Under (spin) doctors' orders

Spin-doctoring is bad for our democracy, but journalists’ passivity is worse, writes Rodney Tiffen TODAY marks a strange anniversary. Twenty years ago, on 21 October 1984, the term ‘spin doctor’ made its public debut. Under the headline ‘The debate and the spin doctors’, the New York Times reported: ‘Tonight at about 9.30, seconds after the Reagan-Mondale debate ends, a bazaar will suddenly materialise in the press room of the Kansas City Municipal Auditorium. A dozen men in good suits and women in silk dresses will circulate smoothly among the reporters, spouting confident opinions. They won’t be just press agents trying to impart a favourable spin to a routine press release. They’ll be the Spin Doctors...’ The phrase has now become so ubiquitous it is hard to imagine it is of such recent vintage. It is one of those terms, like ‘politically correct’ or ‘thought police’, with which people describe others, but no one owns up to being one. Like so much journalistic jargon, its meaning is vague, but four activities are central to the spin enterprise: 1. Background briefings The term originally meant to give anonymous guidance about the ‘real meaning’ of public events, shaping the interpretation of success and failure - to give the flow of ambiguous moments the desired shape and political definition. 2. Catering to media demands, in particular the orchestration of photo opportunities and sound bites Spin doctors know how the news media work and, knowing media demands and routines, seek to enhance favourable news coverage and reduce the impact of negative news. Media advisers are usually former journalists and are employed to know the news cycles and the best times to release good news and bury bad news, and to have a strong sense of what will become a headline, and what will be the key phrase used in a sound bite. The recent election campaign, like all recent election campaigns, was an intensive exercise in orchestrating photogenic occasions that would show their candidate in a good light and, just as importantly, save him or her from embarrassment. 3. Use of public opinion polling as a tool to shape the presentation and even substance of policy stances The famous Bill Clinton ‘war room’ in his successful 1992 presidential campaign was getting new public opinion data every day, and using it to fine-tune phrasings and emphases. This polling data is not just to let the spin doctors know the shape of public opinion, but the degree to which different themes resonate, which face of an issue to highlight, and to know which parts of public opinion are hard and immovable and which are soft and ambivalent. 4. Media monitoring and rapid rebuttal. The term ‘rapid rebuttal’ was first used by Tony Blair’s New Labour in Britain during its rise to power. The aim was to contest damaging charges as soon as possible, not to let accusations run uncontested. However, the aim of media monitoring is not just to inform defensive spin operations, but to provide the ammunition for offensive actions. Governments, in particular, are searching for statements by opposition figures to target. One of the main tactics in contemporary elections is the relentless zeroing in on any weakness seen in the other side. Of course, all these individual activities long pre-date the coining of the phrase ‘spin doctor’. Early in the 20th century, US president Theodore Roosevelt claimed he had ‘invented Sunday’. He knew reporters needed something for their papers on Monday mornings, but there was not much news happening. So he knew he would get prominent coverage of any announcement he gave them on a Sunday. But to emphasise the antiquity of spin’s antecedents is misleading. In the contemporary spin-doctoring industry, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. What is new is the intensity of the enterprise; the huge amount of resources devoted to the effort; the integrated and professional approach to it; and the capacity for speedy action and response. What used to be done casually and sporadically and slowly is now done professionally and systematically and immediately. There has never in history been anything to parallel this effort. The common response of journalists is to deplore the rise of spin. Nine Network journalist Ross Coulthart’s sentiments were typical: ‘Until we get rid of the spin doctors, nothing is going to change.’ If so, then nothing is going to change. The rise of spin is a direct response to the demands of the political environment, in which the battle for media coverage and public opinion are so central. Its growth is irreversible. It is not a realistic solution for professionals to become amateurs again, or for either major party to nobly sacrifice its own electoral self-interest. In some ways the rise of spin is a real problem for democracy - not so much in election campaigns, where the two sides are roughly matched in their spin resources, but more in areas where one side has a huge resource advantage over the other. Nor should we accept as reliable testimony the howls of protests from journalists about the pernicious influence of spin doctors. These complaints remind me of an episode of The Goons, in which Neddy Seagoon (Harry Secombe) is inquiring how an intruder managed to get in, and the security guard (Peter Sellers) replies: ‘I couldn’t help it, sir. He forced his way past me by putting money in my hand.’ The cries of journalists parallel this: ‘We can’t overcome the capacity of spin doctors to dominate the news because they save us so much work by putting stories in our hands.’ The crucial issue is not spin doctor activity, but news media passivity. But like most black magic, the power of spin-doctoring will be much reduced when it is subjected to close and constant scrutiny. Rodney Tiffen is associate professor in the School of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. This article first appeared in theAge. Photo: Andrew Jeffre