Spin Doctors

Most everyone uses spin. For example, when you tell a story about yourself, and you leave out unfavoring details, embellish a bit on your role, or choose words that make you look great, you are spinning a story from your point of view. It's all about the language and words you use to tell the story. The best spin doctors for large corporations or political leaders will take news that might hurt their client and spin the information and frame it in such a way that it is not so negative, while still telling the truth. Two different perspectives of spin follow. The first is from a current spin doctor, the second from a former spin doctor. After these two corporate perspectives on spin, we will look at political spin doctors.


Corporate Spin
Spin Pros

 

Excerpts from Duncan Matheson's
Address To The Radio Television News Directors Association of Canada
President of BMC (Bissett Matheson Communications Ltd is a Canadian Spin Company)
Picture and Address Sources

 

 
What Spin Doctors Do

Of course I spin stories, if that is what you want to call using the facts to present a client's case in the best possible light. But I have never and will never lie, nor will I ever deceive. Our policy, and one we drill home in our media courses, which is another topic I would love to get into if time permitted, is to be as straightforward and honest as possible. No stonewalling. No "no comment". And no hiding.

So what do we so-called "spin doctors do". Well, if I can look at this philosophically for a moment. we help people who are not part of the news media gain access to the media; we help them to be heard. Or from another perspective, we help the news media's readers, listeners and viewers to hear more voices....We help, in other words, to make the news media more of a public forum, and this, I trust you will agree, is a good thing. It can lead to more informed discussion and debate, which helps to shape public opinion, which helps to shape government.

 

 
How Media
Views Spin Doctors

Talk to reporters and they speak of spin doctors, or if I am permitted, Public Relations practitioners, as somehow people to be avoided. You wouldn't want your daughter associating with one. I know whereof I speak because I was a case in point. Been there. Done that. Somehow, I couldn't take seriously any story idea brought to me by a PR person, and I certainly didn't want to interview one. Somehow the news wouldn't meet my pure as the driven snow standards, and certainly anything one of those people told me wasn't to be believed. Because...it would have been spun. Spun to serve the devious ends of the fat walleted bastards who were trying to manipulate me.

I think the relationship between Public Relations people, or "spin doctors" if you insist, and the media, is or should be, a symbiotic one. We are in a position to help you. If you need someone with a particular point of view to balance a panel, call us. Of course we want to help our clients get their messages out, but if they fit your purposes, what's wrong with that? The best way we can help our clients is by being helpful to you. We know you are going to question what we say. I hope you question what everybody says. That's the way it's supposed to work. Look for the spin. Test it journalistically to see if it holds muster. And search out the other side. By all means. But don't be so jaundiced as to summarily dismiss anything that comes from public relations as propaganda. It will be spun, but it will also, in all likelihood, be honest and verifiable.
 

Excerpt from the BMC Corporate Site
   
How BMC Spins Getting Your Story Out "Inform, educate, and influence." It happens every day. Someone wants to position his company favorably among competitors; another wants to increase her profile; still one more wants to set the record straight when the media is getting it wrong; someone else wants to introduce a new program to the public, while another wants to better promote his group's point of view. The question is how to best do it: what method or combination of methods is right for your situation? At BMC, we have the communications and media experience to look at your challenge, and recommend the best way to meet it.

 

Spin Cons

Excerpts from Eric Sparling's Confessions of a Spin Doctor
 A Negative Spin on Spin
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I owe you an apology. I've lied, cheated and swindled. Yeah, I know. You've done that, too, but I did it professionally. I spent this past year working in a public relations agency.

Let me boil it down for you. The job had one goal: make you care about the things my clients cared about, even if they were inconsequential to your life. Unfortunately, I often succeeded. I didn't work for Hitler or anything, just huge corporations with one common purpose: make money for their shareholders.  ….

We write stories that our clients want us to write, send them to newspapers, magazines or TV stations and journalists write their stories using our information. Often they'll get another perspective on the topic by contacting another source and call that "balanced reporting."

