A Review of Al Franken's Book Lies and the Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right

Instead of writing a plain book review, I decided to do something a little different. I am going to evaluate the book based on how I view the issue discussed in the book, then try and give you some historical sense of where my opinion originates from. I also do not intend to appear as an objective observer, since this is also a personal opinion piece. I'll just go ahead and get it out of the way, I'm currently a liberal. I say currently because just last week a fellow student brought up and interesting factoid: 1 in 3 college democrats adopt conservative views in their life. Hmm. I can only think that the attainment of hard earned money would do such a thing, but who can be sure, there wasn't any causal data presented to me. I also say currently because isn't having a open mind what being a liberal is all about? Even the open mind leads one to the virtues of conservatism? Well so be it. Actually, I take that back I hope it doesn't!

The book I read was written by Al Franken and it is titled, Lies and the Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. The second sentence is of course, a joke pointed at the Fox News Channel. The Fox News Channels claims they present news as being "Fair and Balanced". Franken skewers this claim in his book. Throughout his work, Franken is light hearted and funny. He occasionally becomes serious to make large points, but after he states them, he pokes fun at himself for being to serious. To enlighten the reader as to who runs the Fox News Channel, Franken introduces the media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch was ranked by Forbes as the fourth most powerful billionaire in the world. He owns the following media companies: Fox News Channel, Fox Broadcast, which is the national network, 20th Century Fox, the movie studio and 130 English-language papers, including the London Times and the New York Post. He also owns around 80% of the satellite broadcasting outlets. The Columbia Journalism Review claims he acts more for his bottom line and sacrifices real news gathering to promote his right-wing agenda. The article also claims that the Murdoch Empire is an example of the dangers of media consolidation.