When the price comes down, I might have to pick this book up: "Bush's War: Media Bias and Justifications for War in a Terrorist Age."

From a Q&A with author Jim Kuypers over at CollegiateTimes.com:

Q: The book focuses a lot on how President Bush justified the actions of the United States military post Sept. 11, how would you sum up your opinion of this subject?
A: I wrote what I found. While I do have personal opinions, I try to minimize my presuppositions before I analyze my research, and whether what I find agrees with my presuppositions or does not, I write the facts.
President Bush was remarkably consistent with how we framed the war on terror … For this interview, I will say that President Bush has been straightforward from the start about the war in Iraq — what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, who we’re dealing with and why we’re there, where the press was inconsistent.

Q: You also talk a lot about how the media shapes the public’s perception of Bush’s messages. Would you argue that we are not getting the right story?
A: Absolutely — if you’re relying on mainstream media (I used CBS, ABC, and NBC in the book) and press like USA Today, The Washington Post or the New York Times. I would say that the press is outright not reporting accurately what the president has been saying about the War on Terror.

Q: What do you want your readers to take away from this work?
A: My advice is to consume the news with extreme skepticism, and I hope that anyone who reads this book will find his or her own perception about the media. One tip to verify news presented by the press is to go straight to the original sources like looking up speeches on the White House website.

The details, I'm sure, are interesting, but the conclusion isn't much of a surprise.