The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media

In a superficial overview of journalism's history, Gladstone begins with ancient civilizations. Among those civilizations with written languages, like Guatemala, there are scribes who practice “primordial P.R.” (3), or public relations. Scribes' work for their leadership is so valuable that when captured by enemies, scribes suffer terrible torture—including smashed finger bones.

Later, in Rome, Julius Caesar realizes that “actual news” (5) has more efficacy than “pure P.R.” (5). To demystify the closed-door Senate debates for the public, Caesar records and posts Senate activities on a sheet called “the Acta Diurna (‘Daily Acts’)” (5). The Acta Diurna is distributed to each of Rome's provincial governors, thus connecting them to the Capitol. However, the Acta Diurna's coverage “drifts from the political to the personal: divorce. Crime. Orgies” (6).

By the 17th century, the printing press allows urban Europeans to “rely on weekly or even some daily papers for news of the world” (7). English authorities eventually wage war on the papers and ban them. Six years later, Parliament rules that every word in a paper must be “approved—licensed—before publication” (8). In 1644, writer John Milton complains “the knowledge of the land” (8) must not be treated as “a commodity” (8) which Parliament can suppress.

In 1691, English courts revoke this restraint. However, they rule printing “seditious libel” (8), or criticism of the government, no matter how true, as grounds for shuttering a newspaper. In Britain's American colonies, a writer named John Peter Zenger is charged with seditious libel for his “criticism of the King's governor” (9). His lawyer appeals to the trial's jury to “nullify the law” (9) regarding truthfulness as insufficient grounds for criticism. The jury agrees with the lawyer and finds Zenger innocent of seditious libel. This will be the law in the colonies going forward; England won't change its laws for another 108 years.

After the American Revolution, the American government uses tax money to subsidize the dissemination of newspapers which helps to unite the "far-flung nation" (10) of this “republic governed by voters” (10). American freedom of the press lasts just seven years. In 1798, amidst an “undeclared Naval War with France” (12), President John Adams signs the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Alien Act allows the president to “deport any foreigner deemed ‘dangerous’” (12). Echoing England's seditious libel law, the Sedition Act outlaws “any false, scandalous, and malicious writing or writings against the government, the Congress, or the President” (13). This act expires when Adams’s political opponent, Thomas Jefferson, becomes president in 1801.

Before his presidential term, Jefferson trusts the news presses. However, the “press hates presidents” (15) and reports on Jefferson's “concubine” (15)—one of his female slaves, Sally Hemmings—who has an illegitimate child with Jefferson. Through his candidacy and presidency, Jefferson has a complicated relationship to the press. He views freedom of the press as “the sole defense against tyranny” (18), while also decrying the "putrid state" (18) of the free press. Ultimately, though, Gladstone argues that freedom of the press is essential to the flexibility and resilience of Jeffersonian democracy. 

In Britain's American Colonies, a writer named John Peter Zenger is charged with seditious libel for his “criticism of the King's governor” (9). His lawyer appeals to the trial's jury to “nullify the law” (9) regarding truthfulness as insufficient grounds for criticism. The jury agrees with the lawyer and finds Zenger innocent of seditious libel. This will be the in the Colonies going forward; England won't change its laws for another 108 years.

After the American Revolution, the American government uses tax money to subsidize the dissemination of newspapers. This helps to unite the “far-flung nation” (10) of this “republic governed by voters” (10). American freedom of the press lasts just seven years. In 1798, amidst an “undeclared Naval War with France” (12), President John Adams signs the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Alien Act allows the president to “deport any foreigner deemed ‘dangerous’” (12). Echoing England's seditious libel law, the Sedition Act outlaws “any false, scandalous, and malicious writing or writings against the government, the Congress, or the President” (13). This act expires when Adams’s political opponent, Thomas Jefferson, becomes president in 1801.

Before his presidential term, Jefferson trusts the news presses. However, as Gladstone writes, the “press hates presidents” (15) and reports on Jefferson's “concubine” (15), one of his female slaves, Sally Hemmings, who has an illegitimate child with Jefferson. Through his candidacy and presidency, Jefferson has a complicated relationship to the press. He views freedom of the press as “the sole defense against tyranny” (18), while also decrying the “putrid state” (18) of the free press. Ultimately, Gladstone argues that freedom of the press is an essential component of the flexibility and resilience of Jeffersonian democracy. 

The next chapter provides an abridged history of “speech suppression in America” (21). Suppressive acts are usually followed by progressive movement by the press which keeps the government in check. It begins with President Abraham Lincoln's shuttering of 300 "opposition newspapers" (22) during the Civil War and ends with President Barack Obama's secrecy regarding certain environmental concerns and its “warrantless wiretapping program” (32).

