The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote - Softcover

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Sharyl Attkisson has been a working journalist for more than forty years and is host and managing editor of the nonpartisan Sunday morning TV program Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson. She has covered controversies under the administrations of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, emerging with a reputation, as the Washington Post put it, as a "persistent voice of news-media skepticism about the government's story." She is the recipient of five Emmy Awards and an Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting. She has worked at CBS News, PBS, and CNN, and is a fifth degree blackbelt master in Taekwondo.

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Behind most major political stories there is an agenda: to destroy an idea or the people advancing it. Maybe you watched someone on the news report that Donald Trump is a racist misogynist, saw a Facebook post about Russian hackers, or heard that Hillary Clinton used a body double during her campaign. Regardless of accuracy, the themes get repeated until they become accepted by many as the truth. It’s called “the smear.” Sophisticated operatives work behind the scenes to establish narratives, manipulate journalists, and shape the images you see every day. Nothing is by accident.

Now hard-hitting investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson takes you behind the scenes of the modern smear machine, exploring how operatives from super PACs, corporations, and both sides of the political aisle have manipulated a complicit mainstream media to make disinformation, rumor, and dirty tricks defining traits of our democracy.

And she doesn’t just tell stories—she names names, sharing her deeply researched account of how smears take shape and who their perpetrators are—from Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal to liberal political operative David Brock. Dissecting the most divisive, partisan election in American history, she explores how both sides used every smear tactic as a political weapon, culminating in Donald Trump’s hard-fought victory, even as his detractors have continued their smears against him into the Oval Office.

What emerges is a timely assault on the mainstream media’s willingness to sacrifice ethics for clicks, and the cynical politicians and high-paid consultants who exploit this reality.