When the government can grant or restrict a reporter’s access to places and people, is even possible to write real stories? What if the authorities provide press releases with photos, phone numbers and descriptions, are such prepackaged stories even objective? What about the news agencies themselves, are they public servants or are they in the business of news since their revenues depend on advertisers? Questions like these sit at the heart of People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East by Joris Luyendijk, as it delivers a compelling narrative of the gap between image and reality in the Middle East.