Category: propaganda

By Posted on Posted in Media Ethics, media-general, propaganda, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with ,

My friend Peter Shankman solicited comments from PR practitioners about Tiger Woods’ apology scheduled for later today, and the fact that reporters will not have access to him during the event; they’ll actually be in another building.

This drew lots of comments on Tiger but basically none other than Peter about how the media will play this. The media, by accepting the unacceptable terms of Tiger’s event-scripting, becomes complicit. If they said, “Hey, Tiger, it’s great that you want to apologize—and if you want us to cover the apology, you have to take questions, or else we’ll sit this one out,” you might have some real give-and-take. But the media has been awed by celebrities and cowed by the access question for too long (look at the unquestioning coverage of GW Bush and the run-up to the Iraq war as another example)—and they’ve forgotten that their mandate is not to unquestioningly amplify PR flacks’ scripts, but to dig deep and find the real story.

I’ve written two books on business ethics and blog frequently on media ethics, and I think that if the media is going to play the role of enabler of bad behavior, the media must share the blame that the real story doesn’t get told. It is the media that certified Tiger as someone worth paying attention to, rather than, say, someone who’s curing cancer or solving the energy crisis (like the amazing Amory Lovins).

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By Posted on Posted in Media Ethics, Peace and War, propaganda

Very interesting post from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), raising the question about whether a journalist with a son in the Israeli army can be neutral and objective in covering the war where his son is a soldier.

Rather than tell you what I think in my usual blunt and loud way. I’d like to know what you think. Please fill in a comment, below.

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By Posted on Posted in Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Politics, propaganda Tagged with , , , ,

Following Martha Coakley’s loss in Massachusetts, Obama will no doubt get a lot of advice to move to the center, to compromise more, to give up any hope for the progressive agenda he was elected to deliver.

But that advice is totally wrong-headed! If he wants to be remembered as anything other than an ineffectual one-term president, he and his weak-kneed party need to seize the debate, push the agenda, and present themselves once more as the party of change. Maybe they should even go back to Spiro Agnew’s “nattering nabobs of negativsim” and pin that label on the GOP.

It is unconscionable that even the last few months when they’ve had their precious 60-vote supermajority, they’ve kowtowed to the right and let the party of intransigence frame and control the debate, and the votes. Now that they’ve lost that cushion, they’ve got only one hope of staying viable. Here’s the briefest outline:

  • Stop running crappy candidates! The Dems lost two governorships and for goodness sake Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat because they keep running candidates who don’t stand for anything, do little campaigning, and expect their money and connections to carry them to victory. Did they learn nothing from the John Kerry debacle? Or from Dukakis in 1988? I live in Massachusetts and can tell you that Coakley ran a terrible campaign.
  • Be the framers of the debate. Show the people how you proposed the change Obama ran on, and over and over again, the Republicans, the party of the failed policies of the past, have blocked your way no matter how many bipartisan overtures you make. Build momentum in the streets as well as in the boardrooms. Show that these Republicans, and the Blue Dog Democrats who vote with them, are blocking the way. Then mount effective campaigns by effective progressive candidates to get them OUT in November.
  • Refuse to tolerate the shenanigans of people like Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson. The Republicans managed to get a lot of their agenda through with a very close majority during the Bush years, because they held together. Make it clear that the party will support primary challenges(and general election challenges) from the Left.
  • Play hardball. When Nelson, Lieberman and Snowe threatened the health bill unless it dropped all its substance, the party’s progressive stalwarts should have been out there shouting very publicly that dropping the public option meant dropping THEIR vote. Even Bernie Sanders wasn’t willing to go there.

    THIS strategy will result in one year writing good laws that won’t get passed, throwing the bums out, consolidating power, and having an amazing third and fourth year. Franklin Roosevelt used this strategy successfully in his first term, showed the public that he wanted to make real change, and swept back into office not just for a second term but for a third and a fourth.

    Obama, as a former community organizer, knows how to do this. He did it effectively in his campaign. He did it in the first weeks of his administration, and built a culture of hope. And then he started back-door dealing, chipping away at the agenda, providing giveaways to Wall Street, maintaining the worst aspects of the Bush foreign policy…is it any wonder his constituency feels deserted and abandoned? And that hope crashed and burned, leaving people bitter, angry, and unmotivated to vote for weak-kneed scoundrels–which is how they are perceiving the Democrats.

