I can't say I enjoyed this overly long book which discusses the changing ways in which people are getting their news. Subscriptions to print media (newspapers) have been falling over the years, while more and more people are only getting their news from on-line sources and social media. In Merchants of Truth, Jill Abramson, a former NY Times editor, writes about her personal career at the Times, about the changes going on with print media and how they figured out how to compete in a digital format, and about the rise of social media as a source of news for people today, especially among younger Americans.

Abramson spent some time discussing how on-line services like Vice and BuzzFeed began, and a little more about how sources such as Facebook and Politico became accepted and significant sources of news. She also explained in some detail who the key developers of the various social media feeds are, how "clickbait" is so commonly used to get "hits" which brings in revenue, and how users are easily and frequently manipulated.

Today, it's easier than ever to remain in an echo chamber of your own beliefs. Social media, favorite blogs, television networks, talk radio, etc., offer up a continual stream of information dedicated to a specific point of view of political beliefs, and people can choose only from those sources which reinforce their biases. For many, it's easy, and comforting, to choose only sources which feed us news we're most likely to favor, news we're most likely to want to see. Those politically oriented sources have the effect of simply reinforcing preexisting beliefs among readers.

One thing which seemed true is that so much of the "news" on politically oriented blogs and social media is often unverified, inflammatory, or simply made-up just to get "clicks". Finding news that fits your biases and preconceptions does not mean it's true, nor does finding news which challenges your beliefs is necessarily false. I never trusted much of what I saw from social media before reading this book, and will trust even less going forward. ​An important message I received from this book is that before simply buying into any controversial "news" report, check it out from various news sources, at least one of which is likely to covers news from a different perspective. ( )

Jill Abramson offers a thorough overview of several major news organizations' transition to the digital age, with a focus on four in particular: NYT, WaPo, BuzzFeed, and Vice.

This book is dense, with very few breaks in the very long chapters. Much was uninteresting to me, but I kept reading for the sake of the tidbits that offered me glimpses of what goes on behind the scenes to give me the news I consume every day.

I was least interested in Vice - the interests of its barely-legal male target demographic in no way coincide with my own. NYT & WaPo, OTOH, I read weekly and daily respectively, so those were the inside scoops I was really showing up for. ( )

I listened to the entire book Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts by Jill Abramson. This book was based on an earlier book written by David Halberstam that was a Pulitzer Prize winner. The author of Merchants of Truth was a former executive editor of the New York Times and she chronicles the demise of the big national daily newspapers by concentrating on the Washington Post and the New York Times. She contrasts them with BuzzFeed and Vice. Her conclusions are that the newspapers are coming out on top of the news once again, with the newer on-line sources reverting to the tried and true methods of the old fashioned newspapers and their fact checking style of reporting. However, she says that the biggest problem with the new news sources is that when they start to really report the news instead of relying on "20 ways to reduce belly fat" type of articles, they start bleeding money. Her chapter on Facebook and how its algorithms works was very important and enlightening. Essentially Facebook relies on what she calls the "happiness factor" - find out what the poster likes and feed him more of the same thing. This creates a feedback loop which was exactly what Cathy O'Neil talked about in Weapons of Math Destruction.

I ended up reading parts of this book when I got to Kansas because I couldn't just keep replaying the parts I didn't understand on the audio. This book is really important for people who want to understand how Trump got elected, but I would recommend that you read the book rather than listen to it. ( )

Highly recommended....great book about the news business for anyone who thinks of themself as news-junkie. i learned a lot about getting the news from the internet instead of reading ‘the paper’
#newyorktimes ( )

Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts by Jill Abramson, narrated by January LaVoy.
In this non-fiction presentation, Abramson, the former executive editor of the New York Times, who has been accused of plagiarism, attempts to explain what has happened to the print news industry and why. Using the New York Times, the Washington Post, Vice and Buzzfeed as primary examples, she shows how the digital news platform has been the catalyst for the demise of the print newspaper industry that was once in the vanguard of news presentation!
Most of the facts presented are already known, but she organizes them to illustrate how the people responsible for the loss of interest in reading print news and for the surge in demand for information from a sound bite, have catered to the lowest echelon of society. The news that the early digital companies presented consisted largely of trash with which to attract and titillate, to shock and capture an audience largely interested in negative content of any kind, smut, gossip, etc. The more confounding the news was, the better it was received. The audience originally attracted consisted of the lowest mean common denominator of society, those who wallowed in hateful behavior, erotica, and their own need for fifteen minutes of fame. The digital news innovators had no moral or ethical standards to follow, and quite possibly, none of their own either. Their only guideline was to reach people and create a viral incident online which would create a sensation. For sure, their mantra was not “all the news that’s fit to print”, rather the more unfit it was, the better. Abramson attempts to explain how that original idea morphed from presenting semi-real and sometimes fake news to also publicizing real news. Overall, however, the effort was to create crowd appeal above all.
The fact that Americans and others are much more interested in yellow journalism than honest journalism that used to act as the fourth estate, overseeing the wrongs of society, is really the most disheartening fact that I got out of the book. The fact that the public would rather read garbage, rumors, canards, and fake news headlines that stun them, than actually learn about what is really occurring, is extremely dismaying.
Discreditable and dishonorable, shadowy sources of news are often the most successful purveyors of information, blocking out the more respectable and honorable news outlets. Clickbait is sought over authentic news. Society is being brainwashed by news services with no standards of honor. The digital platform is how most of the future generations will expand their knowledge of the world, and it is woefully unconcerned about respect for others, honorable behavior toward others or the truthful presentation of information to the world.
Under this cloud of media frenzy that wishes only to gain headlines, is it any wonder that an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can gain notoriety even when she spouts nonsense? Is it any wonder that those who call others names are actually guilty of name calling but get away with it? The recent incident with the golfer Matt Kuchar whose tip for his caddy became hot news, is a prime example of what we have become, and the picture is not pretty. Everyone has an opinion, and everyone wants to voice it on some platform.
Utube, the Drudge Report and other non-mainstream sources, once marginalized, are now in the forefront and often break news stories without proper vetting. They are excused because they are not mainstream news outlets.
I find it a sad commentary on the world today that we cater to ignorance and sensationalism, exaggeration and even outright lies to attract an audience. Is it any wonder that President Trump uses Twitter? How is it different than the methods used by any other news source? He wants to make headlines too! Since the so-called mainstream media won’t give him a moment of positive coverage on their platforms, he attempts to create his own.
This is how a generation of young people wants to get its information. They are impatient and sometimes, not even very learned or literate. They do not do their own research to discover facts; they are lazy and ill informed by choice. They want the easy way out for everything because, after all, this is the generation that got a trophy merely for breathing in the presence of an event!
This book has more value in the way in which it exposes the trash that news has become, the garbage that it has produced at the expense of truth, and the loss of a platform that once acted as a check and a balance on the government, as an ethical source of information and as a tool to educate the masses. It is a sad commentary on the state of affairs we must face in the future. ( )