SOURCE: Weinberg, Steve. “Don't Touch that Dial.” Christian Science Monitor (21 March 2002): 17.

In the following review of Media Unlimited, Weinberg recounts Gitlin's various approaches to dealing with media saturation.

Almost all the nonjournalists I know complain about how the media portray their neighborhood, city, state, nation, or planet in a distorted way. Yet those same complainants quote information from the media all the time, as if it were accurate. How else, for example, do most of us know anything about the US military pursuit of Osama bin Laden, except through the media?

This predicament is heightened by the failure of so many nonjournalists (and many journalists, as well) to distinguish among the thousands of media outlets. Lumping together the CBS Evening News, the Washington Post, the Columbia Missourian, The Nation magazine, the National Review magazine, the Oprah Winfrey talk show, MTV, ESPN, NPR's All Things Considered, salon.com, and...