A few weeks ago, I started reading Morgan Spurlock’s first book, called Don’t Eat This Book. Thinking it’d be ripe for a book review, I decided I’d put Post-It notes on the pages with passsages worthy of further examination (read: ridicule) later.

A few chapters in, damned near every page was Post-It-ed.

The book is truly awful. Not just in that I don’t agree with it. It’s thinly researched (nearly all secondary sources), polemically researched (he never even speaks with or consults with a source that doesn’t already agree with him), and out and out wrongly researched. He publishes urban legends as fact, long-debunked forwarded emails as truth, and in more than a few spots cites sources that say the exact opposite of what he claims they say. He seems to have latched on to the first Google hit he found that confirms his worst suspicions about Big Food, business, commerce, and capitalism. He even abuses sources that agree with him.

All of this wouldn’t fit in a book review of any reasonable length. But Spurlock is so wholly and thoroughly dishonest, I thought the true awfulness of his book ought to be catalogued.

So I started the Spurlock Watch blog, which will dive headfirst into Don’t Eat This Book, as well as debunk other fanciful nuggets from the Spurlockian ouvre.

I’m not exactly how this will proceed. I’ve got a good three, maybe four dozen items from his book. And his new show will certainly provide some fodder. I might invite some co-bloggers to help me out. Or I might not. It’s a work in progress.

The goal right now is to shed some light on this guy’s allergic reaction to honest debate, shame Putnam (his publisher), and perhaps get the media to look at him with a little more skepticism.

If an academic or journalist had made the kinds of mistakes Spurlock makes in this book, he’d probably be looking at the end of his career. Wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Spurlock’s career as a public figure came to an end, either.

So I give you: Spurlock Watch.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 5th, 2005 at 11:01 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.