Trust Me, I’m Lying Book Summary - Trust Me, I’m Lying Book explained in key points

Trust Me, I’m Lying summary

Name: Trust Me, I’m Lying
Rating: 4.1 (94 reviews)
Author: Ryan Holiday

Ryan Holiday

Confessions of a Media Manipulator

Listen to the first key idea

Key idea 1 of 8

00:00

4.1 (94 ratings)

15 mins

8 key ideas

Audio & text

What is Trust Me, I’m Lying about?

Trust Me, I’m Lying (2012) is an in-depth exposé of today’s news culture, which is primarily channeled through online media sites called blogs. By detailing his experiences with multimillion-dollar public relations campaigns, the author takes us behind the scenes of today’s most popular and influential blogs to paint an unsettling picture of why we shouldn’t believe everything that is labeled as news.

About the Author

Ryan Holiday is a media strategist best known for his campaigns with New York Times bestselling authors Tucker Max and Robert Greene. He currently works as Director of Marketing for the $550-million clothing company American Apparel, and runs the marketing company Brass Check Marketing.

Table of Contents

Key idea 1 of 8

Blogs get content from other blogs, meaning that even trivial stories can get passed along to respected news sites.

In today’s internet-dominated society, most people get their news online. These online news sources, or blogs, are the newspaper of the twenty-first century.

And just like newspapers, blogs are always looking for fresh stories. These days, that means they watch what spreads across social-media sites like Twitter and what is written on smaller blogs.

If a story generates enough buzz across these media, chances are it will be picked up by mid-level blogs, which bring it to an even wider audience. And if the buzz continues from there, the story may make its way to major news outlets like the New York Times or CNN, as they also keep an eye on blogs for promising stories.

A perfect example of this is when American football quarterback Kurt Warner jokingly suggested that a quarterback from a rival team, Brett Favre, join the reality TV show Dancing With The Stars.

The humorous, yet erroneous, story debuted on a small entertainment blog with the title “Brett Favre is Kurt Warner’s Pick for DWTS: ‘Controversy is good for ratings’.” But then the story was picked up by a CNN-affiliate which ran it with the headline: “Brett Favre’s Next Step?”

When it finally reached national news publication USA Today, the joke had transformed into a fully fledged rumor: “Brett Favre joining ‘DWTS’ Season 12 Cast?”

The stories aren’t always this petty, though. Smaller blogs and social media have broken major stories as well.

Surprisingly, the death of Osama Bin Laden was first reported by a user on Twitter. This was before major news outlets, blogs or even President Obama confirmed its factuality.

Regardless, both examples show one thing: all blogs are interdependent, so it’s no surprise that even trivial stories can become national headlines.

Bloggers want to make money: primarily through advertising, but most also dream of selling their blog for a fortune.

All blogs, big or small, are businesses. And like all businesses, a blog’s main goal is to make money. They primarily do this by selling advertising space.

Each blog sells advertising space in different ways, but one common way is “per impression” pricing – a fee the advertiser pays a blog for each time someone opens a blog page with their ad on it.

Blogs rely on iterative journalism: publish first, fact-check and revise later.

You may have noticed that most blogs produce multiple posts a day. This is because the more content there is, the longer the reader usually browses, which in turn generates more ad impressions and more revenue for the blog.

Additionally, while traditional news media are restricted by time or size limitations – like newspaper word counts or one-hour-long TV news programs – there is no limit to how much content a blog can publish.

Blogs need readers, which means they’ll publish any garbage that turns heads.

Just as any business needs customers, blogs need web traffic: people to browse and read their content. In fact, they need lots of it, since the advertising fees they charge are directly related to the traffic they get.

Clearly, blogs want to get as many visitors as possible. To do that, they rely on a variety of methods to snag people’s attention.

Blogs deliberately bait us with content that generates an emotional response.

Have you ever read a story online that made you angry? This was probably not a coincidence. Blogs often try to pique our emotions to get us more involved.

For example, they know that when we see a story about an injustice, like a child getting kidnapped, we get angry. That anger then spurs us to interact with the story, either by sharing it with others or by posting our thoughts in its comments section. This then creates buzz around the story, generating more ad revenues for the blog.

Because blogs constantly correct and update their content, we rarely see news in its most accurate form.

One time or another, you’ve probably encountered an article on a blog with the words “UPDATE” or “CORRECTION” in its title. As you can probably guess, this means the article you’re reading has been changed from its original version.

