The ongoing News International phonehacking scandal has made abundantly clear
that the media's influence over politics is both immense and largely hidden from
public scrutiny. As the scandal grows, a question arises: even when they stay on
the right side of the law, to what extent do the media influence the political
process? In "Democracy under Attack," one of the media's own--Malcolm Dean, the
"Guardian'"s long-standing chief monitor of social policy--expertly indicts his
fellow journalists, revealing the ways their distorted coverage undermines
democracy. Based on four decades of upperlevel UK government briefings and
interviews with over one hundred senior policy makers, "Democracy under Attack"
overflows with incisive observations