By Danny Schechter
What do words mean? Let's take a look at the word "propaganda." Here's the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary definition:
1. capitalized: a congregation of the Roman curia having jurisdiction over missionary territories and related institutions;
2. the spreading of ideas, information or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause or a person;
3. ideas, facts or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause; also, a public action having such an effect.
Etymology: New Latin, from Congregatio de propaganda fide. Congregation for propagating the faith, organization established by Pope Gregory IX*, died 1623. Date: 1718
Is this definition adequate? Not really. Why? Because it doesn't do justice to the idea and, more to the point, because how we define words often reflect our values and orientation. "Propaganda" is one of those words that is often too narrowly defined by most of us, as a fascinating Web site from the University of Washington makes clear. Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson point out: "Every day we are bombarded with one persuasive communication after another. These appeals persuade not through the give-and-take of argument and debate, but through the manipulation of symbols and of our most basic human emotions. For better or worse, ours is an age of propaganda."
In an "age of propaganda" that is also a media age — where the latter is interlaced with the former — it is important to track how propaganda works, including how it works its way into our psyches without us always being aware of its techniques or effects.
Now let's take a look at how Merriam-Webster defines "synergy":
1. SYNERGISM; broadly: combined action or operation;
2. a mutually advantageous conjunction or compatibility of distinct business participants or elements (as resources or efforts).
Etymology: New Latin synergia, from Greek synergos, working together. Date: 1660
In looking at U.S. network news these days, one suspects that these two words have become synergistic themselves — that is, if synergy has become propaganda. Synerganda, anyone?
In past years, media critics have wondered if entertainment divisions were controlling the networks' news programming. Now we have to wonder if control has moved beyond the production department entirely and is in the hands of the marketers. News is no longer just selling itself with sensation, it's selling the network's other programming ... becoming barely more than a hype machine.
The Storm Of The Century
Here's an issue close to all of us and one we think we know something about: the weather. It's a topic that suggests networks use the news to market themselves. Two weeks ago, the northeast coast of the United States was bracing for what was billed as the storm of the century. The networks had special graphics and music made to hype it. Whole cities shut down. New York became a ghost town. I got home in a cab in record time with a Romanian-born driver who kept laughing: "It's the TV, man. They do it in on purpose. The TV!" Ha, ha, ha.
The New Republic accurately called it a media "snow job," suggesting: "For the networks, cable and news radio there is nothing better than the claims of a coming weather calamity to keep people listening to ... the networks, cable and radio stations."
Yo, driver, we are not talking precipitation here. We are talking propaganda. Not about the storm but about bringing more eyeballs to the tube.
Here's another example, from Newsblues.com, a very informative Web site that looks at American TV news from the inside of the business. Here, with permission, is editor Mike James' "Synergy Meltdown," a column documenting the often seamless and behind-the-scenes merger of show biz and news biz in our age of mounting media concentration. It is an insider account of how news feeds supplied by networks to local stations are used as a transmission belt for promos and plugs with little news value. Local newscasts often draw on them because they are available for free and have high production values. But, as you will read, they make for propaganda-filled, "news-free newscasts."
Synergy Synthesis
"There was much hand wringing by the Pointy Heads when media conglomerates began buying up and merging with television networks a while back, and the term 'synergy' was bounced about and chewed on like a chunk of gristle.
"Now it appears Michael Eisner's dream of vertical integration has become every newsman's nightmare. Listen to Rick Douglas, an anchor/producer at ABC-affiliate WVII in Bangor, Maine ...
"Every afternoon, I read through the story menu that ABC sends its affiliates under the title 'Franchise Feed.' It's always good for a few features or, at the very least, some good kicker video. Today, though, the list was emblematic of how Disney's control of ABC News has become absolute.
"The feed list began with a billboard for 'advancer clips and soundbites' for [the] 'Classic TV Stars' edition of 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire.' Okay, I don't run this junk, but maybe some producer needs it to fill a noon show.
"But then we get a 1:25 package on a star, who happens to be in the ABC soap 'Port Charles.'
"Then, the list interrupts for a 1:31 LIVE hit of McCain/Feingold on their Campaign Reform Act. Gotta have at least a little news.
"But then it's back to ... 'MORE TIE-IN.'
"Six minutes and 30 seconds of 'Millionaire' clips.
"Followed by two minutes and 18 seconds for a story that ties into tonight's episode of 'Gideon's Crossing.'
"Then, nine minutes and ten seconds (!) of soundbites from those wacky stars of the 'Classic TV' edition of 'Millionaire.'
"Then the natsound version of the 'Gideon's Crossing' tie-in package, just in case we want to put a staff reporter's voice to the story, so the viewers will think we actually sent same to the set.
