Underground Knowledge — A discussion group discussion

Excerpt from The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy:


A conservatively estimated 90% of all news items aired in the media – whether in print, radio or television – on any given day are placed items. (Placed news items are articles contributed by individuals, companies and organizations outside the media). An estimated 75% of all news items are placed by spin doctors, or public relations consultants.

Journos and PR gurus will know what we’re talking about, but for outsiders we accept these stats are hard to get your head around.

Incidentally, many if not most spin doctors are former journos, so they know firsthand how the media works and they have well established journalistic networks to tap into. Very handy when it comes to placing stories.

What makes it difficult to accurately assess the amount of news that is placed or contributed, is that many such items appear under a journo’s byline. All too often the journo may only change one para, sentence or word – or nothing at all – before recycling the story for publication under his or her name. Sad but true.

In the case of news items sourced from PR firms, the reality is those firms are handsomely paid by their (usually) corporate clients to publicize the clients’ products and services. In some cases their non-corporate clients may be lobby groups, politicians, political parties, government departments, armed forces or other such entities each with their own barrow to push. All too often, the truth is secondary to the message. Also sad but true.

Mainstream media all too often serves as a public relations agency for the global elite, including politicians, bankers and Fortune 500 members. As a result, the so-called news has become a junkyard for propaganda. Such an environment is open slather for the spin doctors.


“News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising.” –Lord Northcliffe, British publisher (1865-1922)

I love how the term Spin Doctor is accepted in society, when it's the perfect example of Orwellian newspeak. I mean, what does: 'spin doctor' mean? Well, it means 'liar' of course...

Harry wrote: "I love how the term Spin Doctor is accepted in society, when it's the perfect example of Orwellian newspeak. I mean, what does: 'spin doctor' mean? Well, it means 'liar' of course..."

Yep it can mean that. Oftentimes tho the spin docs tell the truth...only they don't always tell the whole truth. In other words we are only told what they want us to know. 'Tis a devious game.

Spin Doctoring During the Presidency of George W Bush

PR: The dark history of spin and its threat to genuine news http://www.independent.co.uk/news/med...
As the public-relations industry increasingly tries to dominate the media, it is not only contaminating journalism but is itself reverting to its lowly propaganda origins, say David Miller and William Dinan

The movie The Queen (2006) (https://ffilms.org/the-queen-2006/) has scenes which clearly depict spin under the Blair government. One of the interesting things he did was research what people wanted from life. He took the results (a lot of me-first stuff) and put it in the Labour Party manifesto. Smart move!

Personally, I dont worry too much about spin. The discourse fields are getting so wide even the average reader knows about it now.

I beg to differ on your last statement, John, and don't think the average reader or viewer of the news is as smart or aware as you.

Because established journalists are regurgitating articles/statements and supposed facts written by (PR (Public Relations) firms, AND they are not stating upfront that these statements are essentially paid advertisements placed into the media.
In an ideal and fair world, there should be, when you think about it, a statement upfront to say "what we are about to say is a paid insertion" and name the PR firm that sent it to them.

Of course that'd never happen, so in the meantime I would argue most news readers/viewers are largely unaware of how little unbiased, authentic journalism is actually occurring. Most of the news media has become very reliant on public relations firms to feed them news on behalf of corporations, governments, the military, intelligence agencies, etc, etc...

Okay, James, I think you are right.

Manipulating the Media: https://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2...

Author of books about marketing, culture, and the human condition, Ryan Holiday has had his work translated into twenty-eight languages. In the latter half, he discussed how powers behind-the-scenes manipulate publicity, media, and even justice. "Marketing," he declared, "is inherently a deceptive practice" that is trying to get someone to buy something they wouldn't have purchased otherwise. Political advertising is often a form of manipulation, he commented, and the content of journalism is sometimes shaped by highly-paid publicists who lobby and pitch reporters to write a particular story with a specific angle.

Conspiracies, he explained, generally disrupt the status quo, whether it's an assassination, a plan to change a law, an attempt to create something new, or even just to inject an idea into the public consciousness. He cited the case of the Hulk Hogan lawsuit against Gawker as a kind of conspiracy because Hogan's defense was secretly funded by Peter Thiel, a billionaire investor who was angered at Gawker for outing him. Thiel spent nearly nine years and $10 million plotting against Gawker, the media industry blog Holiday characterized as publishing almost anything as a kind of clickbait. In the end, Thiel was victorious and left Gawker's founder Nick Denton bankrupt, Holiday recounted. In a way, he continued, we're living in a "reality show" where people are constantly performing for the cameras, bloggers, or media chatter, and this makes you question everything that is happening around you.

https://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2...

STOPPNow: (Stop the Organized Pill Pushers) Now Capitalism works but our forefathers did not set up the U.S. government to be manipulated by that described above by James. The opiate epidemic has also had the tentacles of the drug company lobbyists involved in the careers and choices made by many of our politicians. Corruption and greed continues to fuel the opiate epidemic

This thread provides me with the opportunity to plug my book chapter on exactly these topics. (Yup, like many of the rest of you, John is also a writer.)

Seduction in Popular Culture, Psychology, and Philosophy
Chapter 10
Social Psychology:
The Seduction of Consumers
John G Wilson
ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we investigate the recent situation concerning the seduction of consumers by advertising and the media. A new plethora of media-organised conglomerates is attempting to monopolise our attention and steer our emotions, opinions and choices towards increased consumption through imposed wants in the interest of gross profits for a semi-invisiblised few. Herein we consider: the colonisation of public places (advertising), the work/spend cycle, increased work at the cost of leisure; impression management, status-conscious and conspicuous consumption, reflective versus pre-reflective thinking in consumer choices, the early recruitment of children, how human emotions can become the fuel of overconsumption, class based emotions and fashion consumption, obsessions with body image, the evasion and silencing of criticism by the corporate media. The approach is one founded in critical theory - a perspective that describes the individual as reciprocally constituted by the society in which she lives, rather than as a passive entity existing prior to socialisation. It seeks to reveal the seduction of our subjectivities (running marketing strategies ‘from within’) as contrasted with the value-free, ‘objective’ approach of much contemporary social psychology. Contemporary theoreticians in sociology and consumer studies, including Pierre Bourdieu and Juliet Schor, are cited along with deeper philosophical perspectives from the earlier philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, complete with references from contemporary books and journals.

The book is $140 a pop (for which I did not get paid a bean.)

Are we not all “spin doctors” titillating one’s imagination in the art of persuasion hyping the pursuit of happiness? Happiness as in spinning to one’s desires, political partisan, health, fantasies, utopia, etc. On the subject of utopia, allow me to “spin” my book illustrating the road to utopia. Please find the Introduction chapter on the following link:
http://www.bookdaily.com/book/3341166...

Fake news https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news
Fake news or junk news or pseudo-news is a type of yellow journalism or propaganda that consists of deliberate disinformation or hoaxes spread via traditional print and broadcast news media or online social media.[1][2] The false information is often caused by reporters paying sources for stories, an unethical practice called checkbook journalism. Digital news has brought back and increased the usage of fake news, or yellow journalism.