Laughing at Cheney, Fighting Hate Talk, Protecting Your Vote: All in AlterNet Books

By Don Hazen, AlterNet. Posted April 2, 2008.

It may come as a surprise, but AlterNet, in a burst of creative ambition (and perhaps a dose of borderline personality disorder), is diving head first into book publishing. We've all heard how crazy book publishing is, right? Well, we are going to find out very soon. We're thrilled and nervous, and we hope our readers will be excited about what we're offering.

So, why publish books when everyone is getting their information online? Well, exactly. Since over 3 million people visit AlterNet every month, we figure quite an audience is waiting for more good reading.

Plus, the fact is that books still matter. They start conversations, spread good ideas, and get our authors and AlterNet more media coverage. And we've got great writers. The topics worthy of in-depth investigation are pretty endless. Our goal is to take on the problems we face and find the solutions that will work. Every AlterNet book will be accompanied by an online campaign designed to mobilize you -- our readers -- to make change, have your voices heard, and fight back against conservative spin, greedy corporations and the worst guy of all -- Dick Cheney.

So we are leaping into book publishing with a vengeance! We are blasting out five books, starting with Young Dick Cheney: Great American, a wickedly funny faux-biography that recounts little Dick Cheney's youthful lust for guns, oil and the girl of his dreams. Created by satirists Bruce Kluger and David Slavin (National Public Radio, the Huffington Post, Salon.com), Young Dick Cheney is a visual spectacle filled with sidesplitting jokes -- all at the expense of our ever so unpopular vice president. This faux biography reveals the inspiring and sometimes even true story of Richard B. Cheney -- frontiersman, freedom fighter, fatty. The book will crack up right- and left-wingers alike. Well, fine, mostly left-wingers.

Says Lewis Black, comedian/host of Comedy Central's Root Of All Evil:
If you've spent the last eight years gagging on Vice President Cheney and his hijinks, this should take the bad taste out of your mouth.

Arianna Huffington weighs in:
At last, as Bush/Cheney staggers toward its final throes, here comes a book that pries back the door on our secretive vice president and delivers a double-barreled blast of satiric buckshot. I predict Kluger and Slavin will be greeted as liberators!

That's just the beginning -- we'll be churning out books nonstop through September 15!

Coming June 1, and ready for preordering, Shock Jocks: Hate Speech and Talk Radio profiles national radio's most offensive shock jocks and tells why they should be stopped. The highly politicized and often factually challenged world of talk radio dominates a sizable portion of America's airwaves. But the dirty secret of talk radio's success is the use of hate speech masquerading as free speech. Rory O'Connor, veteran media critic and Emmy winner, tackles the "hate talk establishment" and shows how huge media conglomerates not only make hate talk possible but profitable. He profiles the 10 worst offenders, including Don Imus, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, and shows how they dangerously blur the distinctions between news, opinion and entertainment. Shock Jocks offers a clear analysis of how hateful sound bites hinder democratic dialogue, affect legislation on important issues, and even exacerbate racist, sexist, homophobic and xenophobic attitudes. O'Connor also chronicles the rising tide of progressive activists challenging right-wing air dominance.

Says Howard Zinn:
Rory O'Connor and Aaron Cutler, in this admirable example of whistleblowing, do for talk radio in our time what Upton Sinclair and George Seldes did for the press in their time. They expose, in devastating detail, how our hallowed right of free speech has been crippled by right-wing domination of the airwaves. They also present alternatives that could restore some semblance of fairness to a marketplace of ideas so far dominated by corporate and military interests.

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Don Hazen is the executive editor of AlterNet.

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