This change was most likely made because the blogger who first published the story got something wrong or presented the story while it was still developing.

From igniting international protests to boosting political campaigns, blogs have proven they can shape society.

A news story can affect everything from stock market prices to presidential elections. It’s no surprise, then, that blogs wield enormous power in shaping society.

For a political example, look no further than Tim Pawlenty. Pawlenty was the governor of Minnesota when political blog Politico started speculating he would run for president – even before he’d expressed any intention to do so.

In the twenty-first century, blogs have become a stage for public witch hunts.

History has shown that we enjoy watching other people get publicly punished, humiliated or torn down. Just look at our ancestors’ love for witch trials, guillotine executions and gladiatorial battles.

These “degradation ceremonies,” as anthropologists call them, allow the public to single out and denounce one of its members – simply because we need a scapegoat to take our anger out on.

Want to see all full key ideas from Trust Me, I’m Lying?

Key ideas in Trust Me, I’m Lying

More knowledge in less time

Read or listen

Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.

Find your next read

Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.

Shortcasts ^New

We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.

Who should read Trust Me, I’m Lying

Anyone interested in learning how blogs and other online news media work
Anyone who wants to know why we should question what we read online
Anyone looking to understand how blogs are affecting society

Categories with Trust Me, I’m Lying

Marketing & Sales Society & Culture

Books like Trust Me, I’m Lying

Likeable Social Media

Dave Kerpen

How To Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, & Be Generally Amazing On All Social Networks That Matter

Humanizing Your Brand in the Age of Social Media and AI

21 min

4.2

Podcasting Marketing Strategy

Daniel Rowles and Ciaran Rogers

A Complete Guide to Creating, Publishing, and Monetizing a Successful Podcast

The Next Big Marketing Idea

29 min

4.5

Unleashing the Ideavirus

Seth Godin

Stop Marketing AT People! Turn Your Ideas into Epidemics by Helping Your Customers Do the Marketing for You

23 min

4.4

She Said

Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey

Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story that Helped Ignite a Movement

33 min

4.8

The Post-Truth Business

Sean Pillot de Chenecey

How to Rebuild Brand Authenticity in a Distrusting World

22 min

4.3

Persuasive Copywriting

Andy Maslen

Cut Through the Noise and Communicate With Impact

20 Go-To Principles to Help You Market Like a Marketer

How the Many Sides to Every Story Shape Our Reality

23 min

4.3

What our members say

Sven O.

It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.

Thi Viet Quynh N.

Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.

Jonathan A.

Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.

Renee D.

Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.

Start growing with Blinkist now

25 Million

Downloads on all platforms

4.7 Stars

Average ratings on iOS and Google Play

91%

Of Blinkist members create a better reading habit*

*Based on survey data from Blinkist customers

Powerful ideas from top nonfiction

Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 5,500+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.

Start your free trial

Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club

by Robin Sharma

Trust Me, I’m Lying summary

Listen to the first key idea

What is Trust Me, I’m Lying about?

About the Author

Blogs get content from other blogs, meaning that even trivial stories can get passed along to respected news sites.

Bloggers want to make money: primarily through advertising, but most also dream of selling their blog for a fortune.

Blogs rely on iterative journalism: publish first, fact-check and revise later.

Blogs need readers, which means they’ll publish any garbage that turns heads.

Blogs deliberately bait us with content that generates an emotional response.

Because blogs constantly correct and update their content, we rarely see news in its most accurate form.

From igniting international protests to boosting political campaigns, blogs have proven they can shape society.

In the twenty-first century, blogs have become a stage for public witch hunts.

Key ideas in Trust Me, I’m Lying

Blogs get content from other blogs, meaning that even trivial stories can get passed along to respected news sites.

Bloggers want to make money: primarily through advertising, but most also dream of selling their blog for a fortune.

Blogs rely on iterative journalism: publish first, fact-check and revise later.

Blogs need readers, which means they’ll publish any garbage that turns heads.

Blogs deliberately bait us with content that generates an emotional response.

Because blogs constantly correct and update their content, we rarely see news in its most accurate form.

From igniting international protests to boosting political campaigns, blogs have proven they can shape society.

In the twenty-first century, blogs have become a stage for public witch hunts.

Who should read Trust Me, I’m Lying

Categories with Trust Me, I’m Lying

Books like Trust Me, I’m Lying

What our members say

Discover the Blinkist catalogue

Popular titles

Most popular categories

Trending Collections