Why do Americans mistrust the news media? It may be because shows like "The McLaughlin Group" reduce
participating journalists to so many shouting heads. Or because, increasingly, the profession treats issues as
complex as health-care reform and foreign policy as exercises in political gamesmanship. These are just a few of
the arguments that have made Breaking the News so controversial and so widely acclaimed. Drawing on his
own experience as a National Book Award-winning journalist--and on the gaffes of colleagues from George Will to
Cokie Roberts--Fallows shows why the media have not only lost our respect but alienated us from our public life.