An Antidote to the Spin Doctors

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So, in 1993, he founded the Madison, Wisconsin–based Center for Media and Democracy and with Rampton has written three books detailing the high crimes and misdemeanors of the public relations, advertising, and corporate media industries.

As he told told executive editor Craig Cox during a recent stop in Minneapolis, this mission probably will occupy him for the rest of his life.

As you say, this is serious stuff. But people nowadays are pretty media-savvy. Is the spin really as effective as you make it out to be?

Propaganda is always invisible, and in any society people always think that if they're smart, or cynical, or skeptical, or educated, they won't fall victim to the propaganda. But they do.

But we're seeing more and more emphasis on media literacy. Can that have an impact? 

In 1999 Diane Samples, who used to be in PR but has gone into nonprofit media literacy, invited me to a national media literacy conference. It blew my mind to see the extent to which the media corporations had co-opted the media literacy movement. For instance, the conference was funded by a $25,000 grant from Channel One, the people who have brought television advertising into the schools.

It's hard not to be cynical about these issues. How do you stay hopeful?

People ask us that a lot. I don't think there's anything wrong with being extremely skeptical—if you're not cynical you're not paying attention. The thing is not to get lost or wallow in depression. The opposite side of cynicism is martyrdom, where people destroy their lives for the cause, and that doesn't help either, because who wants to follow people who are crucifying themselves? I avoid too much cynicism by occasionally stepping way back, taking weeks off, going to the Boundary Waters or Mexico or Central America and getting completely away.

What's giving you hope these days?

There are a lot of hopeful signs if you look at the weekly papers, the community papers and radio stations, the fact that In These Times, Mother Jones, The Nation, Whole Earth, Utne Reader—a lot of publications—have survived. And look at the younger generation and their activism as exemplified by the big protests in Seattle and Washington, D.C. I see a real willingness to stand up for what is right.

How do you gather your information?

My biggest source of information is e-mails sent to my office or to me personally that steer us to a Web site or to a publication. We have access to the Lexis-Nexis database, which I find absolutely invaluable. It's expensive, but you can spend a day in the library researching any issue for free via Lexis-Nexis and you're going to come out of there as a sort of mini-expert yourself.

But you must read a newspaper.

I start every day when I'm home by reading The New York Times.

With skepticism? 

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