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    By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Entrepreneurship, Ethics: General, propaganda, Publishing, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

    While visiting Minneapolis, I took in the opening day of the new Ben Franklin exhibit at the Minnesota History Center in downtown Saint Paul. I’ve long ben a Franklin fan. To me, his far-reaching curiosity, big-picture viewpoint, multiple interests, creativity, willingness to question authority and even make fun of it, media and persuasion skills, dedication to the public good, and rise from poverty to a comfortable (even hedonistic) lifestyle are all traits that today’s entrepreneurs can learn from.

    No one can question that he made many important contributions in science (adding vastly to our knowledge of electricity, inventing a safer and more fuel-efficient wood stove), diplomacy/statesmanship (bringing France in as a powerful and game-changing ally against the British during the Revolution, oldest member of the Constitutional Convention), literature and communication (best-selling author/journalist/printer/publisher who was successful enough to retire from printing at 42, and propagandist for causes and philosophies he believed in), entrepreneurship (training and funding printers for a multistate network to print and distribute his works, anticipating the Internet by about 200 years and the modern franchise system by at least a century), as well as civic good (co-founding a public library, public hospital, fire department, fire insurance company, postal system, philosophical society).

    But what struck me were some of the contradictions—there are many others, but these two in particular need a second look:
    Slavery
    Franklin became convinced late in life that slavery was evil, and served as president of an anti-slavery society. Yet he not only owned slaves for over 40 years, but often published ads from slave-hunters in his periodicals, and refused to put his name on much of his earliest anti-slavery writing.

    Integrity
    Franklin is well-known for his moralizing, his aphorisms, and his commitment to honesty and integrity. Yet he broke his apprenticeship to his brother, ran away to Philadelphia before it was completed, and started as a printer without the papers necessary to show he qualified as a journeyman.

    While none of us are perfect, it does seem that these areas of Franklin’s life, among others, need careful examination, with more detail than was provided by this traveling exhibit (which seemed to be aimed largely at children).

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    By Posted on Posted in language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Politics, propaganda Tagged with , , ,

    This is not about politics; it’s about communication style, using a politician as an example.

    My wife teaches business communication (with a heavy focus on international dos and don’ts), and she and I both give Barack Obama high marks for his sensitivity to other cultures.

    Two quick examples among many:

  • For his state dinner last night with Indian Prime Minister Singh and his wife, no only did the menu have many Indian touches (and was mostly vegetarian, since the Singhs don’t eat meat), but Michelle Obama’s gown was designed by an Indian-American designer, and her preview outfit was the work of different Indian-American designer
  • When he went to Shanghai, he didn’t just learn how to say hello in Chinese, but he actually learned the correct pronunciation in the local Shanghai dialect

    • In the campaign, too Obama was consistently on message, able to deflect all the name-calling from the other side, and consistently able to turn attention back to the real issues.

    So what I’m wondering is why, since he does have such awesome communication skills, he seems totally unable to focus on his message. Issue after issue has gotten bogged down, and he’s fallen into a rut—abandoning the very successful organizing and communication strategies he used so well during the campaign, and continues to use well in his international contacts, in favor of overly nuanced, bureaucratic, uninspiring policy-ese. I think he could move his agenda forward a lot more successfully if he went back to building support among the American people, and organized them to be a force influencing their own legislators to push the change he was elected to bring.

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    By Posted on Posted in Media Ethics, propaganda, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , ,

    Just stumbled on this article from a few months back. Never afraid to be controversial, the media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) examined the boards of directors of nine major media companies–and found that some of those directors also sit on boards governing health insurance companies. Media properties with interlocking directors with the insurance industry included the Washington Post, Gannett (publishers of USA Today and other papers), NBC, and several others.

    Hmmmm, wonders FAIR, might this conjunction have something to do with the refusal to discuss single-payer/Medicare for all (the standard for health care in most of the developed world) in any meaningful way?

    In the past six months, the Washington Post has published hundreds of articles on the subject of healthcare reform, fewer than 25 of which mention single-payer. Fewer than 30 percent of the sources who spoke about single-payer in these articles were advocates of the plan. In all, though healthcare reform has been mentioned thousands of times in the output of these media corporations’ major outlets, single-payer was mentioned in only 164 articles or news segments from January 1 through June 30, 2009; over 70 percent of these mentions did not include the voice of a single-payer advocate. Over 45 percent of the pieces that did include a single-payer advocate were episodes of the Ed Show, an MSNBC program whose host, Ed Shultz, frequently advocates for single-payer healthcare. Without the Ed Show, just 19 percent of articles or news segments that mentioned single-payer would have included an actual advocate of the plan.

