Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater

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Franklin Square Press, 1996 - Biography & Autobiography - 224 pages
Before he created, with Joe Conason, The Hunting of the President, the critically acclaimed documentary film about Whitewater, Gene Lyons published his research into the Whitewater scandal in Harper's. That research later became a book - Fools for Scandal, which scathingly debunks the received wisdom that was handed down to the national media with the Whitewater scandal. Lyons shows the reader a media (especially The New York Times) that was driven to pin something - anything-on the Clintons, and that, in its impassioned quest for scandal, found itself making strange bedfellows with right-wing organizations such as Citizens United, and leading Republicans Al D'Amato and Lauch Faircloth. For anyone curious to understand how the printing press becomes a political machine, Fools for Scandal is illuminating, engaging, and revealing.

From inside the book

Contents

In Darkest Arkansas
1
Whitewater Deconstructed
30
Prove Your Innocence
57
Copyright

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About the author (1996)

Gene Lyons was born in New Jersey and educated at the University of Virginia, where he earned his Ph.D. Lyons was a professor at the University of Virginia before he decided to pursue his writing career full time. Currently, Lyons is a columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Lyons wrote "Widow's Web" and "Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater," both of which are heavy into politics and the media. He was also the winner of the National Magazine award for Public Service for his article "Why Teachers Can't Teach".