Author Joe McGinniss, who wrote a landmark 1968 book on modern political advertising and chronicled the 1970s case of convicted Army doctor and killer Jeffrey MacDonald in "Fatal Vision," has died at age 71.
His death, of complications related to prostate cancer, was disclosed by his attorney and long-time friend Dennis Holahan, the Associated Press reported.
McGinniss skewered modern political advertising with the book "The Selling of the President 1968,'' which provided the first detailed look at the then-new techniques of television advertising that were used to market Richard Nixon to the voting public that year.
I remember when he rented a house next to the tundra twit while researching a book about her. Her reactions were classic. The victim card, paranoid histrionics, they doubled the height of their fence on his side of the yard so he couldn't peep in with a camera.
Two years ago he published "The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin,'' after renting a home near the former Republican vice presidential nominee and Alaska governor's home in Wasilla, Alaska. He had written a book about the young state 30 years earlier.
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His website describes the Palin book as "an extraordinary double narrative that alternately traces Palin's curious rise to political prominence and worldwide celebrity status and then recounts the author's day-to-day experiences as he uncovers the messy reality beneath the glossy Palin myth.''
http://www.usatoday.com/...
8:13 PM PT: Here's his website: http://joemcginniss.com/