Summary of Uncovered by Steve Krakauer: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People

By Willie M. Joseph

DISCLAIMER

This book does not in any capacity mean to replace the original book but to serve as a vast summary of the original book.

Summary of Uncovered by Steve Krakauer: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People

 

IN THIS SUMMARIZED BOOK, YOU WILL GET:

• Chapter astute outline of the main contents.
• Fast & simple understanding of the content analysis.
• Exceptionally summarized content that you may skip in the original book

Steve Krakauer's new book, Uncovered, is a deep dive into legacy media bias and exposes the problems of a news industry filled with geographically isolated, introspection-free, egomaniacal journalists. Krakauer takes readers inside CNN after the shock Trump election, the New York Times after the Tom Cotton op-ed backlash, and ESPN after the shift away from sports-only coverage, revealing never-before-seen details about the press over the past five years. Uncovered is a rational, independent look at the broken news industry in America, assessing where everything went wrong and how to fix it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Willie M. Joseph
• Release date: Feb 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215339879

Willie M. Joseph

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INTRODUCTION

The most important details in this text are that trust in the media is at its second lowest point ever, with just 36% of Americans saying they have either a great deal or even a fair amount of trust in it. This is due to a split along party lines, with 68% of Democrats trusting the media in 2021, while only 11% of Republicans did. Additionally, independents have reached a near-record low of just 31% trusting the media, and the number one response, with 38% of the vote, was none. Uncovered will lay out five overarching problems with the media, from a form of bias that's more alarming than political, to a broken incentive structure leading to self-inflicted wounds, to coziness with the powerful elite. It will also show various examples of how each of these problems play out in practice. The most important details in this text are the concept of the Acela Media and the perspectives of more than two dozen current and former members of the media.

The Acela Media is the high-speed Amtrak train that flies down the Acela Corridor, starting at Boston in the north and going down to Washington, DC, in the south. It is a trip that many in the media make with great regularity, and the Acela is the easiest way to hop between the two metropolises. The Acela Media is the media that is situated in NYC and DC, but there are also towns and neighborhoods between NYC and DC on the Acela that are not part of the elite media environment. There are other terms used to describe the media, such as establishment media, legacy media, corporate media, and mainstream media. Fourth Watch launched with four pillars: intellectual honesty, intellectual consistency, intellectual curiosity, and intellectual discomfort. Nuance over nonsense is one of the pillars.

Journalists are not saving the world, but they can serve a valuable function in society. They have a responsibility to inform the public, hold power to account, and entertain the public. They also have an inherent privilege in being able to think about these issues and write about them for a living. They should approach this with humility and introspection, and let the mess and nuance happen naturally.

The Way It Was, and How It Got Weird

The most important details in this text are that the phrase hands up, don't shoot became a rallying cry for the early social justice protests in Ferguson, Missouri, after Michael Brown was shot and killed by a white police officer, Darren Wilson. In March 2015, the Obama justice department cleared Wilson of wrongdoing, concluding that Brown punched him, tried to grab his gun, started running away, then turned and charged at him. This was the moment the media changed and began the metamorphosis into what it would become during the Trump Era. The DOJ investigation into the Ferguson police department found countless examples of racism and poor policing in the department as a whole, including racial emails sent between police and other city officials, and racial disparities in arrests, tickets, and use of force. Separately, the Ferguson story revealed the crackdown on journalism by those in power, with nearly a dozen journalists arrested or detained during the post-shooting protests.

This criminalization of journalism should outrage all Americans, and it is important for the press to cover these stories. Ali Velshi, who was there in Ferguson and later in the summer of 2020 protests, described how the media coverage could drift into riot porn territory. Major Garrett's article The Pen, the Phone, and Stray Voltage exposed a political strategy spearheaded by one of President Obama's top aides, David Plouffe, known as the stray voltage theory. The strategy was designed to manipulate both the media and the public by introducing an idea into the information ecosystem designed to elicit a controversy or a distraction, and the subservient press was happy to participate. The Obama administration used the Espionage Act to target reporters and sources, and Ben Rhodes bragged about creating an echo chamber in the media.

The Trump administration did not treat the press well, and the media was outraged by the relationship. However, the issues in the media that were exacerbated during the Trump Era didn't begin with the election of Trump. We need to address the underlying problems at the root of what's ailing our press.

Geographic Bias

The most common misconceptions about the media are that politics, or a political bias in favor of the left over the right, is what informs media mistakes or drives media malpractice. However, there is an overriding bias that is far more pervasive in the corporate media today, and it is one of geography. The entertainment power center in America is almost exclusively in Los Angeles, the tech power center is largely based in and around San Francisco and Silicon Valley, and the media power centers