Just finished this excellent book, “It’s Not News, It’s FARK“, by Drew Curtis, the founder of FARK.com. I was at Barnes & Noble the other night with my wife as she needed to pick up some new coffee table books and I NEVER pass up an opportunity to go the bookstore. It’s the bookworm in me. My wife had loaded up on a ton of books (literally) that I got to carry for her. Since I’ve finished my last book a couple of weeks ago (I’ve been sustaining by my reading appetite via online manuals and my magazine subscriptions) I quickly looked around for some new reading material. I found Drew’s book in the “Noted Books” section at the store. I took a chance on it after I read the tag line “How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap as News”.
Now, I’ve never heard of FARK or FARK.com until I read this book. My little corner of the Internet is quite homey and I don’t venture out of it much. So all of the material contain in the book was very new to me — and I laughed all the way through the book. It is a great book if you want a humorous look at current media practices. Drew has identified 8 different categories of basically ‘filler news’ and details them and explains how and why they are used. The overall delivery of the information had me in stitches.
Definitely a recommended book and I’ll probably have my copy loaned out by the end of the week. Sorry Drew – $13.00 bucks for a paperback is a bit steep for most people. Since I just added it to the coffee table book pile I was carrying, I didn’t realize how expensive it was. Rest assured that this copy will be well-read before it’s donate someplace.
(Yes I did visit Fark.com after/during reading the book. To be honest, I didn’t know how to navigate the site. I’ll give it another go when I have some down time.)
-JT