Owned

 
“Over the last three decades, Big Tech has disrupted many industries, not least the media, a transformation that is as much about ideological push to the right as it is the creation of new platforms and business models. In Owned, Eoin Higgins expertly, carefully, and devastatingly traces the career trajectory of two prominent and important journalists, Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi. Their decades-long journey from the world of blogging and alternative journalism into the snug patronage of billionaires is a story with profound and troubling implications for the future of journalism and unfettered thinking. Never pulling any punches but always hitting fairly, Higgins has written an important book.”
 

“This book offers a dogged accounting of how prominent left-liberals joined an ascendant choir of far-right voices, providing insightful analysis of how a group of reactionary tech billionaires have backed this transformation. We can only escape this nightmare if we understand how we got here—Owned shines some much needed light into the darkest recesses to today’s mediascape.”
 

“With rare brilliance, Higgins documents a crucial political shift, and lucidly explains how it has happened.”

“Owned is an impressively researched look into the decades long partnership between tech oligarchs and the authoritarian right that have a vested interest in keeping us all less informed and perpetually agitated, and some of the key players who have benefited most from our collective loss.”
 

“Owned is a vital account of the deeply troubling influence tech moguls wield over the news industry. Higgins expertly tells the story of how thin-skinned hostility to scrutiny and criticism led a clique of right-wing billionaires to subvert journalism by capturing or silencing critical voices. Anyone who wants to understand the media landscape of the 21st century needs to read this book. They want us to live in a world where we only hear what they want us to hear. But in Owned, Higgins does what really fearless independent journalists do best: tells us what we need to know.”