Norman Solomon
Norman Solomon has been writing his nationally syndicated "Media Beat" column since 1992. His latest book, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death, was published in 2005. Reviewing the book, the Los Angeles Times called it "brutally persuasive" and "a must-read for those who would like greater context with their bitter morning coffee, or to arm themselves for the debates about Iraq that are still to come."
Solomon is the founder and executive director of the Institute for
Public Accuracy, a national consortium of policy researchers and analysts.
His book Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You (co-authored with foreign correspondent Reese Erlich) was published in the United States in January 2003, and since then has appeared in German, Italian, Hungarian, Brazilian and South Korean editions.
A collection of Solomon's columns won the George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language. The award, presented by the National Council of Teachers of English, honored Solomon's book The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media. In the introduction to that book, Jonathan Kozol wrote: "The tradition of Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, and I.F. Stone does not get much attention these days in the mainstream press ... but that tradition is alive and well in this collection of courageously irreverent columns on the media by Norman Solomon. ... He fights the good fight without fear of consequence. He courts no favors. He writes responsibly and is meticulous on details, but he does not choke on false civility."
Solomon has appeared as a guest commentator on many media outlets including the PBS "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," CNN, MSNBC, Fox News Channel, C-SPAN's "Washington Journal," public radio's "Marketplace," and NPR's "All Things Considered" and "Talk of the Nation." He has also appeared on such varied outlets as the BBC World Service, CBC Television, Voice of America and Al-Jazeera. Solomon's op-ed articles have been published in a range of newspapers including the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, New York Times, Boston Globe, Miami Herald, USA Today, Philadelphia Inquirer and Baltimore Sun. His articles have also appeared in the International Herald Tribune, Canada's Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and the Jordan Times.
The landmark book Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media, by Solomon and co-author Martin A. Lee, caused the Washington Post's reviewer to write that the book "makes a worthy addition to the library of any student of American news media, social structure and political science." The San Francisco Chronicle reviewer wrote: "Their command of information is matched by committed, eloquent writing that plumbs the psychological and political complexities of mass-mediated experience."
Solomon is a former associate of the Center for Investigative Reporting and a longtime associate of the media watch group FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting).
