WASHINGTON - November 17 - Today Progressive Book Club and Media Matters for America announces the launch of Right-Wing Book Watch (RightWingBookWatch.com) - a new joint project that will monitor the release of conservative books and provide detailed fact checks, research and thematic rebuttals from progressive experts.

First in the project's sights is former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's memoir Going Rogue: An American Life, which hits bookshelves across the country today.

Despite enormous advances in technology, books continue to serve as the primary means to legitimize political and policy ideas. Under the guise of "non-fiction," conservatives use books to force misinformation into the media and the public discourse.

These books can be devastating to good policy and decent political discourse - as illustrated by such notorious examples as The Bell Curve, which misused data to resuscitate racialist ideas about intelligence, and Unfit for Command, the "Swift Boat" fraud that smeared Senator John Kerry.

All too often these kinds of works, riddled with fictitious claims supported by sloppy research, go unchecked. Or their falsehoods are broadcast without contradiction until it is too late. The same could have been true of Palin's new memoir - until now.

Since obtaining a copy of Going Rogue days in advance of its public release, Right-Wing Book Watch has posted and disseminated more than a dozen Fact Checks, all of which can be found here, with still more to come including a review of the memoir by Max Blumenthal, an award-winning journalist and author of the recently released book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party.

http://rightwingbookwatch.com/

Palin is just one of the many conservative authors Right-Wing Book Watch will be keeping an eye on in the weeks and months to come. Like so many other conservative authors, Palin has consistently shown a willful disregard for simple facts - even when it comes to her own life story.

"Conservative books are the life's blood of the right-wing media attack machine. For decades the right has used works of supposed 'non-fiction' to advance misinformation and outright lies on every issue imaginable" said David Brock, founder and CEO of Media Matters. "This new partnership will bring the progressive movement's ability to hold conservative authors and the publishing world accountable to a whole new level."

"The right-wing has used books, talk radio, cable television and the internet to disseminate and legitimize their ideas with no regard for the truth or damage to our country," said Governor Howard Dean, chairman of The Progressive Book Club. "For too long their misuse of information has gone unchecked and unchallenged.  Progressives now have a powerful tool to use in taking the right head on as we work to repair the damage of conservative rule and move America forward."

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