Trust Me, I'm Lying was billed as an exposé of the online journalism system that rose to prominence in the decade before the book's 2012 publication.

[5][6][7] The book is split into two parts: the first explains why blogs matter, how they drive the news, and how they can be manipulated, while the second shows what happens when this is done, how it backfires, and the consequences of the current media system.

In 2011, it was reported that Holiday received a $500,000 advance for a tell-all exposé about these clients and the modern media system from Portfolio, a subsidiary of Penguin Books.

"[19] In anticipation of the book's release, Holiday infiltrated the public relations service Help a Reporter Out and posed as an "expert" on various issues to show that journalists will print statements without fact checking.

[20][better source needed] Holiday made decoy claims to prove the point; some of those were subsequently quoted in articles about subjects ranging from boating upkeep to insomnia to vinyl records in outlets such as The New York Times, MSNBC, and ABC, and the story was profiled in Forbes and Yahoo!