I had really high hopes for this book when I saw the title and description on NetGalley.Its no secret that the majority of the news media has a bias to one side, so I was really expecting this book to shine a light on how this happened and provide solutions to create objective media.

I ended up really disappointed with this book though. While the book provided some really great statistics about where the media stands and shows the intense divide between the two sides of the media, it unfortunately took a stand. In a book written about how everything is biased, this unfortunately took the opposite side, and took it hard. On every issue under the sun you don't want to talk about, including race and politics, this book sounded like a whiny account of why everything isn't fair because the media leans liberally and picks on people who are overtly conservative.

I think this had so much potential, but unfortunately, it read like a spoiled brat complaining that daddy didn't give them what they wanted.

Written very well, with facts to back it up, for a reader that hasn't been following the events of the past 14 years, this would be a five star book. I have been paying close attention to the downfall of media and balance since 2008. It was the media bias that actually started me on a path to realizing hardworking Americans were being hoodwinked.
Author Fleischer does a great job of identifying factors/history that led to this one sided, very biased, untrustable media.
A 3/5 if you are fully aware and understand media/bias/history (only because for you, there's not much new).
A 5/5 for those just figuring this out or realizing it.

SUPPRESSION, DECEPTION, SNOBBERY, AND BIAS by Ari Fleischer is subtitled "Why the Press Gets So Much Wrong—And Just Doesn't Care." Fleischer, former White House Press Secretary and Fox contributor, stresses that the media today is itself too insular and therefore too focused on young, college-educated, Democratic-leaning readers and their concerns. Although it is hard to reconcile that position with my own experience listening to well-respected 75 year-old Judy Woodruff on PBS, his book does devote roughly twenty percent to notes and may therefore aid researchers interested in the media and its influence. Unfortunately, Fleischer himself takes a very biased and combative tone. He rightly notes that "many newsrooms have abandoned objectivity for subjectivity," but he continues to criticize CNN (there is an entire chapter) and The New York Times (another chapter) while seemingly annoying Fox's failure to broadcast the recent hearings in their entirety or the many rules imposed by Sinclair Broadcast Group on local affiliates. There is a failure overall to look at established media across the entire spectrum; just this last week, so many Wall Street Journal readers objected to the editorial which – without proof – implied that the story of a 10 year old being raped and needing an abortion was not true. Fleischer's argument would be stronger if he offered a more balanced set of examples.

We do need an active, free press capable of addressing the many critical issues we face: women's reproductive rights, climate change, voting rights, gun control reform, health care, war in Ukraine, plus its impact on the world's food supply, and other economic factors like inflation and employment. But, as Fleischer points out we do not even agree on how to describe current circumstances; he cites data that 50% of Fox viewers say that America is probably not or definitely not a systemically racist country; comparable figures for CNN (13%) and The New York Times (7%) reflect a very different perspective. Fleischer could also have spent more time discussing how the loss of local newspapers and reporters has likely fueled the feeling expressed by Pew Research Center survey respondents that news media "don't understand people like them." As the Pew summary notes, the reasons for feeling understood vary with subgroup – another nuance that Fleischer does not develop fully. SUPPRESSION, DECEPTION, SNOBBERY, AND BIAS missed an opportunity to more neutrally document the media's role.

Link to Pew Study: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/25/black-hispanic-and-white-adults-feel-the-news-media-misunderstand-them-but-for-very-different-reasons/

More on loss of local newspapers:
https://www.usnewsdeserts.com/reports/expanding-news-desert/
https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/political-polarization-local-news-research/
https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/local-newspapers-civic-engagement/