In his book *Deadly Spin*, Wendell Potter takes readers behind the scenes to show how a huge chunk of our healthcare spending actually bankrolls a propaganda campaign and lobbying effort focused on protecting one thing: profits. Whatever the fate of the current health care legislation, it makes no attempt to change that fundamental problem. Relentless PR assaults play an insidious role in our political process anywhere that corporate profits are at stake--from climate change to defense policy. *Deadly Spin* tells us why--and how--we must fight back.
Wendell Potter is the senior fellow on health care at the Center for Media and Democracy and a leading critic of the health insurance industry. After a thirty-year career in public relations, he left his job as a corporate pr executive to speak out against he had seen and been a part of during his years in the health insurance industry. He has appeared on countless television and radio programs and been cited in newspapers and magazines around the world. Time magazine wrote that Potter "may be the ideal whistleblower."
John Carroll is Assistant Professor of Mass Communications in BOston University's College of Communications. A veteran of both the advertising and journalism worlds, Carroll served as executive producer of news programs at WGBH-TV in Boston and as producer/panelist on the daily show *Greater Boston* and the weekly program *Beat the Press*. He currently serves as media consultant at WBUR. Over the past 20 years he has also written extensively on advertising and the media as a regular columnist for the Boston *Globe* and *Adweek* magazine, and as a commentator on WBUR-FM and National Public Radio. Carroll has won numerous national and regional journalism awards, including the RTNDA’s Edward R. Murrow award for writing, the National Press Club’s Arthur Rowse award for press criticism, and multiple New England Emmys for commentary and news writing. In addition, he spent almost two decades as a creative director and consultant in the advertising industry.