Pankaj Mishra chose the book as one of his "books of the year" in Outlook India:

There is no wittier or sharper account of Thomas Friedman's intellectual and moral atrocities as Belén Fernández's The Imperial Messenger.

Doug Henwood interviewed Belén Fernández on Behind the News on December, 3, 2011 and included the recording of Friedman’s infamous “Suck. On. This” performance on Charlie Rose on behalf of the Iraq war effort. Henwood remarked in response: “It’s like junior high school, only with automatic weapons and high explosives”.

A review was posted on Asia Times online on December 10, 2011: 

[R]aises thought-provoking questions about the objectivity of mainstream media when it comes to US economic and foreign policy interests. 

An excerpt in NY Times Examiner ran on December 21, 2011

A review was posted on Counter Currents on December 22, 2011:

[S]hould be the companion volume to any and all reading of Friedman.

Our Man in Boston posted a review on December 29, 2011: 

Journalist Belén Fernández’s new opus Imperial Messenger effectively eviscerating the NYT’s Thomas Friedman (whom Alexander Cockburn, not one to pull punches, has called “the silliest man on the planet”) strikes me as an example of the kind of book that a supine establishment,mainstream media herd must exert some effort to avoid paying even minimal attention.

By Anne Sullivan / 12 January 2012 / post comment

Paul Craig Roberts included The Imperial Messenger as one of "three books to stimulate thought" and had this to say about the book's author: 

Belén Fernández reveals New York Times' columnist Thomas Friedman as a handmaiden of the elite. In exchange for preparing the electorate to be receptive to elite-determined agendas, such as globalism, the invasion of Iraq and the war on terror, Friedman was given a third Pulitzer prize, reducing this once meaningful award to the current status of the Nobel peace prize, and provided with cushy speaking fees.

Fernández subjects Friedman to careful scrutiny and assigns him failing grades for logic, consistency, and integrity. After reading Fernández dissect Friedman column by column, the unavoidable question is: How did Friedman ever pass himself off as a journalist? Why isn’t Belén Fernández the New York Times' lead columnist? The answer is clear. Fernandez won’t lie for the establishment.

By Anne Sullivan / 12 January 2012 / post comment

Following a recent appearance in Guernica, The Imperial Messenger has been excerpted in the London Review of Books. In the book, author Belén Fernández systematically demolishes the façade of principled criticism that Friedman projects, and exposes instead the mass of contradictory assertions and disingenuous equivocation—not to mention, terrible writing—that is the acclaimed New York Times columnist's true hallmark.

Ever since literary blogs, alternative news outlets, and nifty "read later" contraptions infested the once-venerable tangle of data that is the Internet, it has become dishearteningly easier to read good, intelligent writing that is as informative as it is well-crafted. Rambling, incoherent, cartoonishly bad and ethically suspect writing no longer populate our screens; and we have been left with nostalgia for the days when we still hadn't quite figured out our RSS subscription preferences.

Thankfully, Thomas Friedman is still getting published.

If you have not yet experienced the  literary coup de poudre that is Friedman's writing, you can read his New York Times column, which runs twice-weekly because Friedman stauchly supports torture without legal consequences. For short but still painful reminders of the current state of political discourse in this country, you can follow @NYTFriedman on Twitter.

But burying this kind of rhetoric at the bottom of a reader feed is not enough—it has to be brought to light and thoroughly dismantled. If you want to understand how Friedman is "a testament to the degenerate state of the mainstream media in the United States" and a mouthpiece for imperial violence and aggression around the world, you should read Belén Fernández's witty, incisive take-down of this apologist for empire.

By Francisco Salas / 28 November 2011 / post comment