Deadly Spin

by Wendell Potter

  DOWN WITH NEWS, UP WITH SPIN

  Efforts to manipulate our opinions have grown increasingly pervasive over the last twenty years, in concert with the waning of traditional journalism. And with less access to credible information, we are more easily manipulated.

  Göran Therborn, the renowned social theorist, author, and professor of sociology at Cambridge University, contends that there are three arguments most likely to sustain popular apathy toward any issue or problem: denying that the issue exists; insisting that it’s a good thing rather than a bad thing; or conceding that it’s a problem but claiming that it can’t possibly be solved.11

  All three have been used, with varying degrees of success, in the attempt to discredit the reality of global warming, despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists agree that the temperature of the earth is rising at a potentially disastrous rate as a direct result of human intervention in the planet’s ecosystems.

  In 1991, a consortium of fossil fuel energy associations established and funded a front group, which they named the Information Council for the Environment (with the clever-sounding acronym ICE). One of its major initiatives was the development of a half-million-dollar PR and advertising campaign to, in the words of ICE leadership, “reposition global warming as theory (not fact).”

  Part of ICE’s effort was to recruit sympathetic scientists, most of them from American universities, for a scientific advisory panel that would work to discredit the concept of global warming. Among the panel members was Patrick Michaels of the University of Virginia’s Department of Environmental Services.

  The plan was to use the media to publicize the views of the panelists—who were paid for their services—and a Washington-based PR agency arranged for print and broadcast interviews. Meanwhile, another firm conducted “public opinion polls,” which targeted specific demographic groups (such as older males with limited education who were unlikely to seek additional information) and posed carefully crafted questions to illicit the desired responses. One of the resulting print ads carried the caption “Some say the earth is warming. Some also said the earth was flat.” The accompanying graphic showed a sailing ship drifting toward a precipice—the outside edge of a flat earth. Beneath the drop sat a dragon, its mouth wide in anticipation of the falling ship.

  The ICE campaign collapsed after someone leaked internal memos to the news media, among them a note from M. William Brier of the Edison Electric Institute, the trade association for U.S. shareholder-owned electric power companies, which included this sentence: “It will be interesting to see how the science approach sells.”

  The University of Virginia’s Michaels rapidly parted ways with ICE at that point because of what he labeled as its “blatant dishonesty,” although he continued to work with fossil fuel groups. In the midnineties, Michaels acknowledged that he had received $165,000 from fuel companies over the previous five years. He was also a paid expert witness for utility companies in lawsuits involving global warming issues and has also participated in anti-global-warming propaganda campaigns.12

  In the new century, money from fossil fuel companies continues to perpetuate the American attachment to coal and petroleum, despite the undeniable benefits of shifting to renewable fuels and despite the growing public and political support for renewables like solar power. Brad Collins, the executive director of the American Solar Energy Society (ASES), wrote in early 2010, “At ASES, our job is to share our research and policy ideas with representatives doing the people’s work. Many of our leaders, unfortunately, are overwhelmed by misinformation campaigns from the other side. The carbon lobby puts familiar faces into their offices far more often and with far more money than we can afford to do.”13

  OVERWHELMED OR UNDERINFORMED

  IN THE FUTURE

  Rupert Murdoch’s views on the future of American news are dramatically—and unsurprisingly—different from those of Arianna Huffington, the conservative-turned-liberal media powerhouse who cofounded the progressive Web site the Huffington Post. In a December 2009 speech that was reprinted on the site, Huffington predicted a “hybrid future where traditional media players embrace the ways of new media” and “new media companies adopt the best practices of old media.”

  She defended the “aggregation” of news (synopses or excerpts of stories with links to the original text) that Murdoch vehemently condemns. “This is a Golden Age for news consumers, who can search the Net, use search engines, access the best stories from around the world, and be able to comment, interact, and form communities. The value of having the world of information at your fingertips is beyond dispute,” Huffington wrote.

  In criticizing “traditional media companies” for putting profits ahead of modernizing their approach to news and “pleasing their readers,” Huffington cited the following statistics:

  • Newspaper circulation dropped by seven million in the last quarter century.

  • “Unique” readership of online news increased by 34 percent in the last five years.

  • Newspaper advertising declined by about 19 percent in 2009, while Internet advertising increased by 9 percent and mobile advertising grew by 18 percent.

  • Internet users have access to more than one trillion Web pages.14

  Huffington emphasized the generally accepted truth that traditional news organizations have yet to create a viable plan for charging for their online content to recoup some of the profits being lost to the Internet. She also roundly criticized news media for failing to fulfill their responsibilities to the public by “missing the two biggest stories of our time—the run-up to the war in Iraq and the financial meltdown.” But she praised what she calls “new media journalists.” “They’re the true pit bulls of reporting,” she wrote.

