Healthy Influence Blog

Today I stumbled into a disconcerting story about the Washington Post.  They are using their journalistic connections with various shakers and movers in the Obama adminstration and Congress to setup meetings between said shakers and movers and those who desire access to them - for a price ranging between $25,000 and $250,000 per meeting.

Here’s a description from the WP offer:

“Offered at $25,000 per sponsor, per Salon. Maximum of two sponsors per Salon. Underwriters’ CEO or Executive Director participates in the discussion. Underwriters appreciatively acknowledged in printed invitations and at the dinner. Annual series sponsorship of 11 Salons offered at $250,000″

So, if you pay WP $25,000, you can have an upclose and personal dinner with a very powerful person, all compliments of the brokering services of the Washington Post.  I’ll quote Mike Allen on this:

The offer — which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters — is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.

This astonishes me.  While news sources often do a less than competent job in reporting at least I’ve assumed that they were independent of the people and stories they reported on.  It now appears that the Post thinks it can “independently” report on people and then take money from third parties to arrange private meetings between the third parties and the people the WP covers.  The tangled bias here is so obvious - how can you honestly report on people when you are also selling access to them - that it renders me speechless, but not wordless.

Has this been going on for some time and I’ve not known it?  Do other media sources do this?  Will Lassie rescue Timmy from the well?

The persuasion angle on this is that I often rely upon the credibility of sources like the Washington Post for information about persuasion concepts.  If, for example, I find an interesting story in the WP about how health care advocates are trying to influence Senators - oh wait, I’ve already done this - I assume the WP is an honest broker in its reporting of the story.  But, if the WP is also using its connections to sell meetings between advocates and Senators as this report discloses, then what can I really believe in the report?

UPDATE:  Howard Kurtz of the WP reports that the paper no longer plans to offer this program.  Importantly, however, the WP admits that such planning was in development and had at least gotten to the stage of printing potential offers for public distribution.  Apparently, a flier got leaked and the leak may have been responsible for the decision to drop the program, for now, rather than concerns about credibility and integrity.  I still don’t trust the WP.

Melanie found a great nouvelle French cafe in Bridgeport, WV.  I came down to visit her for dinner last week while she taught a Health Comm seminar in Clarksburg and we ate at the Provence Market Cafe.

I had a great seafood papardelle that used a lighter, wine-based sauce rather than the more traditional butter, cream, and cheese you’d expect with a dish like this.

Melanie had a great pork dish that she enjoyed.

We also met the owner, Anne Hart, and had a nice conversation with her.  The Cafe opened in 2003 and is going great guns.  We enjoyed the Provence Market Cafe and will definitely return at every opportunity.  If you’re ever near Bridgeport and like nouvelle French, please give it a try.

We live out in the country and enjoy pets.  We’re down to two (old) cats and looking for a new kitten when Melanie completes a summer teaching course.  As we were coming down the trail to our house after our predinner walk I heard a mew behind me and turned to see a mouthy little orange-yellow tiger kit prowling in the woods.  We coaxed him/her into our arms and have it in the house tonight.  I’ve posted a lost and found notice in Craigslist, but suspect this one is a dropped kit.  (Why do people think dumping kittens out in the country is a cool thing to do?)

We may yet have to return her/him to the rightful owners, but for now, let’s just enjoy.

The little fellow gets oriented in the house.

A closeup.

Skulking around legs.

Melanie punks a kitty.

Melanie and the kit with a nice garden shot on the deck.

Melanie and kit with the newest wallhanging project.

End of a hard day for Melanie and the kit.

Working out on the cat Speed Bag.

Take down and tap out.

Life is good.

The US Military distributes a newspaper in Iraq called “Baghdad Now.”  Here’s an appealing shot with an English version of the paper doubtless for the benefit of American observers.

And, now, another shot showing the paper written in the more locally useful Arabic.

It carries no ads, the articles contain no bylines, and doesn’t admit an editor.  And, it is known by both the military and the Iraqis as a PSYOPS product.

The question to consider:  Is “Baghdad Now” propaganda or persuasion?

The propaganda angle drives a Washington Post story (in a paper that does contains ads, offers bylined articles, and declares many editors.)  The point of the story is direct:  This is a propaganda effort  and it is a failure.

The story is peppered with stinging quotes that rebuke the amateurish effort, the poor language skills, and obvious distortions of the truth on the ground.  For example:

“The millions spent on this is wasted money,” Ziyad al-Aajeely, director of Iraq’s nonprofit Journalistic Freedom Observatory, said as he flipped through a recent edition of Baghdad Now. “Nobody reads this.”

The article also identifies other propaganda efforts, such as those done by the Future Iraq Assembly, and other campaigns not specifically sourced.  An American academic is quoted on those related propaganda efforts,

As’ad AbuKhalil, a political science professor at California State University who writes the Angry Arab blog, said the campaigns are ridiculed in the Arab world.  “They have a very crude tone and content, and the narrator sounds like Saddam’s own propagandist,” he said. “The Arabic used also is awkward, clearly translated from English texts most likely drafted in some office on K Street. One is struck by the extent to which the ads show Iraqis as Westernized and secularized.”

I have several concerns about this article and none of them have anything to do with my position on the US invasion of Iraq.  Whether I’m for it or agin or anywhere in between, it is possible to read this article and think like a persuasion scientist.

As in most uses of the terms, “persuasion” and “propaganda,” the only difference appears to be the values clash between the persons who provides the label and the persuasion events they observe.  If the observers generally support the values that appear to motivate a communication event, then they will label it as “persuasion.”  If, however, the observers reject the values that motivate the communication event, then they will label it as “propaganda.”  Thus we have two unique words that depend not upon the objective reality under observation, but rather the value system of the observer.  This is both bad science and bad practice.

You can observe the effect of this biased perception on the quality of the comments readers posted on this article.  The overwhelming majority of comment posted to date fall into one of two fevered categories:  1)  Bush Lied, People Died or 2) America, Love It or Leave It.  In other words no one reads the article and then thinks carefully about how the US government should run its public communication in Iraq, how to assess its impact, and whether to continue.  The article just elicits biased processing from the two primary competing sides.

The article also profers the opinions of observers who appear to possess little empirical data on the communication event, yet have no trouble declaring its effectiveness.  With little effort you can search on key terms like “Baghdad Now” and “newspaper” and “PSYOPS” and read a variety of sources that provide information about this effort.

For example, the US Military discloses that one prime purpose of the newspaper is to provide “from the horse’s mouth” statements about basic American military operations.  The paper contains places, names, dates, and details about what Americans will do in the future and then the military does those things.  Thus, Baghdad Now does contain what most folks would call news.  Again whether you support these actions is not the issue.  You can see the US intervention as awful or great, but still see the value of the “bulletin board” reporting in a paper.  Even if Iraqis hate everything about the American presence, at least they have a reliable source of information on some actions.  It’s not reasonable to call this function, “propaganda.”

As someone who spent four years as a Federal government administrator working very specifically on government public communication efforts, I suspect that “Baghdad Now” is viewed as a successful persuasion outlet for a number of reasons not mentioned in the Washington Post article or by people who see this as propaganda.  First, it is a well known, widely available, and cost effective means of exposing large numbers of Iraqis to a “pure” and controlled US message.  Second, it is probably favorably viewed by various Iraq power sources because it provides information those Iraq power sources support.  Third and without question, key House and Senate members like “Baghdad Now” because it supports their legislative efforts and personal political aims.  A few Members could easily kill a small project like “Baghdad Now” with a phone call or two and the fact that the paper has been publishing for six years says much about Congressional support.

Yet, these considerations are absent from the WP “propaganda” analysis, much to the detriment of clear thinking about the uses of persuasion, even in war.  Thus, the difference between persuasion and propaganda is much like the perilous pursuit of the distinction between pornography and obscenity.  Some people seem to know it exists, but none can define the difference much better than the infamous “I know it when I see it” standard Justice Potter Stewart applied with sexually explicit materials.

Michael Mann’s new film with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale, “Public Enemies.”

Katheryn Bigelow’s, “The Hurt Locker,” a film that looks at the war.

“Animal House” at 30 and how university Greeks still adore it.

The continuing problem Jewish families face in recovering art from Nazi lootings.

Fame ain’t the same after Michael Jackson.

Google nearly dies after mistaking the surge following Michael Jackson’s death for an automated attack.

Divorce and money during a recession, tips and advice.

Ethics and journalism problems for Tom Brokaw of NBC News who did an interview with Obama while seeking a job with the Administration.

The press get it on with President Obama and the gloves come off.

The vibrator and other adult toys are now mainstream!

The persuasive attempts of activitists aimed at US Senators in the health care reform debate - bias never works.

Failures of the NCI grant system to stimulate effective new cancer research.

The elusive green economy.

As everyone already knows, persuasion is a pretty obvious and simple thing:  It’s about using words to change the way freely choosing people think, feel, or act.  And, you research it by watching the world go by, then drawing the obvious inferences that arise from human interaction.  Anyone can, and in fact does, do persuasion research everyday.  Now, contrast that with the real science of economics, climate, and epidemiology.  Those guys do heavy lifting with observation, manipulation, complex math, and big grants.  They are the real scientists doing real science while persuasion is Mark Twain writing about Tom Sawyer convincing his buddies to whitewash a fence.

Go ahead.  Admit it.  Persuasion has no science behind it, it’s just a bunch of that “social science” voodoo.  You can say it in front of me and I won’t be offended.

