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  Don't Believe It! - How Lies...

  Alexandra Kitty

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  How to weed out factual from fake news by the author of Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism.   In the last few years, the journalism industry has cut costs by eliminating important safeguards: companies have reduced the number of fact-checkers, editors, and journalists. What this means is that editors and reporters cannot spend time verifying information. Moreover, journalists are not required to have professional experience or training to cover their beats. Fierce competition to get a scoop may lead to journalists making careless errors or not double-checking information.   To maintain audiences and readership, journalists, editors and producers will choose sensational stories that “shock.” Combined with time and budget constraints, journalists may unwittingly or deliberately disseminate false or misleading information to the public. It is important to get a story, interview a subject or nab a scoop first—the accuracy of these elements is secondary. Competition from other media outlets also means the goal of a journalist is to get the scoop first—how it makes it on the air (flawed, inaccurate, questionably obtained) is unimportant.   In Don’t Believe It!, Alexandra Kitty demonstrates with example upon example how manufactured news is endemic in our media and shows the reader how to spot suspicious stories and evaluate sources, eyewitnesses and data. This is a comprehensive bible to information verification from a logical standpoint, showing how to be skeptical without being jaded, step by step, with case studies and a classification manual.

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  The Suspect - An Olympic Bombing...

  Kevin Salwen, Kent Alexander

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  The “intensively reported and fluidly written” true-crime account of the heroic security guard accused of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing (Wall Street Journal). 
   
  On July 27, 1996, security guard Richard Jewell spotted a suspicious bag in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park, the town square of the 1996 Summer Games. Inside was a bomb, the largest of its kind in FBI and ATF history. The bomb detonated amid a crowd of fifty thousand people. But thanks to Jewell, it only wounded 111 and killed two, not the untold scores who would have otherwise died.  
   
  Yet seventy-two hours later, the FBI turned Jewell from a national hero into their main suspect. The decision not only changed Jewell’s life, it let the true bomber roam free to strike again. Today, most of what we remember of this tragedy is wrong. 
   
  In a triumph of investigative journalism, former U.S. Attorney Kent Alexander and reporter Kevin Salwen reconstruct events before, during, and after the bombing. Drawn from law enforcement evidence and the extensive personal records of key players—including Richard himself—The Suspect, is a gripping story of domestic terrorism and an innocent man’s fight to clear his name.

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  Vanishing New York - How a Great...

  Jeremiah Moss

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  An unflinching portrait of gentrification in the twenty-first century, and a love letter to lost New York, by the creator of the popular and incendiary blog Vanishing New York 
  New York City has long been a destination for rebels and rule breakers, artists, writers, and other hopefuls longing to be part of its rich cultural exchange and unique social fabric. But today, modern gentrification is transforming the city from an exceptional, iconoclastic metropolis into a suburbanized luxury zone with a price tag only the top 1 percent can afford. 
  Blogger and cultural commentator Jeremiah Moss has emerged as one of the most outspoken and celebrated critics of this dramatic shift. He has spent the past decade observing and painstakingly documenting this sea change, and in Vanishing New York, he reports on the city's development in the twenty-first century, a period of "hyper-gentrification" that has resulted in the shocking transformation of beloved neighborhoods and the loss of treasured unofficial landmarks. Moss leads us on a colorful guided tour of the most changed parts of town—from the Lower East Side and Chelsea to Harlem and Williamsburg—lovingly eulogizing iconic institutions as they're replaced with soulless upscale boutiques, luxury condo towers, and suburban chains.

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  Try Common Sense - Replacing the...

  Philip K. Howard

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  Award-winning author Philip K. Howard lays out the blueprint for a new American society.In this brief and powerful book, Philip K. Howard attacks the failed ideologies of both parties and proposes a radical simplification of government to re-empower Americans in their daily choices. Nothing will make sense until people are free to roll up their sleeves and make things work. The first steps are to abandon the philosophy of correctness and our devotion to mindless compliance.Americans are a practical people. They want government to be practical. Washington can't do anything practically. Worse, its bureaucracy prevents Americans from doing what's sensible. Conservative bluster won't fix this problem. Liberal hand-wringing won't work either. Frustrated voters reach for extremist leaders, but they too get bogged down in the bureaucracy that has accumulated over the past century. Howard shows how America can push the reset button and create simpler frameworks focused on public goals where officials—prepare for the shock—are actually accountable for getting the job done.

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  Defectors - How the Illicit...

  Erik R. Scott

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  Defectors fleeing the Soviet Union seized the world's attention during the Cold War. Their stories were given sensational news coverage and dramatized in spy novels and films. Upon reaching the West, they were entitled to special benefits, including financial assistance and permanent residency. In contrast to other migrants, defectors were pursued by the states they left even as they were eagerly sought by the United States and its allies. Taking part in a risky game that played out across the globe, defectors sought to transcend the limitations of the Cold War world.Defectors follows their treacherous journeys and looks at how their unauthorized flight via land, sea, and air gave shape to a globalized world. It charts a global struggle over defectors that unfolded among rival intelligence agencies operating in the shadows of an occupied Europe, in the forbidden border zones of the USSR, in the disputed straits of the South China Sea, on a hijacked plane 10,000 feet in the air, and around the walls of Soviet embassies.Although defection all but disappeared after the Cold War, this innovative work shows how it shaped the governance of global borders and helped forge an international refugee system whose legacy and limitations remain with us to this day.

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  Life-Story of a Russian Exile

  Marie Sukloff

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  Hero or assassin?  Victim or criminal?  Marie Sukloff fits no easy category.  A young peasant woman who became a political radical and activist, Sukloff carried out an assassination plot against a Russian governor known for murderous pogroms and rampages against the Jews of his province.  This mesmerizing autobiographical account tells the story of Sukloff's peasant childhood, radicalization, direct action, exile to Siberia, and escape.  She tells her story with a colorful verve, sincerity, intensity, and simplicity that makes it almost impossible to put down, raising questions of political philosophy and responsibility that challenge the complacency of every reader. - Summary by Expatriate

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