Political Junkies

"Potter's brisk and well informed account suggests that alternative media, by refocusing on truth seeking and informed debate, can help solve many of the threats to American democracy that it has produced. Newshounds on both the right and the left will be encouraged"

"I'm a political junkie, and if you're reading this, you probably are too. Which means you're going to want to grab Claire Potter's new book and dive in. This vivid, lively narrative shows us how the rise of political populism and the emergence of alternative media have gone hand in hand. Spotlighting the operatives you haven't heard of, the innovations you didn't know about, and the stories you haven't heard, Potter reveals the history that happened when we were looking the other way. The gatekeepers have fallen, the barbarians are inside the city, and Political Junkies -- with insight, fresh detail, and delicious wit -- makes sense of how it all happened."

"Do you follow political news obsessively? Do you tweet about it even more obsessively still, compulsively dismissing and disbelieving all information that doesn't fit your ideological lens? You might be a political junkie! You're not alone. In this incisive, clear-headed book, Claire Potter diagnoses the condition ailing so many of us, and persuasively argues that it's bad for democracy. Political Junkies is wise, open-minded, and bracing."

"In her lively new book, Claire Potter tackles a topic too many historians ignore -- the central role media play in shaping our political lives. From the political newsletters of the 1950s to cables news in the 1980s to the social-media revolution of the 2000s, Potter maps the ways alternative media remade our politics, broke our democracy, and gave birth to a new kind of American: the political junkie."

"To understand 21st-century populism, we need to know the media that helped to create it. Claire Potter's Political Junkies tells that story -- sometimes glorious, sometimes dismal, but always fascinating and well worth the read."