Because, it is not true.  Persuasion has better, stronger, and more reliable science behind it than my three (carefully) chosen contrasts of economics, climate, and epidemiology.  Just think about it rather than give me that “everybody knows” wisdom.

The key defining feature of science is control.  When researchers have all the variables in hand and deploy those variables exactly as the researcher chooses, then you have control.  Researchers will test different configurations of variables and compare outcomes.  “I see, when I add yeast to this mixture, I get this tasty thing called ‘bread’ and when I leave the yeast out I get a matzo ball.”  It is through the control of all relevant variables, that you do science.

I have demonstrated in this blog and in my Persuasion Guide, that you can study persuasion with this type of control to derive your science.  In example after example, I provide you with information based on studies done with experimental control.  The researchers get a large group of people then randomly assign smaller samples to specific, varying, and controlled conditions.  One group gets a basic request - would you please volunteer to help?  Other groups get instead a persuasive message, “Would you please sign this petition in support of wildlife preservation in our county?”  followed by the basic request.  The researchers then compare outcomes and determine which condition produced more change.  Whether a simple t-test, treatment versus control design or much more complicated multivariate experiments, the key element of researcher control is always present in the persuasion principles I present.  Persuasion researchers do real science and have produced a real science.

Now, contrast wimpy persuasion research with the real science of economics, climate, and epidemiology.  All of these research domains typically operate at poor levels of researcher control.  Economists almost never have any control over the key variables in economics, but rather observe the natural outcomes of the real world, then construct math models to describe, predict, and explain those observations.  In other words, their science comes after Something Happens, it does not make Something Happen first.  (And when economists are able to do experiments, they are essentially doing persuasion experiments that use money as the dependent variable.  They then have to make huge inferential leaps from these micro studies to the macro scale economics really needs.  Hey, if they can make those leaps, why can’t persuasion researchers?)

The same limitation obviously applies with climate research.  No one can randomly assign different planets to different CO2 regimes then observe differences.  All climate researchers can do is watch natural outcomes and then create math models to describe, predict, and explain.  Again, they can’t make Something Happen first under their control and then observe.  They can only observe, then try to explain.  And where economists might have a wide variety of economic contexts to study (different nations with different systems at different eras), climate researchers are stuck with just one lovely blue, white, and green planet.

Finally, epidemiology is built as a research of observation rather than a science of control.  Epi researchers never have control over any variables, but instead construct simple measurements that they combine into complex models requiring sophisticated analytic methods.  They can track over long time periods.  They can measure in the doctor’s office or lab with high tech equipment.  But, no control.

The practical implications of this are painful.  Scientific Materialism, also known as Communism, was proposed by Karl Marx as a system of economics that would create Heaven on Earth.  We know how that worked out.  And, in the late 1980s and early 1990s epi researchers were absolutely, positively convinced that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for women was the greatest thing since sliced bread and L’Oreal Extra Light Ash Blonde hair coloring.  Except when the real scientists did a real experiment with real control, they discovered just how wrong the epi folks were and that HRT actually killed women.  There’s now some gnashing of teeth among the epi crowd over this black swan, but they’ll move on.  And, with the climate researchers, it’s hard to have much faith in a math model of global climate change when the Weather Channel can’t beat chance with its forecasts on temperature or precipitation.

Yet and still, people like you will still continue to see persuasion as a kind of folk wisdom and my Gang of Three as Something Special.  Please realize that I’m not claiming there is no science in economics, climate, or epidemiology, just that it is not strong science because these fields lack the key element of science:  Control.  Without control everyone needs to be considerable more skeptical about claims coming from the Gang of Three.

But, you can believe EVERYTHING I tell you about persuasion!

Normally I don’t blog on such a simple sentence, but this one is a Tip of the Iceberg.  From a Voice of America article about the continuing unrest and violence in Iran following last week’s elections:

“Iran’s government continues to crack down on the country’s election-protest movement, reportedly making further arrests among the ranks of university professors, journalists, and ordinary citizens.”

Please note that last string of “. . . professors, journalists, and ordinary citizens.”  Wouldn’t you normally think of professors and journalists as “ordinary citizens?”  Why make this distinction?  It has no grammatical or semantic requirement.  The sentence does not read more clearly with it.

In my experience, this is a fairly common and unconscious marker of bias in writers who seem to think that the presence of professors and journalists in some event requires a notation, a distinction, hey, this is really important because professors and journalists are involved.  This shows how the writers attribute the event, assigns causality to it.

The marker unfortunately also indicates an “us” and “you” distinction that is elitist without awareness, the Emperor Has No Clothes.  Sure, “we” are all in this together, “us” cool table people and “you” hoi polloi.

It’s really bad persuasion because it sincerely if accidently reveals the persuader’s true intent.