"Then, four minutes and fourteen seconds of Diane Sawyer schmoozing with Tom Hanks, who happens to be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar at the awards show that will be broadcast on ABC this coming Sunday.
"And finally, thirty-seven seconds of people lining up for the choice bleacher seats outside the Oscar venue.
"Now, let's do the math. By my calculation, that's 26 minutes and 32 seconds of material deemed essential by the poohbahs at ABC. But from the news division or the entertainment division?
"Anyway, here's the real kick in the pants.
"There are five really interesting feature stories listed in the 'Not Fed' category.
"And why? No time left."
Surviving "Survivor"
Most people who watch local TV news have no idea of how propaganda is pumped into it and then retransmitted, not by accident but by design. Web sites like Newsblues.com are keeping track. ABC isn't the only network guilty of practices like this. CBS News just devoted an hour documentary in prime time, not to, say, the war in Macedonia, the economic decline in America or AIDS in Africa. No way. They profiled a new TV show created by producer Mark Burnett that isn't even broadcast on CBS.
Why? Because Burnett is the creator of "Survivor," CBS's latest cash cow. As The New York Post, an arm of the Murdoch empire that also uses these tactics, explained: "CBS wanted to bolster its 'Survivor' night with some other material that looks kind of like 'Survivor,' so they enlisted the assistance of CBS News, otherwise known as the promotion arm of CBS Entertainment."
There seems to be a backlash on this, at least in Minneapolis, where the Web site of CBS-affiliate WCCO has featured a viewer debate about all the airtime the station has allocated to hyping "Survivor." According to Cursor.org: "Throughout the summer and fall of 2000, WCCO was criticized and ridiculed, as was CBS and its network-owned stations and affiliates, for incessantly promoting reality shows "Survivor" and "Big Brother" as part of its newscasts. At the time, Canova defended the practice to Pioneer Press media columnist Brian Lambert: 'I don't think we're hammering on "Survivor" now. It's news. We've covered it like any other entertainment news story.' " He seems to have changed his line after a late January online chat session and now says he is "burnt out on using news time to promote entertainment."
Not everyone at CBS has been pressured to get on the "Survivor" bandwagon. Charles Osgood, the longtime innovator of the "Osgood File" on CBS radio and host of the often excellent "Sunday Morning" program on the CBS TV network, told me that his show was not asked to do anything to promote a series he says he has yet to see. I asked him about it at a luncheon hosted by the Writers Guild East, where he disclosed that "Survivor" has benefited the CBS early show, which does well in the ratings whenever it features an interview with someone who has been tossed off the primetime adventure series. Osgood, to his credit, carries on the old CBS tradition of quality news and information. He told a story of going to a broadcast-equipment fair and realizing that the emphasis on high tech and new tech is misplaced. He added: "The best equipment broadcasters have is what's between their ears and in their hearts."
The SUV Will Set You Free
And finally, there's sales propaganda and the whole advertising industry, which has moved way beyond the crude propaganda of the Nazi or Soviet eras. While corporations enlist their armies of PR agents (see our special report "PR Unspun") to spread their own propaganda through the news, they can also usurp the news to convert its events for their marketing needs.
A piece in Harper's magazine by editor Paul Robert on the appeal of those SUV automo-tanks, says that Ford Motor Company explicitly seeks to exploit the higher-than-average fear of crime they believe motivates SUV consumers to shell out large amounts of money to buy "bulked-up" vehicles at luxury car prices. "In a historical timeline celebrating the Ford Explorer's tenth anniversary," he reports, "publicists included such 'representative' world events as the World Trade Center bombing, the Branch Davidian standoff, the LA earthquake, the Oklahoma City bombing, the arrest of the Unabomber and the Rodney King 'incident': all threats best faced with four-wheel drive and 18 inches of ground clearance."
Hard to believe that events reported and often hyped in the news are being used by advertisers to play to popular anxieties and hype the sale of products supposedly designed to protect consumers from similar dangers. And if this isn't bad enough, some advertisers are now using "stealth ads, including product placements in news programs," according to USA Today (March 23), and the walls between commercial and noncommercial content are being "obliterated" in ways that are now "acceptable." (To whom?) The newspaper reveals how a TV production company helped produce an ad for the cold medication NyQuil as a news feature to run alongside a legitimate newscast. The sub-headline on the story reads: "Line between reality, marketing gets fuzzy."
One can imagine Mr. Goebbels rotating in his mausoleum in the Propaganda Hall of Fame when he hears about how modern propaganda is being used — and abused.
*The article incorrectly identified the Pope as Gregory XV; thanks to a reader for sending us the correct information.
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