“A perceptive analysis of the status of truth in the digital age…Manjoo has produced an engaging, illustrative look at the dangers of living in an oversaturated media world.”

— “Publishers Weekly”

“Narrator Ray Porter maintains a respectful, even tone in describing the examples that reflect both sides of the political aisle…Listeners will be alarmed by the influence of ‘experts on the take’ doling out what Manjoo calls ‘amateur research.'”

— “AudioFile”

Farhad Manjoo is a Senior Writer at Salon, covering politics, technology, science and pop culture. His article debunking the conspiracy theories around the 2004 presidential election (that Bush “stole” Ohio) was one of the most blogged about articles in all of 2006.

Ray Porter is an AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator and fifteen-year veteran of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He has appeared in numerous films and television shows, including Almost Famous, ER, and Frasier.

Salon blogger Manjoo dissects how stories in the public consciousness spread, often with little regard to the truth. Through “selective perception,” consumers can omit facts while forming opinions. Narrator Ray Porter maintains a respectful, even tone in describing the examples that reflect both sides of the political aisle, from the right’s faulty Swift Boat campaign to the left’s lack of evidence in support of a stolen election in 2004. Perceptions are analyzed in messages that offer “more theater than truth,” and examples include 9/11 conspiracy theories and even a 1951 football game. But the most shocking examples come in the form of biased broadcast television “news reports.” Again, Porter’s narration never takes sides. Listeners will be alarmed by the influence of “experts on the take” doling out what Manjoo calls “amateur research.” M.B. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

What is Hypnosis & NLP ?

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a pseudoscientific approach to communication, personal development, and psychotherapy created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in California, United States, in the 1970s. NLP’s creators claim there is a connection between neurological processes (neuro-), language (linguistic) and behavioral patterns learned through experience (programming), and that these can be changed to achieve specific goals in life. Bandler and Grinder also claim that NLP methodology can “model” the skills of exceptional people, allowing anyone to acquire those skills. They claim as well that, often in a single session, NLP can treat problems such as phobias, depression, tic disorders, psychosomatic illnesses, near-sightedness, allergy, the common cold, and learning disorders. NLP has been adopted by some hypnotherapists and also by companies that run seminars marketed as leadership training to businesses and government agencies.

There is no scientific evidence supporting the claims made by NLP advocates, and it has been discredited as a pseudoscience. Scientific reviews state that NLP is based on outdated metaphors of how the brain works that are inconsistent with current neurological theory and contain numerous factual errors. Reviews also found that all^{[dubious – discuss]} of the supportive research on NLP contained significant methodological flaws and that there were three times as many studies of a much higher quality that failed to reproduce the “extraordinary claims” made by Bandler, Grinder, and other NLP practitioners.

Farhad Manjoo – True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society

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