Between these events, America becomes involved in multiple wars, including two World Wars, the Vietnam War, and the Iraq War. During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson signs the 1917 Espionage Act, making illegal any speech deemed harmful to the war effort. Wilson also signs the Sedition Act, outlawing any "disloyal words" (22) about the President, Congress, the flag, the military, and even war bonds. During World War II, Congress organizes the first session of the House Un-American Activities Committee, or HUAC. HUAC's intended purpose is tracking Nazi propaganda, but the committee's chairman, Martin Dies, spends his time chasing alleged Communists. Dies brings under suspicion “483 newspapers, 280 labor groups, the Boy Scouts, and Shirley Temple” (23). In 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Smith Act which makes it illegal to “advocate ‘overthrowing the government’” (23). During World War II and the Cold War, the Smith Act helps convict many alleged Socialists and Communists.

In the 1950s, Senator Joe McCarthy builds a career out of fear-mongering aimed at suspected Communists. McCarthy investigates the State Department, the United Nations, the CIA, universities, individuals, and the US Army. The ABC television network broadcasts the Army hearings and over “20 million spellbound Americans” (24) watch the proceedings for the next 36 days. The hearings tarnish McCarthy's reputation; CBS news anchor Edward R. Murrow deals McCarthy the final blow and denounces McCarthy as “driven by fear” (25).

In the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson resorts to a new approach to suppressing government-critical sentiment and authorizes FBI programs that “infiltrate and disrupt the activities of dissenters” (26). The illustration for this frame shows an FBI agent closely watching a hippie on a pay phone. The hippie tosses a letter into a US mailbox where another FBI agent lurks inside. Despite his efforts, Johnson loses American support due to America's prolonged involvement in the stalemated and bloody Vietnam War. Loss of support from news anchor Walter Cronkite signals Johnson's loss of faith in himself.

After his election in 1969, President Richard Nixon takes Johnson's surveillance methods to a “personal” (26) level, amassing an “enemies list” (26) and “using IRS audits as weapons” (26). In 1969, military analyst and “Pentagon insider” (27), Daniel Ellsberg, removes 47 volumes from his safe at a global policy think tank, the RAND Corporation. Ellsberg dubs the copies of these volumes the Pentagon Papers, which show US involvement in Vietnam: “23 years of secret interventions and lies” (27). Ellsberg persuades the New York Times to publish the Pentagon Papers. Nixon's Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, tells Nixon that the Papers make clear that people “can't trust the government” (27) and, for the first time, view the president as fallible. Nixon charges Ellsberg under the Espionage Act of 1917 and serves the Times with a “federal injunction to stop publication” (28). Due to illegal evidence-gathering, charges against Ellsberg are dropped. The case against the Times reaches the Supreme Court before being decided in the Times' favor.

During this turmoil, two young reporters—Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward—follow “a daisy chain of malfeasance” (29) that ends at the Oval Office. The PBS-televised hearings that follow, known as Watergate, capture the viewership of 85% of American households. These cases prompt an investigation into the FBI and CIA led by Senator Frank Church that exposes “political blackmail, disruption of dissident groups, attempted murder of foreign leaders” (29), and more.

Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush does not enact a sedition bill but continues with the kinds of covert acts of suppression that dominated the 1960s and 1970s. He rushes the passage of the Patriot Act, enabling the government to use wiretaps, search homes and businesses, and access even library records—all without a warrant. The Bush administration also rolls back the Freedom of Information Act, classifies or reclassifies millions of once-public documents, and ignores “the president's statutory obligation to inform the Congress” (30). Bush also forms the "Office of Special Plans" (31) to obstruct investigations into the US invasion of Iraq.

President Barack Obama reverses Bush's policy. In this panel, Obama claims there has been “too much secrecy” (32) and because one has "legal power to keep something secret" (32) doesn't mean one should. However, Obama uses Bush-era governmental power to keep secret “the locations of nearly four dozen coal-ash storage sites that pose a threat to people living nearby” (32). The Obama administration also attempts to obstruct investigation into “its warrantless wiretapping program” (32). 

In this section, Gladstone attempts to address the public's perception of the press as “obnoxious inquisitors” (38). Portraying herself as a dog, Gladstone points out the news media's ability to be “shallow” (36), “trivial and hysterical” (36), and barking “like dogs at anything that moves” (36).

The media cover both what the public wants (extremist fluff pieces) and needs (hard news). Public trust of the news media is on the decline, and it's not entirely the news media's fault. Trust depends less on the truth of a story and more on “whether [the] story suits the public's mood” (40).