  Huffington contends that the traditional definition of journalism is changing. News has “become something around which we gather, connect and converse,” she wrote. “We all are part of the evolution of a story now—expanding it with comments and links to relevant information, adding facts and differing points of view.” Newspapers, she said, are merely one piece of the journalistic pie: “We mustn’t forget: The state of newspapers is not the same thing as the state of journalism. As much as I love newspapers—and fully expect them to survive—the future of journalism is not dependent on the future of newspapers.”15

  Huffington’s decidedly optimistic take on new-media journalism implies that virtually everyone can function as an effective journalist and that objectivity and civic responsibility will rule Internet reporting. However, the sheer volume of information available online—together with the expanding efforts of the public relations industry to control both the content and the perspective of the “news” on behalf of its clients, as well as an understaffed, overwhelmed, and complicit news media—increasingly places the burden of responsibility on everyday Americans to distinguish real news from corporate spin.

  Harvard’s Jones cites the risks of relying on untrained journalists to be dependable sources of information, capable of replacing or supplementing the work of traditional newspeople. “The hollowed-out iron core of the future may well be mostly a compendium of the simplest, cheapest kind of bearing-witness whose job is to fill a quota of publishable copy rather than to cover a beat with depth,” he wrote.16

  It has come to this question: Can we afford to be reliant on even somewhat-accurate information provided by untrained observers at a time when professional efforts to manipulate information and reporting are increasingly successful?

  There’s also the unsettling effort to shout down legitimate traditional sources of news. Inflammatory, often outrageous rhetoric is used recklessly to inspire anger or even incite violence in an effort to gain financial or political power. Calculated dishonesty uses the news media as a whipping boy in order to instill mistrust of the “mainstream media” and turn audiences toward alternative, biased “news” sources with barely disguised agendas.

  “To my mind, there is a genuine crisis,�
�� wrote Jones. “It is not one of press bias, though that is how most people seem to view it. Rather, it is a crisis of diminishing quantity and quality, of morale and sense of mission, of values and leadership. And it is taking place in a maelstrom of technological and economic change. The Internet and digital technology have sent the news business into a frenzy of rethinking, an upheaval of historic proportions whose outcome is much in doubt.”17

  Jones pointed out that each successive generation since World War II has relied less on newspapers, but today’s young people seem to be turning away from objective information from any medium. “Young news consumers seem to greatly prefer news in a format that is anything but objective. Indeed, they seem to find objectivity not only dull, but less credible than someone who is apparently speaking his or her own mind. It does not seem to matter that such opinionated pronouncements may be claptrap and based on nothing but shallow knowledge.”18

  SPOTTING SPIN

  The onslaughts will not stop, the distortions will not diminish, and the spin will not slow down. To the contrary, spin begets spin, as the successes of corporate PR functionaries increase the revenues of their employers, further funding their employers’ efforts to create a more hospitable climate for their business interests. Americans are thus being faced with increasingly subtle but effective assaults on their beliefs and perceptions. Their best defense right now is to understand and to recognize the sophisticated tactics of the spinners trying to manipulate them. Most important is a singular mandate: Be skeptical.

  The cliché that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, is generally true: The oil company that wants to reduce dependence on oil … the health insurance company that wants to make you well … the tobacco company that wants to discourage smoking … the finance company that wants to help you make money. Count on it: Any for-profit company that claims to have no self-interest has nothing but. Any for-profit company that claims to hold its customers’ interests as paramount does so—if it actually does so—in order to keep those customers its own.

  Knowing how to decode spin is as important as basic literacy and numeracy in today’s media world.

  As the previous chapters have demonstrated, and as I know from my own experience, many PR specialists attempt to reframe a public debate in order to shift the focus away from their client, introduce misleading information to dilute or redirect controversy, and use philanthropy as a way to overshadow negative publicity or questionable behavior on behalf of a corporation.

  PR also spills over into advertising territory—paid time devoted to the promotion of an attitude rather than a product. Watch for ads that do not mention a specific item for sale but extol the virtues of a corporation and its contributions to society. Nary a negative word is spoken; there’s simply an implicit message that this company is making your life better in some way. The idea is that if you hear the corporate name—the “brand”—enough, you’ll equate it with the warm-and-fuzzy feelings of its messages and you’ll buy whatever product is associated with it or, even more important, support the company when it’s accused of lying to the public, or dumping toxic waste, or willfully marketing a product that causes more harm than good.

  As I have pointed out, among the most prevalent and effective PR tactics is the “third-party technique,” in which a supposedly disinterested individual or group throws support behind a cause, product, or candidate. For example, there’s the Center for Consumer Freedom, which claims that its mission is to defend the rights of consumers to eat, drink, and smoke as they please. In reality, CCF is a front group for the tobacco, restaurant, and alcoholic beverage industries, which provide most of its funding.

  Front groups often have Web sites, but they rarely provide a real physical address or a real phone number. If a Washington, D.C., address is provided, it is likely that of a lobbying organization or a PR firm. Front groups avoid mentioning their main funding sources, and they generally have misleading, feel-good names that stress patriotism, or individual freedom, or “American values.”

