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Writer's pictureNishant Mittal

10th book of 2020: Trust Me, I'm Lying by Ryan Holiday

This book made me very, very angry.


If I wrote my review like the writer penned his book, I'd basically repeat the above line so many times that you'll smash your head into the screen and kill yourself. As a reader, I was almost there; thank god I survived. Beginning of this book had a monstrous display of pomposity by a 25 year old which should have served as a clear red flag. Yet, I didn't stop reading. Sunk cost and all that, I guess.


"Trust Me.." begins with an interesting premise of Media manipulation. To stay afloat in the cut-throat world of online publishing, new-age orgs have to publish articles by the minute. Naturally, standards of journalism go out of the window, thus opening doors for "media manipulators" - folks who share "tips" with journalists, bloggers, etc. Here's how 'media manipulation' works:


Manipulators share scandalous tips with hungry small news orgs -> The small guys print the "scoop" & others follow -> The story snowballs and big orgs also take it up -> Manipulators celebrate success with champagne.


So, if you know your way around these things, you could tip stories in your favour. That's it. That's what the book has to say.


Stretched to the point of frustration; should have been an article.





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