Mainstream Media Attacks on Myself - A Response to Booklist and Others

By Alex Constantine

I have a bone to pick with the media, and one example should serve to illustrate the problem. In Booklist's review of my book "The Covert War Against Rock" in 2000, it was claimed falsely that I made up a fact. The Booklist reviewer critiqued me – without offering a factual rebuttal – for writing that Tupak Shakur was murdered in a "COINTELPRO-type operation" unrelated to gang warfare. I stand by my story, which is so factually correct that "spin" is all the reviewer could offer in response to the facts I've laid out regarding the killing of Shakur and other political rap artists. I was NOT inaccurate in the least - Booklist IS inaccurate in taking me to task for the evidence I've assembled.

Mainstream writers want my blood. This was illustrated clearly by the only other example given in the "Covert War" Booklist review. It was claimed, again falsely:

"The scary suppositions are only slightly undercut by Constantine's occasional fudging of known, if ungermane, facts, as when he says that the Mick Jagger-Keith Richards bust occurred at a hotel rather than Richards' Redlands estate."

That problem is that I have NEVER written the bust took place at a hotel. This is a false statement. In the book, on page 43, I described a party at the Mayfair Hotel the night before the bust. On page 44, I clearly stated:

"The police got satisfaction from the raid - until it dawned on themthat none of the suspects present at RICHARDS' FLAT actually had drugs on them."

Yet Booklist alleged, completely inaccurately, that I have "fudged" facts about the bust. Why I would do this, I don't know. But Booklist appears to be in the business of character assassination. To others who claim that I am "inaccurate," please do what no one else has ever managed to do - show me where I have ever misrepresented the facts I've reported.

In 20 years, all sorts of terrible things have been said about me. None of them proved correct. In fact, it is the condescending critics who are inaccurate and history will forget them, and that's as it should be.

Perception management is the name of the game. I report honestly and objectively. Booklist should try this approach some day.

Their review has unjustifiably smeared me, and I have asked for a retraction.
My request was ignored, of course. Unscrupulous publications seldom rush to take responsibility for their acts.

- Alex Constantine