The Washington Post's reporter on the media reveals the Clinton Administration's unprecedented efforts to manipulate and manage information about its ongoing scandals With a slew of simultaneous scandals to his credit and numerous ongoing investigations pending, President Clinton has been bombarded by the media in a fashion not seen since the last days of the Nixon administration. Despite this unwanted attention, Clinton has managed to maintain lofty approval ratings and successfully deflect even the most ardent attacks. How does he do it? This question is answered in full in Spin Cycle: Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine , an engrossing, backroom look at how news is created and packaged in the White House and the methods used to distribute it to the public. In painting a detailed picture of the hand-to-hand combat known as a press conference, Kurtz shows how the use of controlled leaks, meticulously worded briefs, and the outright avoidance of certain questions allows the White House to control the scope and content of the stories that make it to the front page and the nightly network news. As Kurtz makes clear, the president and First Lady are convinced that the media are out to get them, while the journalists covering the White House are constantly frustrated at the stonewalling and the lack of cooperation they encounter while trying to do their jobs. In the middle is White House press secretary Mike McCurry, a master at defusing volatile situations and walking the fine line with the press. Though less paranoid and cynical of the media than Clinton, he often finds himself on both ends of personal attacks and vendettas that veer far outside the arena of objective reporting. The anecdotes and carefully buried information Kurtz has uncovered give Spin Cycle a brisk pace, along with ample invaluable information that cuts to the core of this age of media overkill. The author of Hot Air and Media Circus and a longtime media reporter for the Washington Post , Kurtz is uniquely qualified to report on the status of news dissemination in the United States. ...a revealing, highly detailed insider account... -- The New York Times Book Review, Wendy Kaminer Richard Reeves This is the best look I've had of the action on the other side of the door in the White House pressroom. It's great fun to see that they're as bad as journalists are. It also is a smart look at how smart folk define for themselves the critical lines between the truth, and nothing but the truth—and outright lying. -- Review Though Kurtz adds nothing to what is known about recent happenings in the Oval Office, he does shed light on a subject that remains of considerable importance: the techniques used by the Clinton administration to shape the way it is portrayed in the press. How well have the "spin doctors" done? For the year that forms the heart of Spin Cycle , Kurtz gives the White House the edge. In the Monica Lewinsky era, however, as Kurtz notes in his epilogue, the tables have begun to turn. "One could see, at long last, the limits of spin." Though the unfolding scandal may not force Clinton from office, Kurtz's judgment is that "the damage to his presidency [will] never be repaired." As far as it goes, Spin Cycle is a savvy account of an ignoble story. But it only goes so far. It never seriously takes up the issue that seems to lie at its core: why the press failed to prepare the public for what Kurtz rightly calls the "tabloid presidency" or, indeed, for the revelations that today so dominate the news. The fact is that during the 1996 campaign, most major news organizations did not treat Clinton's growing ethical problems in any comprehensive way; in particular, the media opted to pass on the Paula Jones case. This lapse may be explained in part by the success of the spin-control methods Kurtz describes. But there must be deeper explanations as well. -- Commentary, Terry Eastland Howard Kurtz, the longtime media reporter for The Washington Post, is the author of the award-winning books Hot Air: All Talk, All the Time and Media Circus: The Trouble with America's Newspapers. Named the nation's best media reporter by the American Journalism Review, Kurtz has also written for The New Republic, TV Guide, New York, and numerous other magazines. He lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.