking uncomfortable questions of people in power. In essence, the entire purpose and pursuit of journalism was sacrificed.

Riveting in its sharp denouncement, supported by dozens of glaring and troubling examples of journalistic malpractice, Lapdogs thoroughly dissects the press's misconduct during Bush's presidency and gives voice to the growing public dismay with the mainstream media.