Beyond the Big Lie

“Bill Adair was there at the beginning of the fact-checking movement. His decades in journalism make this an indispensable read for anyone who wants to understand why lying matters. Bill is one of my heroes. This blurb is ‘Mostly True.’” —Al Franken, Former U.S. Senator from Minnesota and New York Times bestselling author “In this new and valuable book, the man who all but single-handedly revived the fact-checking movement, Bill Adair, offers reflections only he could, providing fresh accounts of how and why politicians lie, revealing the efforts to discredit journalists and researchers, and offering ideas to improve fact-checking to reduce lying. And he makes it readable as hell.” —Tom Rosenstiel, co-author of The Elements of Journalism “Beyond the Big Lie has it all. Bill Adair's book is timely, engaging and important, especially in America's fraught political environment. Democracy depends on truth, but truth-telling is in ever shorter supply, especially on the right. Bill Adair, with his long and storied record as an analyst of political lies, unearths the causes and looks ahead to the dire results of this freedom-killing epidemic.” —Margaret Sullivan, executive director of the Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia University and former public editor of The New York Times “Bill Adair is among the few contemporary journalists whose work has changed our business. With humility and boldness, Beyond the Big Lie describes how behavior as ancient as human beings has grown so dangerous in 21st-century politics. And it holds out hope that good-faith media might yet temper the dishonesty that's especially pervasive within the modern Republican Party.” —John Harwood, former CNN White House Correspondent