Sometimes they won't--we really liked it when that happened. It meant that our message wasn't diluted by an opposing opinion. If we were lucky, the journalists we contacted would be lazy or overworked. That way they wouldn't have the time or energy to come up with their own story angles, quotes or research, and they'd just use ours--our quotes, our research, our priorities.

Every day began with scanning the papers to find stories about our clients. Then a fax would come through from a company that monitors the airwaves, letting us know whether anything about our clients was broadcast during the previous week.

Once we got hold of the news stories, we'd scan them to see if our "story" made it into the journalist's piece. Sometimes the headline we wrote in our news release would be the headline of the article in the newspaper. Sometimes the article was our news release, the only change being the addition of a reporter's name at the top. When that happened, it was called a "good hit," and we'd send it through to the client as justification of our exorbitant fees.

Why should you care? Simple. I promise you that you have read a spin doctor's words as you've scanned through your daily newspaper. The quote that is attributed to the CEO of the company in that front page article? He never said it--a PR guy created that quote and faxed it to the journalist in a news release. The editorial letter from the irate president of the union? A PR guy wrote it, it passed through the hands of six bureaucrats, and the president finally gave his seal of approval. Whole sentences, sometimes entire paragraphs, will be pulled directly from a news release and reprinted in a newspaper, words that were written by guys like me with the specific intent of convincing you to be a customer of my client.  …

Don't believe it when you read a story about heart disease and the statistics they use come from a pharmaceutical company--even if they quote a doctor (they're on the payroll too).

Well, I've burned that bridge. I've joined the ranks of the great unemployed masses. One thing I'll say for public relations--it paid well. I guess that's how they get people to do it.

Toronto Star, June 21, 2000.

 

Political Spin
Most corporations are worried about their image and the resulting public perspective of that image which leads to more sales. Corporations hire those with Public Relations degrees to be their spin doctors to protect and project their public image. Politicians hire these same graduates to help them with their image. Better image projection leads to more votes. The White House press office has used spin doctors for a number of years now. Why would the president need a spin doctor? To make them look great to the public, and help to spin any information that may be damaging to them in such a way that their image is not tarnished. Former President Bill Clinton used spin to help him put out a number of fires. For example, several months after he denied having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, (Quicktime) (RealPlayer) he was questioned as to whether this was entirely true. The President infamously responded that "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is." (RealPlayer) (Transcript Summary)  This could be viewed as a clever spin. What is the definition of "is"? By the time you figure that one out, you may have forgotten the original question.(Lehrer's Newshour Transcript) Former President Clinton used a number of spin doctors with different styles of spin. Following are three examples of his spin doctors. One used an attacking style, another used a team of lawyers to address each problem, and yet another leaked damaging news to the press.


President Clinton's Spin Doctors

James Carville
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Style His website: "Pamphleteer, raconteur, and Democratic party animal, this Ragin' Cajun is simply the winningest international political strategist of our times."  
The Freerepublic: Carville achieved fame, and some notoriety, for his attack dog style. "It's hard for somebody to hit you when you've got your fist in their face," is one of Carville's characteristic quips.
   
Accomplishments The Freerepublic: Clinton's top "spin doctor" chalks up another victory in Israel   May 17, 1999 (AFP) - James Carville, mastermind of Bill Clinton's successful first presidential campaign, added another win to his resume Monday with the election of Labor Party leader Ehud Barak as Israel's Prime Minister.
1996 lecture at Cornell: Introduced as the man who can sell beer and American Express cards as well as he can sell Democratic presidential candidates.
   
Philosophy 1996 lecture at Cornell: After his lecture at Cornell, some questioners challenged Carville about the apparent conflict between his promotion of active involvement and of finding out truths for oneself, and his job of spinning one-sided political truths and propaganda. "You're never going to be protected from this," he answered. "Spin, sloganeering, is always going to be there, but you sort through it; you deal with it."