    I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

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    By Posted on Posted in censorship, Democracy, Politics, propaganda

    Last night I saw a video that shocked me: A spliced-together out-of-context montage from Barack Obama’s speeches and media appearances to create the illusion that he is a radical Muslim extremist (and disparaging Islam generally in terms that would be quite familiar to the Jews who were victimized by similar descriptions throughout history.

    I will not dignify this filth with a link. Nor will I call, as some of my liberal friends might, for it to be taken down, all copies destroyed, etc. In the marketplace of ideas, I like to think the good ideas will win, eventually. It may take 100 years, as the abolition of slavery did. But you don’t convince people by telling them they can’t talk. Telling them you’re not going to listen and not going to provide a forum where others can listen, that’s your prerogative.

    It was sent to me by one of my uncles, who happens to be extremely right wing and very active in Israel- and Jewish-oriented causes. I want to share my response to him:

    As a Jew, as a member of a culture that has been discriminated against throughout history, that has been demonized by bigots from the Pharaohs to the Nazis, I am deeply distressed to see you sending around something that demonizes other people because of their culture and their faith–and that mixes together quotes out of context to try to create something that isn’t there: Obama’s supposed Muslim faith.

    You and I disagree deeply on politics, but we’ve always treated each other’s views with respect. Watching this video, I don’t feel respected. I feel threatened, I feel that the psychological warfare it trains on Muslims could just as easily be turned against Jews.

    It feels like a leaf from the Goebbels playbook. It is the Big Lie Technique to the second power: once, the lie that Obama is Muslim, and second, the lie that all Muslims want the destruction of our culture. And quite frankly, it makes me ill.

    Obama, as we all know, is a Christian who happens to be well-versed in Islamic culture. I have seen or heard many of the speeches snipped into this video, and in context they are very different. And let’s be clear: this is not “an actual video of the President speaking” but rather a composite of tiny sound bites cut into tiny pieces, isolated from the surrounding words that illuminate their meaning, to make Obama look like a threat.

    Believe me, I have plenty of disagreements with Obama. But one area where I think he’s been good is in reaching out around the world who want to end violence, expressing our unity as human beings.

    And the mainstream Islamic culture he is praising is not the culture of terrorist extremists, any more than the anti-Semitic bigot Father Coughlin represented today’s mainstream Christianity.

    I have heard many other Christians (yes, he is a Christian) praising Judaism for its contributions to civilization, including presidents. I don’t see his acknowledgment of Islam’s contributions to be any different from that.

    I do not buy that the big tent is a problem. Fanaticism and fundamentalism, of every religion, is a problem–anything that fosters hatred of those who are different. I see this video montage as hateful, racist propaganda that tries to depict both Obama and Muslims as other, as demons, as intolerable–a path that ultimately leads to genocide, as we saw in Hitler’s Germany when it was applied to us. As unacceptable as Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ deep distortion of Judaism. Have you never visited a church or a mosque while traveling? I have visited both. What is the problem with Obama visiting a mosque?

    I am sure you’re familiar with the famous quote by Martin Niemoller:

    First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out–
    because I was not a communist;
    Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out–
    because I was not a socialist;
    Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out–
    because I was not a trade unionist;
    Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–
    because I was not a Jew;
    Then they came for me–
    and there was no one left to speak out for me.

    I am speaking out, with all due respect, not only because I want someone to speak out if they come for me, but also because my conscience would not treat me well if I remained silent. And because I care about you.

    Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, did not have access to Youtube. He didn’t have Twitter and Facebook. He didn’t have blogs. All he had were radio, newspapers, and posters.

    With our modern tools, the power to spread a message, for good or evil, is unparalleled. Every one of us can disseminate information across many channels, propelling English housewife Susan Boyle to international superstardom, helping elect Obama President, or spreading hatred and divisiveness as reprehensible as messages spread by the Nazis 70 years ago. A few clicks, and the message is on its way to a few dozen friends…or tens of thousands of associates on social media.

    The media-savvy, politically sophisticated hatemongers who put this video together must have Goebbels beaming up from his particular circle of Hell, or at least jealous that he didn’t have these media.

    We can use these tools to spread a joke. We can use them to organize for peace and justice. And we can use them to resist attempts to spread hate, as I hope I’m doing here. Love is stronger than hate. Let’s empower others and use these amazing tools the make the world a better place.

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