Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington

Written by Sharyl Attkisson

Narrated by Laural Merlington

CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson was the only mainstream journalist willing to dig deep into Obama Administration scandals like Benghazi, Fast and Furious, and the targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS. Her liberal colleagues increasingly shunned her. Then she discovered that someone was using sophisticated spyware to monitor her computer and tap her phones.

Americans today are at the mercy of powerful figures in business and government who are virtually unaccountable. The Obama Administration in particular has broken new ground in its monitoring of journalists, intimidation and harassment of opposition groups, and surveillance of private citizens.

Sharyl Attkisson has been an journalist for more than thirty years. During that time she has exposed scandals and covered controversies under both Republican and Democratic administrations. She has also seen the opponents of transparency go to ever greater lengths to discourage and obstruct legitimate reporting.

Attkisson herself has been subjected to “opposition research” efforts and spin campaigns. These tactics increased their intensity as she relentlessly pursued stories that the Obama Administration dismissed. Stonewalled is the story of how her news reports were met with a barrage of PR warfare tactics, including online criticism, as well as emails and phone calls up the network chain of command in an effort to intimidate and discourage the next story. In Stonewalled, Attkisson recounts her personal tale, setting it against the larger story of the decline.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Aug 26, 2025
• ISBN: 9780063465831

Sharyl Attkisson

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.

Reviews for Stonewalled

[Christian Blackburn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

For every Sharyl Attkisson there are dozens of reporters who are all to happy to tow any narrative to advance their careers. How many people actually have an ethics clause in their contracts anymore? She did any eventually left CBS because the truth, the story, or the angle was manipulated one too many times. Learn how management, government, and advertisers all manipulate the news. Hear about some of the stories that never saw the light of day or were relegated to short excerpts or web postings. Did you know that the media wrote a collective letter to the Obama administration decrying that it was the most censored cabinet ever? It's nice to have an award winning reporter who cares about the story whatever it may reveal, not which side of the aisle is to blame.