Into the Buzzsaw
Leading Journalists Expose
the Myth of a Free Press
Edited by Kristina Borjesson
Foreword by Gore Vidal

Prometheus Books, 2002
ISBN: 1573929727
Current Events, 275 pages
Hardcover, $26.00

ABOUT THE BOOK
Here, for the first time in the history of American journalism, award-winning print and TV journalists have collaborated to produce this book of devastating essays about the depth and breadth of censorship in American journalism today. Editor Kristina Borjesson has collected almost two dozen essays about the “buzzsaw” -- concerted corporate and/or government efforts to kill controversial stories and careers. These essays describe a Fourth Estate that has largely relinquished its watchdog role and that has been co-opted by corporate and government powers. The bigger picture is that of a press actively contributing to the demise of democracy in America.

Collectively, these essays paint a picture that is as vivid and shocking as it is utterly credible. Riveting first-person accounts detail what these investigative reporters risked and what they uncovered about the government’s investigation into the crash of TWA Flight 800; the CIA’ s involvement in the War on Drugs; the U.S. military’s efforts to cover up Operation Tailwind, the massacre of hundreds of civilians during the Korean War, and the conspiracy to court-martial a returning POW from Vietnam; the writing on the wall foreshadowing the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001; and much, much more.

Contributors include Columbia DuPont Award-winning broadcast journalist Karl Idsvoog; Helen Malmgren, producer for Ed Bradley at CBS News; Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Gary Webb, who wrote the San Jose Mercury News “Dark Alliance” series about the CIA’s connection to the crack epidemic in Los Angeles; independent investigative producer John Kelly, author with Phillip Wearne of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Tainting Evidence: Inside the Scandals at the FBI Crime Lab; and many more.

“Reporters who tattle risk losing their jobs and being blacklisted in the business…. That should tell you something about the news you’re getting. It’s been written countless times that the press is our nation’s last line of defense for keeping our leaders honest and our government democratic. If you believe this to be true and are concerned, you should read this book very, very carefully.” – from Borjesson’s introduction

REVIEWS
“Into the Buzzsaw is a splendid -- and heartening -- collection of essays.” -- from Gore Vidal’s foreword

“If members of the general public read this book, or even portions of it, they will be appalled. To the uninitiated reader, the accounts of what goes on behind the scenes at major news organizations are shocking.” -- Publisher’s Weekly