Manipulating the Message - by Cecil Rosner (Paperback)

About the Book

Shrinking newsrooms and an explosion in the ranks of spin doctors mean journalists are routinely being duped. Reporters often act as megaphones when they repeat a misleading press release or deceptive poll. Veteran investigative journalist Cecil Rosner exposes the problem and shows how we can do something about it.

Book Synopsis

Journalists hate the term fake news, but there's a troubling reality: spin doctors routinely try to dupe them into reporting misleading and distorted stories.

Check the news on any given day and here's what you'll find: Governments routinely lie. Companies inflate claims about their products and practices. Institutions release studies with misleading data meant to deceive. Police departments, infected by systemic racism, downplay crimes against Indigenous and racialized people.

The public depends on the media to help them understand the world, but are journalists catching all the daily lies, omissions, and distortions? Shrinking newsrooms and an army of spin doctors mean journalists can get duped. Despite valiant efforts by a handful of investigative journalists, the truth is routinely left behind.

Award-winning journalist Cecil Rosner insists there is something we can do about this. We can pressure news organizations to stop blindly regurgitating the firehose of press releases and focus instead on determining what is actually true. Rosner empowers readers by sharing his techniques for detecting misinformation and disinformation.

Review Quotes

Thought-provoking, mind-blowing ... a must-read for anyone in the field of journalism, who has ever read a newspaper and has ever wondered about the greater picture.-- "The Miramichi Reader"

Manipulating the Message holds up the mirror to the faces of media who have been knowingly, and at times unknowingly, complicit to the harms caused by colonial biases against Indigenous people. This book serves as a hard-hitting reality check for journalists who wish to implement the TRC Calls To Action for themselves as storytellers. It will make you think, it will make you ask questions and even answer some of those questions. A must-read.-- "Sheila North, former Grand Chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak"

An important, but also unexpectedly entertaining, unveiling of the behind-the-scenes battle of the powerful and a free press in a war for the truth

-- "Karyn Pugliese, Editor-in-Chief, Canadaland"

Enriched by his own first-person stories as a veteran journalist, Rosner explains in clear and accessible prose that what's at stake is nothing less than truth itself.

-- "Prof. Mark Feldstein, Richard Eaton Chair of Broadcast Journalism, University of Maryland"

A great gift to students, journalists and all others who seek to advance their critical thinking about the truth and reliability of information in the news.-- "Lawrence Hill, award-winning author"

Rosner confronts a long history of snake oil salesmen, political flaks, mercenary researchers, junket organizers and internet influencers whose one goal is to shape the news we read.-- "Patricia W. Elliott, Professor of Investigative and Community Journalism, First Nations University of Canada"

This is a brilliant book, written by one of Canada's best investigative journalists and coming at a time of profound crisis in 21st-century journalism. With impressive detail, Rosner helps us understand the scale of the challenge, and he outlines how we can grab back control.-- "Tony Burman, former head of CBC News and Al Jazeera English"

About the Author

Cecil Rosner is an award-winning investigative journalist whose career as a reporter, television producer, and news manager spans four decades. He has exposed wrongdoing, uncovered wrongful convictions, and revealed systemic injustice. An adjunct professor at the University of Winnipeg, he has trained journalists across Canada. He lives in Winnipeg.