  To uncover the true nature of a front group, note the names of sponsoring groups. Check their Web sites and compare their physical addresses (if provided) and the names of staff members with those of lobbying and PR organizations—especially in Washington. Monitor SourceWatch (www.sourcewatch.org) for information on groups and individuals who have been identified as paid supporters of various corporations and causes.

  WHAT IF?

  Without basic knowledge of PR tactics and the ability to distinguish between fact and distortion, Americans—and that includes journalists, both professional and “citizen”—are at the mercy of spin doctors and public relations practitioners whose loyalty to their clients outweighs the public’s right to the truth.

  The Watergate scandal of the early 1970s, uncovered by two young reporters for the Washington Post, exposed the appalling activities, both unethical and illegal, of President Richard Nixon and his Committee to Re-Elect the President during the 1972 campaign. Not only does Watergate illustrate some of the most repugnant PR-type tactics—from using stolen stationery to issue fake announcements, to breaking into and bugging opponents’ offices, to laundering money to cover the costs of the entire effort—but it also illustrates the critical role of a free and active press in our democracy. Nixon resigned in disgrace in 1974, and a cadre of his closest advisers and staff went to prison.

  No one can know what would have happened if Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Post had not been there to follow up on the break-in at the Watergate, but one thing’s for sure: We need the Woodwards and Bernsteins of coming generations, regardless of the medium, to ensure that Americans have access to truth, and that a healthy balance between news and spin is in place.

  Otherwise, our news will be coming—whether we know it or not—from companies with names like the Hawthorn Group, Edelman, Porter Novelli, and APCO Worldwide. If so, our way of life will be truly threatened.

  Like Arianna Huffington, however, I’m an optimist.

  I believe that one day the United States really will have one of the finest and most equitable health care systems in the world, and that insurance companies and banks and oil companies—in fact, all big corporations—will ultimately become more socially responsible.

  People will demand it. It will take time and vigilance, but we can force even the biggest and most powerful corporations to be more honest and transparent in the way they do business and in the way they treat us, their customers, and in the way they treat our planet.

  We will never be free of spin, but we can be wise to it, and we can push back against it. There is too much at stake not to try.

  Acknowledgments

  As I have thought about the many people I wanted to thank for helping me with this book, Stella Chambers and Bill Roesgen kept coming to mind. Mrs. Chambers, my senior year English teacher at Ketron High School in Kingsport, Tennessee, was the first person to suggest that I might be able to make a living as a writer. With her help, I landed my first job as a journalist, as Ketron’s correspondent to the Kingsport Times-News, a newspaper that would play a big role four decades later in my decision to make a radical change in my life and career. I can’t recall what I wrote about the goings on at Ketron that was deemed newsworthy, but somehow my dispatches attracted the attention of the paper’s editor, Bill Roesgen, who hired me as a summer intern straight out of high school. I loved being a reporter so much that I decided to major in journalism when I got to the University of Tennessee. So thank you, Mrs. Chambers, and thank you, Bill Roesgen. I’m certain I would never have written this book if not for you.

  There were many others who played a more direct role in the creation of Deadly Spin. I am especially indebted to a group of friends and former and current co-workers from my days in the newspaper business and, more recently, in the health insurance industry and at the Center for Media and Democracy. Thank you, Deborah Bowditch, Barney DuBois, Avram Goldstein, Katie Hall, Anne Landman, and Dave MacHenry for helping me in
the research and writing of the manuscript. Thanks also to my friend, former CIGNA colleague, and lawyer, Gabrielle Sellei. The many contributions you all made to the book were invaluable.

  I am also indebted to Kirby Kim, my agent at William Morris Endeavor, and to the team at Bloomsbury Press who helped in the shaping, editing, and promotion of the book: Peter Ginna, George Gibson, Pete Beatty, Peter Miller, and Michelle Blankenship.

  Long before I had the first thought of writing a book, many other people helped to make it inevitable that I would switch sides in the health care reform debate and become what many people have called a whistle-blower. Thank you especially Rev. Bill Golderer, Rev. Rodger Broadley, Rev. Michael Pergola, Joy Anderson, Rick Jacobs, Trudy Lieberman, Jonathan Cohn, Margie Maxwell, and Rob Scott for listening and asking the important questions I needed to answer for myself. Thank you Jamie Court, Michael Morrill, Len Nichols, Dr. Bob Crittenden, and Dr. Walter Tsou for helping me make important connections in the political and policy worlds. Thank you Richard Kirsch and your team at Health Care for America Now, especially Jacki Schechner, Doneg McDonough, Tara Straw, Ethan Rome, and, once again, Avram Goldstein, not only for the vital work you did to make sure that the bill Congress finally passed was worth passing but also for the support you gave me when I raised my hand to help in some way.