In this characteristically turbocharged new book, celebrated Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi provides an insider's guide to the variety of ways today's mainstream media tells us lies. Part tirade, part confessional, it reveals that what most people think of as "the news" is, in fact, a twisted wing of the entertainment business. In the Internet age, the press have mastered the art of monetizing anger, paranoia, and distrust. Taibbi, who has spent...

The author demonstrates how his years as a crime reporter in Florida and Los Angeles contributed to the creation of vivid details in his novels, of not only the villains and heroes, but of the investigations and stranger-than-fiction crime scenes.

It's the 70's and Ron Burgundy is the king of San Diego. He's the most popular news anchor in town. He and his all male news team rule the city with their sauve looks, minimal IQ's and unbelievably bad hair. In Ron's world, women don't belong in the newsroom. So when rising star reporter Veronica Corningstone fills in for Ron one night and the ratings soar, it becomes more than a battle ... it becomes war.

Recently orphaned Corinne "Third Degree" Burns enlists her sister and cousin to launch a punk rock band, The Stains. Three rehearsals later, The Stains score the opening slot on a cross-country tour with aging metal act The Metal Corpses and British punk rockers The Looters. The Stains' meteoric rise (and equally lightning-quick fall) owes more to TV exposure than to talent.

When a legitimate businessman reads in the paper that he is the subject of a criminal investigation, he sets out with the author of the article to find out the truth.

The sale of media conglomerate Waystar Royco to tech visionary Lukas Matsson looms ever closer, provoking existential angst and division among the Roys in the fourth and final season of Jesse Armstrong's Emmy-winning drama series. As the siblings anticipate the prospect of this seismic merger, the ensuing power struggle finds them grappling with what their lives will look like after the deal and weighing a future where their cultural and political...