Spin Masters

The biggest story of the election was how the media ignored the biggest story of the election. Amid all the breathless coverage of a nonexistent war on women, there was little or no coverage of Obama's war on the economy—how, for instance, part-time work is replacing full-time work, how low-wage jobs are replacing high-wage ones, how for Americans between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-four there are fewer jobs today than there were when the recession officially ended in 2009, and fewer, in fact, than at any time since mid-1997. The downsizing of the American economy wasn't the only story the media missed—or suppressed—there was also the unraveling of Obama's foreign policy and the deadly scandals at home (Fast and Furious) and abroad (the terrorist attack that killed the American ambassador at Benghazi). But instead of serious, substantive journalism, the media reported ad nauseam on trifles (Big Bird), Republican-baiting hysteria (how everything the Republicans said was allegedly "racial code"), and distortions of Romney's remarks (such as the "47 percent" comment). The media dropped the ball in covering the 2012 election, says David Freddoso, editorial page editor of the Washington Examiner, and in doing so, the media failed in their responsibility to keep politicians honest and the public well-informed. Freddoso, a New York Times bestselling author and former congressional reporter for National Review, fills this volume not only with outrageous examples of media bias but also with dozens of real stories that genuinely inquisitive reporters should have relished but that the overwhelmingly liberal press didn't even bother to cover. Full of the news you didn't hear about in 2012, David Freddoso's Spin Masters: How the Media Ignored the Real News and Helped Reelect Barack Obama will be the most provocative and accurate take of just how Barack Obama managed to get reelected amid the worst economic times since at least the 1970s—and how the media helped him do it.