Journalism's Counterinsurgency against “Free Space”

NOTES

• Michael Schudson, The Sociology of News (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2003), 82–84; J. Michael Sproule, Propaganda and Democracy: The American Experience of Media and Mass Persuasion (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 35; Robert Jackall and Janice Hirota, “America's First Propaganda Ministry: The Committee on Public Information During the Great War,” in Robert Jackall, ed., Propaganda (New York: New York University Press, 1995), 137–73; and Kevin Moloney, Rethinking Public Relations: PR Propaganda and Democracy, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2006), 43–48.
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• Schudson, The Sociology of News, 82–84. See also Jeremy Iggers, Good News, Bad News: Journalism Ethics and the Public Interest (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1998), 61–68; Jay Rosen, What Are Journalists For? (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1999), 64–70; and Davis Merritt, Public Journalism and Public Life: Why Telling the News Is Not Enough, 2nd ed. (Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum Associates, 1998), 12–16.
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• During the 1920s, the terms “propaganda” and “publicity” were often used interchangeably. This article works from the understanding that the rise of publicity, or achieving free space in the press, was a product of the growing domestic propaganda efforts in the U.S. during that decade. The term “propaganda” stands for an initiative that features systematically-constructed messages (whether appearing in the press, books, movie houses, or in speeches) designed to move mass audiences toward acceptance of attitudes, predispositions, and behaviors that will benefit a privileged group. Many scholars describe this as deceitful and manipulative communication. See Sproule, Propaganda and Democracy Stanley Cunningham, The Idea of Propaganda: A Reconstruction (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2002); and James Combs and Dan Nimmo, The New Propaganda: The Dictatorship of Palaver in Contemporary Politics (New York: Longman, 1993).
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• Two early books offered exhaustive reviews of the ANPA's extensive efforts to safeguard the newspaper industry's financial base. See Alfred McClung Lee, The Daily Newspaper in America (New York: Macmillan Company, 1937); and Edwin Emery, History of the American Newspaper Publishers Association (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1950).
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• Thomas C. Leonard, News for All: America's Coming-of-Age with the Press (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 206.
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• Will Irwin, Propaganda and the News or What Makes You Think So? (New York: Whittlesey House, 1936), 4.
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• William Futhey Gibbons, Newspaper Ethics: A Discussion of Good Practice for Journalists (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Edwards Brothers, 1926), 93.
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• Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (New York: Macmillian Co. 1922), 223–31.
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• Leonard Ray Teel, The Public Press, 1900–1945: The History of American Journalism (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2006), 117. References to the rise of journalism organizations and codes are featured in journalism texts from the 1920s. In particular, see Nelson Antrim Crawford, The Ethics of Journalism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1924); and Leon Nelson Flint, The Conscience of the Newspaper: A Casebook in the Principles and Problems of Journalism (New York: D. Appleton & Co, 1925). For a discussion of the rise of college-level journalism instruction, see Lee, The Daily Newspaper in America, 658–66.
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• See Denise DeLorme and Fred Fedler, “Journalists’ Hostility toward Public Relations: An Historical Analysis,” Public Relations Review 29 (Summer 2003): 99–124; and Lee Trenholm, “Press-Agents Irritate the Press,” Public Opinion Quarterly 2 (October 1938): 671–77.
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• See Schudson, The Sociology of News, 82–84; Teel, The Public Press, 1900–1945, 104; Lee, The Daily Newspaper in America, 453–55; and Stuart Ewen, PR! A Social History of Spin (New York: Basic Books, 1996), 131–33, 401.
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• Lucy Maynard Salmon, The Newspaper and Authority (New York: Oxford University Press, 1923), 451.
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• Emery, History of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, 129.
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• Lee, The Daily Newspaper in America, 464.
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• “The Reds, Big Business and Ivy Lee,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, April 8, 1926, 141.
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• Susan Lucarelli, “The Newspaper Industry's Campaign against Spacegrabbers, 1917–1921,” Journalism Quarterly 70 (Winter 1993): 883–92.
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• The Newspaper Association of America headquartered in Arlington, Va., provided access to bound editions of the ANPA's anti-publicity bulletins. While the association has editions covering all of the years reviewed for this study, the records are incomplete with numerous copies missing across several years.
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• Lee, The Daily Newspaper in America, 445. While it is impossible to know for sure how often the bulletin was issued because some of the issues are missing from the Newspaper Association of America's collection, it is reasonable to assume that it came out weekly.
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• Emery, History of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, 133. Although the bulletin continued to be published after 1926, this study concludes with that year because there was nothing substantially different afterward in the publication about propaganda from what had been written before.
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• Ibid., 122.
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• “Overworked Publicity,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, July 9, 1909, 506.
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• “The Press Agent,” Bulletin-Free Publicity July 23, 1909, 525.
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• “Press Agents,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, Jan. 16, 1909, 23.
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• “Free Publicity List,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, Sept. 16, 1909, 611–55.