 

George Stephanopoulos
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Style Suntimes: By June 1996, Stephanopoulos had fended off so many attacks on Clinton's private life and on his public policy proposals that "damage control had become a cottage industry in the White House".   "We had a team of lawyers nicknamed the Masters of Disaster, whose sole job was . . . responding to grand jury subpoenas, preparing congressional testimony, answering questions from the press."
   
Accomplishments Suntimes: By the time the Lewinsky scandal broke, George Stephanopoulos was no longer Clinton's chief spin doctor, having left the White House to begin a career as a television commentator and an author.

 

Lanny J. Davis
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Style 1998 lecture at Northwestern: Reversing the instinct to bury a damaging story, Davis and former-press secretary Michael McCurry developed a strategy to leak news harmful to Clinton before the Republicans had a chance to trumpet it. That way, Davis said, the administration could make sure stories were written "completely and accurately," White House spin doctors could have maximum impact, and the story would seem like old news by the time Republicans had their say. ... "That's what I call good spin: not deceptive, somewhat manipulative, with the ability to get my interpretation into the story."
Example When evidence surfaced of a $300,000 contribution that won White House access for a businessman looking to commercially exploit a planned oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean, Davis ... leaked the story. His spin: The money bought access but not results; money buys access to Republicans, too; and Republicans don't want to reform the campaign finance system, while Democrats do.
   
Lewinski Problem Davis also spoke about Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky scandal, though Davis left the White House less than two weeks after the Lewinsky affair erupted in January. It wasn't the Lewinsky affair that caused him to leave, however: He said he had submitted his resignation before the Lewinsky scandal broke because he and his wife were expecting a child. In the first 10 days after the revelations, his last 10 days on the job, Davis said White House advisers broke "every rule and lesson about getting out factual information. . . . I remember feeling sick to my stomach." That rule, he said, was the first rule McCurry told him when he signed on at the White House: "Never, ever lie and never, ever mislead."

 

Hollywood's Version of a Presidential Spin Doctor

 
Click the image to view Quicktime trailer of the movie.

Movie Description
Less than two weeks before election day, a scandal erupts that threatens to cripple the President's bid for a second term. But before the incident can cause irreparable damage, a mysterious fixer is called to the White House. The ultimate spin doctor, Conrad Brean (Robert DeNiro) has the uncanny ability to manipulate politics, the press and most importantly, the American people. Anticipating the reaction of a frenzied press corps, Brean deftly deflects attention from the President by creating a bigger and better story - a war. With the help of Stanley Motss (the "t" is silent) (Dustin Hoffman), a famed Hollywood producer and his irreverent entourage, Brean assembles an unlikely crisis team who orchestrate a global conflict unlike any ever seen on CNN.

Life Imitates "Wag the Dog": Does Clinton take cues from Hollywood? by Laura Brown Staff Writer
Presidential spin doctor Conrad Brean (Robert DeNiro) is called to the White House eleven days before the election to help "clean up" the President's latest political blunder -- a moment of indiscretion with an adolescent Firefly Girl (read: Girl Scout). Since the American public lives and dies for this kind of nasty immoral scandal, Brean comes up with an (ingenious?) plan to divert the media's attention while improving the President's faltering image. Question: what does the American public hold even more precious than sordid sexual encounters? Why, violence of course! What restores the public's faith in their leader and makes him into a hero? Upholding good ol' American values in the face of tyranny! What kind of event would capture the public's attention and give the Prez a nice spit `n polish at the same time? A WAR! We'll start a war! Sure! Why the hell not? Oh, not a real war of course. That wouldn't be very cost effective. No, we'll just pretend we're having a war, and that way everybody wins and nobody gets hurt. In order to have a war, one needs an enemy. But who can America pick on that doesn't have the ability to cause some serious damage when they hear what we're up to? Why, Albania, naturally! Albania's a nice, quiet little country. Ever met an Albanian? Could anyone find Albania on a map? Anyone ever even heard of Albania? It's the perfect enemy for the perfect deception.

Spin Quiz