Review
Amazing book, a sensation, sold 1,500,000 copies in Germany... Destroys the illusion/delusion that there is anywhere in the Western world an independent press... Journalists serve as propagandists and public relations agents for intelligence agencies, businesses, lobbying organizations, politicians, and US foreign policy.... Journalists are recruited when they are still students... All from the lowest reporter to the highest editor to the owners of the news organization are caught up in enabling the elites to control the explanations.... Incestuous relationships between journalists, intelligence agencies, businesses, politicians, and US foreign policy aims are so pervasive that no one thinks anything of it.... With the Western media suborned, democracy and accountable government are not possible. Making this clear is Ulfkotte's contribution. -- Paul Craig Roberts
Confessions of a Journalistic Hit Man... Udo Ulfkotte has done for Western journalism what John Perkins did for our understanding of how economic development in so-called developing nations really works in his bestselling *Confessions of an Economic Hit Man*. And then some! - Steven Yates, Amazon.com
How we are deceived. A mainstream journalist shines a light on "The Man behind the curtain."
A must-read for anyone who thinks for themselves. Mark Twain is often quoted: "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed." Udo Ulfkotte explains exactly why this is and how it is done. Kudos to the publisher for getting this important book translated into English. Reading it will make you a much more critical viewer of "the news". - Mark Carlson, Amazon.com
The Western media have become political activists who use their media positions not to report, but to campaign against opponents of their shadowy, corrupting clients. -- Biplane Bob, -- Amazon.com
If you don't know the real truth about the press you should read this book. Bought journalism! - Hank, Amazon.com
A book that Ulfkotte wrote with heart and soul... the life of a journalist, who must decide, will I follow my conscience... or take the easy way and collect rewards and awards. -- Talkshow, Amazon.de
Mockingbird from the horse's mouth. Read and get a glimpse of what may be behind most of reports you see on CNN, WaPo and NYT. I cannot recommend this book enough. - J. Renato Carollo, Amazon.com
Especially in times like these we need to take a closer look at the way the mainstream media works. Ulfkotte gives many examples ... The truth is often very different from what they report. This should interest every one, so I highly recommend this book. - Customer, amazon.de
About the Author
If you look up Udo Ulfkotte, the author, on Wikipedia, you'll get the impression that this man was a wild-eyed right-wing conspiracy theorist. The fact that he spent most of his career writing for prestigious mainstream media outlets, working in close contact with top politicians and Western intelligence agencies, and making countless television appearances as a war correspondent and foreign policy expert, doesn't seem to count. At the bottom of his Wiki page, you'll also notice the long list of books he wrote, many of them run-away bestsellers in the German-speaking world - despite a virtual blackout on advertising. So, who was Udo Ulfkotte? Was he a highly-respected, mainstream journalist or just some unhinged conspiracy theorist? Presstitutes is the closest we will ever get to an Udo Ulfkotte autobiography. It is both an apology for his own personal conduct and a warning to a new generation of journalists. With his own career as the example, he details how easily young journalists are lifted up and swept along by the mainstream, unable to resist the reward system that shapes the Western media. From his first nudge as a university student toward working with the BND, German Intelligence, Ulfkotte's career provides many a look behind the scenes at what is packaged and sold in the media. After graduation, without any journalism background, but having been vetted by the BND, young Ulfkotte miraculously landed a job as an assistant foreign policy editor at Germany's most prestigious newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). He stayed with them for 17 years, travelling to 60 countries and spending more time in the Middle East than in Germany. In 1988 he nearly died from an Iraqi nerve gas attack on Iranian troops, and discovered the gas had come from Germany. His reports and photos were buried. Gradually he became disillusioned with the dishonesty. His first critical book title, Classified Information: Federal Intelligence Service (BND), was published in 1997 and was promoted by the FAZ. He also began lecturing on "security management" in the University of Lüneburg's business school. But the FAZ was not happy when he published How Journalists Lie in 2002. He suffered another serious physical injury in 2003. The last straw was when a political party offered him a fat bribe to use his press credentials to spy on a rival politician's private life. After a heart attack, Ulfkotte decided he must expose as much political corruption as he could before he died. He wanted to wake people up. He still had an extensive network of sources who were also fed up, and he published about a book a year, each one more scathing than the last. Presstitutes was the biggest bestseller. The issue that was dearest to him was the loss of cultural identity, which was being aggressively promoted through massive corruption in the government and media. He warned of the dangers of mass immigration before the crime rates shot off the charts. He was now an official persona non grata. Police and prosecutors searched his home and offices six times over the next 10 years, as he said, "because I reported things in public that are not politically correct, especially things the public shouldn't know, things they would like to keep secret... the bearer of bad news is the first one to be hanged, beheaded or otherwise quartered." The searches were always reported in the media, and he lost his professorship, No charges were ever filed, but the media never reported on that. Dr. Udo Ulfkotte survived a poison gas attack in Iraq, a bout with cancer, and head injuries from being pushed down the stairs of his home by a spy for the ISI, the Pakistani CIA. He died of his fourth heart attack on January 13th 2017, just before his 57th birthday. Did he die a natural death? We may never know.