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• George Creel, How We Advertised America (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1920), 50.
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• James R. Mock and Cedric Larson, Words that Won the War: The Story of the Committee on Public Information (Princeton, N.J.: University Press, 1939), 68.
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• Lee, The Daily Newspaper in America, 452.
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• “Why Not Reform?” Bulletin-Free Publicity, May 26, 1917, 451.
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• “Worthy of Imitation,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, May 26, 1917, 451.
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• Emery, History of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, 152.
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• “Inoculate the Victim!” Bulletin-Free Publicity, June 2, 1917, 483.
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• “Resignation from the Space-Grabbers’ Union,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, March 12, 1920, 217.
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• “Birth Control and Asphalt,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, Dec. 24, 1921, 908.
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• “Lord and Thomas and Government Publicity,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, Jan. 17, 1924, 13.
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• “Publicity,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, July 12, 1922, 571.
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• “A Journalistic Opportunity,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, May 14, 1924, 232–33.
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• “Free Space Grafters Are Busier Than Ever; Are You a Sucker?” Bulletin-Free Publicity, June 14, 1924, 276.
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• “A Well-Deserved Lecture,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, Nov. 15, 1924, 422.
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• “$300,000 May be Lost,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, March 3, 1926, 127.
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• “Great Growth of Free Advertising,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, Aug. 3, 1923, 506.
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• “The Press Agent,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, April 2, 1921, 258.
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• “French Government to Control News!” Bulletin-Free Publicity, Feb. 28, 1922, 73.
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• “Free Publicity. Wake Up,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, Oct. 7, 1922, 731.
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• “The Evils of Something for Nothing in Business,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, March 21, 1925, 131.
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• “Waste Paper Fund Is Press Agent's Contribution,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, March 12, 1924, 80.
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• “Publisher Thanks Press Agent,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, July 3, 1925, 337.
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• “Something for Nothing—And the Newspaper's Job,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, Feb. 9, 1926, 50.
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• “Publisher Seeks Newspaper Ban on Space Grabbers,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, Oct. 10, 1926, 600.
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• “Get to the Press Agent's Boss,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, Jan. 17, 1924, 16.
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• “Prudential Insurance Gets Sound Advice,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, Sept. 30, 1925, 482.
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• “An Answer to Studebaker,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, Jan. 25, 1926, 32.
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• “Read this and Wake Up,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, May 12, 1922, 433.
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• “Full Account of How It's Done: Inter-Ocean Syndicate Activities Revealed,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, Sept. 27, 1923, 580–81.
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• “Read This and Weep,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, April 12, 1924, 125.
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• “Administration Press Agent Urged,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, March 17, 1923, 248.
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• “For Duration of War Only—Not Forever,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, Dec. 30, 1925,693.
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• “Ivy Lee and the Affairs of State,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, March 31, 1926, 129.
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• “The Reds, Big Business and Ivy Lee,” 141.
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• The term “near journalists” bears strong similarity to Michael Schudson's description of public relations practitioners as “parajournalists.” See Schudson, The Sociology of News, 83.
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• Leonard Doob, Propaganda: Its Psychology and Technique (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1935), 186–87.
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• Edward L. Bernays, Biography of an Idea: Memoirs of Public Relations Counsel Edward L. Bernays (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1965), 315.
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• “Bunk,” Bulletin-Free Publicity, Dec. 30, 1925, 695.
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• W. Lance Bennett, News: The Politics of Illusion, 6th ed. (New York: Pearson, 2005), 182.
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• Jim Rutenberg and Bill Carter, “A Nation Challenged: The Media; Draping Newscasts with the Flag,” New York Times, Sept. 20, 2001.
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• Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Paul Waldman, The Press Effect: Politicians, Journalists, and the Stories that Shape the Political World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 138.
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• “In Iraq Crisis, Networks are Megaphone for Official Views,” Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, March 18, 2003 [article on-line], at http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3158 (accessed on Sept. 29, 2008).
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• Cunningham, The Idea of Propaganda. See also Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (New York: Vintage Books, 1965); and Garth Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion, 4th ed. (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 2006).
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• Since at least the 1960s, scholars have provided quantitative measurements of the escalating amount of public relations material in the news media, especially within newspapers. Scott Cutlip estimated that 35 percent of newspaper stories are attributable to news releases. See “Third of Newspaper Content PR-Inspired,” Editor & Publisher, May 26, 1962, 68. Others have found that far more than half of some organization's news releases make it into U.S. newspapers. See Judy VanSlyke Turk, “Public Relations Influence on the News,” Newspaper Research Journal 7 (Summer 1986): 15–27; and William P. Martin and Michael Singletary, “Newspaper Treatment of State Government Releases,” Journalism Quarterly 58 (Spring 1981): 93–96. Ongoing research reveals that PR people may contribute to as much as 70 percent of total news coverage. See Dan Lattimore, et al., Public Relations: The Profession and the Practice (New York: McGraw Hill, 2007), 181.
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