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04/05/2004:

"Sinking in their own spin"

According to a new book by Paul Rutherford, Weapons of Mass Persuasion, there are 20,000 more public relations experts in the United States doctoring the news than there are journalists trying to write it.

Information straight out of the spin dryer is bad news for democracy. When citizens get their take on reality from fiendishly choreographed news conferences, press releases, slick videos, and other one-sided tools of mass-marketing, truth is usually the first casualty. The measure of success is not whether the spin conveys good information, but whether it makes a sale, a convert, a self-interested point. www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists