It is a truth universally acknowledged that a US newspaper is either turgid beyond belief (New York Times) or a source of the many fantasies that so many US citizens seem to believe.
Yet there are exceptions. The St Petersburg Times in St Petersburg, Florida, publishes regular features under the heading PolitiFact with accompanying series such as a Truth-O-Meter TM. The service — with local variations — also appears in newspapers around the US. The one I saw was the Oregonian in Portland, Oregon, although Portland is not the best place in the US to get a perspective on the country — being a sort of weird, wacky and wonderful version of a Canadian town.
The Truth-O-Meter is delightful — rating politicians’ claims and attacks. The ratings range from True through Mostly True, Half True, Barely True, False and Pants on Fire — the last being reserved for statements that are “not accurate and make a ridiculous claim”.
The service can be found here and it features RSS feeds plus Twitter and Facebook services. The Truth-O-Meter Pants on Fire ratings can be found here. A quick read of some of the statements says much about partisan politics in the US and makes one think that Tony Abbott is almost responsible and considered. Well not really, but you get the idea.
What is surprising is the specificity of the false claims. For instance, a comment by Mike Prendergast, a Republican candidate in the last elections, accusing his opponent: “Congresswoman Castor voted to spend $2.6 million to teach pr-stitutes in China to drink responsibly.” Another statement accused a Congressman of voting for ”V-agra for rapists’ paid for by tax dollars.”
It is moot whether these claims are just made up or whether people who mouth them actually believe them. The claim that Obamacare was a “government takeover” of healthcare was a deliberate PR framing ploy but you can’t help thinking many US politicians, like some of their Australian counterparts, actually believe what they say.
Whatever, in Australia nobody much really makes any attempt to systematically nail them down in the same way Truth-O-Meter does. It would be great to see a similar service here — perhaps Crikey might be the vehicle.
There’s not much anyone can do about the scurrilous claims about politicians’ personal life that get circulated by all sides other than, thankfully, recognising that compared to the libels distributed in France (see Robert Darnton The Devil in the Holy Water, or the Art of Slander from Louis XIV to Napoleon) things here aren’t too bad.
But speaking of the US and France, my most recent trip coincided with belatedly catching up with the HBO series (based on David McCullough’s 2001 Adams biography) on John Adams and Abigail Adams — the latter rapidly becoming perceived, according to the historian and biographer Joseph J. Ellis, as a sort of Founding Mother.
The Adams TV series is great and reminds us that not only does the US live in hypocrisy but it was also born in hypocrisy; and, that the true Founding Father of modern America and its system of privatised profits and socialised losses was Alexander Hamilton.
Meanwhile, Come in Spinner is taking a break after almost a year of weekly columns. From now on, Crikey willing, the columns will be intermittent and occasional rather than regular.
But in between times readers wanting to see some other views on public relations and spin should visit here.
The URL is the work of Professor Tom Watson (with some assistance from Conor McGrath and Philip Young) professor of PR at The Media School Bournemouth University. He is also the convenor of the The International History of Public Relations Conference Bournemouth University (next one July 6-7). Details, including proceedings of the last conference, are available here.
Watson says: “Over the past 3-4 years, I have been building an online listing of movies, TV, radio and books that focus on public relations and publicity or represent it in some way.” The update provides trailers and online database links.
If so many US citizens believe in fantasies, and Pants on Fire ratings are needed for politics here and there, equally much of what people believe about PR and its history is wrong as well. But that shouldn’t stop any of us enjoying The Sweet Smell of Success one more time — if only because it reminds us none of it would work without the symbiotic relationship the industry enjoys with journalists.
I’m not sure if this quite fits the pants-on-fire category, but I think Bill Shorten is the most brilliant spinner I’ve ever heard. He has a repertoire of complete drivel that he can trot out like profound truth and sound like Moses. From Q&A on 8 November 2010.
[BILL SHORTEN: You know, let’s kill a couple of myths here, right here, right now. The public spending which the Liberals love to bang on about – debt and deficit and all that stuff – we have the lowest proportion of any country in the western world of debt to total GDP. That’s public debt to GDP.
GEORGE BRANDIS: Who do you have to thank for that, Bill?
BILL SHORTEN: Well, hang on. You can’t say it’s raining and then take credit for sunshine.
GEORGE BRANDIS: No. No.
BILL SHORTEN: You know, you can’t be mum and dad in this debate. You’ve got to pick a team.
GEORGE BRANDIS: But, Bill, it was the Howard-Costello Government that eliminated public debt. You know that.
BILL SHORTEN: Well, they get on, don’t they? You know, the point about it is, yes, I said earlier here that there were things done by previous governments. You know, none of us has ever come to something like it’s a blank page.]
What does that mean? “You can’t say it’s raining and then take credit for sunshine.” He then moves on so fast that no one has time to ask what the hell it means. This is a man who can make any claim at all, and any chance to doubt what he says is quickly overwhelmed. A great loss to the life insurance sales business.
@ Freecountry: “You can’t say it’s raining and then take credit for sunshine.”
That’s of such high quality that Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen could have said it. What fun we would’ve had doing Pants On Fire ratings on him.
Thank you Mr Turnbull,
I have enjoyed your regular column. While I knew that Mungo’s column was every Monday, I hadn’t realised that yours was weekly. In any case I do hope that I get to read your articles fairly regularly in the future.
Cheers, Kevin (not in spin or media, but enjoying the way that you cover the topics of your speciality)
P.S. Politifact looks interesting, but the Pants on Fire link in the email went to a dead end.
Personally, if I overheard a debate between Bill Shorten and George Brandis, and didn’t understand what it was all about, I’d give Bill the benefit of the doubt.
Moira Smith – Yes, that’s the brilliance of Shorten’s technique. He rapid-fires a combination of these completely cryptic quotoids. By the time his more thoughful and deliberative opponent has figured out that the first utterance is totally meaningless and is coming to the same conclusion about the second one, Shorten has delivered four or five of these, completing his performance of saying absolutely nothing and saying it very well. They’re not real quotoids, they are invented on the spot but they sound like aphorisms one should recognize from somewhere, and that slows his opponent down even more. Like you, most viewers just give Shorten the benefit of the doubt, without knowing or really caring what he said other than “I’m marvellous and he’s not”.