The media coverage of Hurricane Katrina serves as an example. Because many of the reporters and coverage expressed the “outrage” (41) of the nation, “the public approved of the media” (41). However, this trust and approval also reflected white Americans' subconscious, or conscious, racial biases. Outrageous stories of child rape and “30 bodies in a Convention Center freezer” (42) circulated widely but had no evidence. Their repetition by officials reflected “an ugly, if unconscious racial narrative” (42). As Times-Picayune editor Jim Amoss wrote, if the Dome and the Convention Center had been filled with “large numbers of middle-class white people” (42) rather than working-class black people, the Katrina coverage wouldn't have been “fertile ground for this kind of rumor-mongering” (42). 

Senator Eugene McCarthy claims the press are a bunch of blackbirds on a wire—when one lands on the wire and doesn't get electrocuted, all the other blackbirds join.

Under normal circumstances, Congress becomes “the safest landing strip for journalists who would challenge or criticize the White House” (45). Under the extreme circumstances of 9/11, Congress keeps its mouth shut regarding the passing of the Patriot Act, “which breached basic civil liberties” (46) and all other information they had regarding the war in Iraq. Gladstone indicts the post-9/11 press for not flying onto “hot wires” (46) or demonstrating more aggressive attempts at coverage and investigation.

The newspapers that published the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War “flew to the wire unprotected” (46). Though these papers were served with injunctions, their perseverance ultimately “brought the Vietnam War's history to light” (46). Without this kind of persistence and bravery, the post-9/11 press failed to uncover the truths about the Iraq War until much later. 

News consumers care more about “inaccuracy than cowardice” (47). A 2009 Pew study showed that half of those polled believe “news stories are rife with inaccuracies” (47), and 79% believe news outlets work to cover up inaccuracies.

The news media are not perfect; the Internet can serve as a resource for consumer fact-checking, and the media tend to respond with corrections and apologies. Mistakes arise from “over-confidence, flawed analysis, and the reflex to be first at the expense of being right” (47). In Neufeld’s illustration of a now-famous image, President Harry Truman holds up a Chicago Daily Tribune with the headline, “Dewey Defeats Truman” (47)—a misprint based on flawed polls.

Though polls seem “seductive, soothing” (48), readers need to know the pollster's methodology and the “‘nature of the 'question’” (48). Without this information, polls lack the accuracy and representation they purport to provide.

Sometimes, the media lie. For example, To Catch a Predator's Chris Hansen stated that there are 50,000 predators “on the Internet prowling for children” (49). The number 50,000 turns out to be an oft-cited amount for highlighting a variety of gruesome statistics. Dressed in a Sherlock Holmes costume, comic Gladstone sleuths her way to the number's source and finds it in Ken Lanning, a former FBI agent and “expert” (50) investigator. Because the number 50,000 has “popped up in the past” (51), Lanning concludes that it is a “Goldilocks number” (51)—neither too large nor too small to be believed. However, it has zero credibility as a statistic for any crime to which it has been attached.

The press also lies to the public in more willful ways. William Randolph Hearst's yellow journalism used sensational, untrue stories to sell more papers and further Hearst's economic and personal agendas. CNN's Lou Dobbs misreported a statistic about leprosy in the United States to stir up fear about immigration to America. And finally, British journalist Claud Cockburn reported on a victory by anti-Fascist forces against General Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. Though this victory never took place, Cockburn claimed he did it to bolster support for the anti-Fascist forces. 

The 20th-century Irish poet W.B. Yeats once referred to journalists as having made Dante's Great Refusal. In Dante's book-length poem, Inferno, Dante sees a “swarm of anguished souls” (57) in the underworld, suspended between heaven and hell. The souls “refused to commit themselves” (57) and “made through cowardice the Great Refusal” (57).

Though reporters are more likely to identify as liberal than conservative, “few reporters proclaim their convictions” (58), choosing instead to remain neutral on most issues regardless of their personal beliefs or thoughts. Despite this, a 2009 poll shows that 60% of respondents “charged new organizations with bias” (60), mostly liberal. Neufeld’s illustration shows a small ship called the USS Bias tipping over; the heavy end is packed with liberal reporters, and on the other stands just one conservative reporter.

Attempting to disprove the existence of a liberal bias, even among liberal-owned newspapers like the New York Times, Gladstone points to a study of negative coverage of four presidents' first seven months in office. The study found that ABC, CBS, and NBC all gave roughly equal time to negative coverage of each president, while Fox News gave 10% less in positive coverage to President Obama. Gladstone uses this as evidence of a lack of political bias in media.