Category: General Discussion

I just received my July issue of Harper’s Magazine, complete with an article about lobbying and public relations in Washington. Unfortunately, the article is behind a paywall, but it’s too good for me not to share some highlights.

It seems to me that this article screams for a legislative intervention and for an ethical rule at newspapers: the strengthening of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (You can search registrations under FARA here), and a requirement for oped writers to disclose their financial conflicts of interests. After all, what makes this all possible is newspapers like the Washington Post that routinely publish opeds by these think tanks.

I explained the background in an earlier post. Basically, Harper’s Ken Silverstein posed as a business interest from Turkmenistan, and approached four major Washington lobbying firms to see what they’d do for a foreign government with serious human rights issues.

APCO Associates, winner of PR Week’s PR agency of the year award in 2006, offered Silverstein a four part plan. First, “policy maker outreach,” which is simply setting up meetings with Congressmen. The others were more interesting:

…APCO promised to “create news items and news outflow,” organize media events, and identify and work with “key reporters.”

[…]

In addition to influencing news reports, Downen added, the firm could drum up positive op-eds in newspapers. “We can utilize some of the think-tank experts who would say, ‘On the one hand this and the other hand that,’ and we place it as a guest editorial.” Indeed, Schumacher said, APCO had someone on staff who “does nothing but that” and had succeeded in placing thousands of opinion pieces.

Discussion about the strategy’s third item–building “coalition support,” which meant developing seemingly independent and therefore more credible allies to offer favorable views about Turkmenistan–was brief.

[…]

How could we use think tanks and academics?…[the fourth element] …One possibility, Downen said, would be to hold a forum on U.S.-Turkmen relations, preferably built around a visit to the United States by a Turkmen official. Possible hosts would include The Heritage Foundation, the Center for Strategic & International Studies, and the Council on Foreign Relations. “Last week I contacted a number of colleagues at think tanks,” Downen went on. “Some real experts could easily be engaged to sponsor or host a public forum or panel that would bring in congressional staff and journalists.” The only cost would be refreshments and room rental–Schumacher joked that

[…]

Another option, he explained, would be to pay Roll Call and The Economist to host a Turkmenistan event. It would be costlier than the think-tank route, perhaps around $25,000, but in compensation we would have tighter control over the proceedings, plus gain “the imprimatur of a respected third party.”

This is all typical Washington PR, but the frankness with which groups like Heritage can be hired to do the dirty work is troubling.

The courts, prodded on by libertarians, civil libertarians, and corporate-funded think tanks, have afforded more and more protection for “commercial speech,” expression in the business interest of the speaker. Commercial speech has a lower level of protection than religious and political expression, but still, in order for the government to regulate it, it has to have a good reason to do so, and the regulation has to be effective.

Expanding protections for commercial speech makes it more difficult to regulate advertising for consumer protection purposes. It makes it harder to enforce privacy laws, to limit the spread of billboards, and to control DTC drug ads.

Sometimes, one wants the government to be limited in its control of advertising, because censorship can masquerade as consumer protection. For instance, the state of Virginia once banned advertising of abortion, but the law was invalidated as unconstitutional.

Supporters of expansive protections for commercial speech often argue that advertising is often more important than political speech. They argue that advertising brings more information into the market, and thus makes the market more efficient. Consumer protections aren’t needed because the market will out bad speakers and bad messages in favor of good ones.

I’m not so sure about this. It seems to me that speakers with strong commercial interests will flood the market with their messages, and overwhelm the truth. They’ll even intimidate people who call attention to dangerous products.

The consequences of this can be severe. You probably remember Vioxx. Well, the newest potentially dangerous (and in this case pointless) heavily-advertised product appears to be Bengay. The Washington Post reports:

…Now, muscle creams have drawn attention because toxicology tests revealed last week that the April death of a 17-year-old in New York was caused by overusing such rubs.

“Anyone educated [in athletic training] in the last 25 years doesn’t advise kids to use that stuff,” said Jon Almquist, athletic training specialist for Fairfax County Public Schools. “The demand is due to marketing. That’s the only reason why [athletic] trainers even have it.”

Arielle Newman, who ran for Notre Dame Academy in Staten Island, was found dead at her home on April 3. Toxicology tests showed that her blood contained lethal amounts of methyl salicylate, an active ingredient commonly found in products such as Bengay and Icy Hot. The New York medical examiner’s office reported Newman had used “topical medication to an excess,” causing salicylate poisoning over time.

[…]

The marketing appeal of muscle creams is one of the few reasons the products still are popular today, Almquist said. He said they provide little more than a placebo effect for their users.

“The chemical [in the rubs] is just an irritant to get the skin warm,” Almquist said. “It doesn’t do a whole lot physiologically. Physical rubbing [a muscle] is going to cause the most change.”

There will come a time where the marketers will get together and broadly challenge the FDA’s role in limiting advertising around drugs. When that challenge happens, it’s going to be critical for scientists to point out all the examples where advertising drove the use of dangerous products. Let’s try to build the record, and I’ll start–

-Listerine used to be advertised as effective in preventing deadly diseases, such as the flu and TB.
-Lysol used to be advertised as a douche!

Watch your newsstand for the July issue of Harper’s Magazine. Today’s Wall Street Journal reports today that Harper’s Ken Silverstein has written an article describing his experience posing as a businessman with interests in improving the image of Turkmenistan. He approaches lobbying firms, and hints that he represents a front company that can direct oil revenues to officials in Turkmenistan.

The results are very revealing. They show how lobbying and public relations strategies work–attack opponents as “biased,” hold bogus conferences to lure journalists hosted by others (the so called “third party method”), etc. These are activities that take place every day in DC, and they work.

Both APCO Associates and Cassidy & Associates gave Mr. Silverstein a sales pitch outlining their strategy and successes in similar cases. They recommended an aggressive campaign against “biased” news stories, organizing conferences at which sympathetic views could be aired, finding ways to get members of Congress to take paid trips to Turkmenistan and emphasizing how much the U.S. would benefit if Turkmenistan further opened its economy to outside investment.

APCO recommended holding forums for journalists, academics and politicians, hosted by a third party, where a Turkmen politician could give a speech. To avoid the feel of a paid advertisement, the lobby firm suggested possible names for the forum such as “Energy Security” or “Caspian Basin Pipelines.”

Cassidy took credit for helping to clean up the image of President Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea. Three years ago, he had been ranked the world’s sixth-worst dictator by Parade Magazine. The firm pointed out he was no longer in the top 10.

And get this–APCO won PR Agency of the Year in 2006 from PR Magazine!

Of course, these tactics are used outside Washington, and PR firms even use academics in their efforts. Earlier this year, the Boston Globe reported that “eSapience,” a consulting company, had engaged a number of top academics to remedy the image of a common (but rich) alleged fraudster:

Business ethicists are questioning why the academics, affiliated with some of the top business and law schools, joined a campaign to repair the image of Maurice R. “Hank” Greenberg , who was forced to resign in February 2005 as chairman of American Insurance Group Inc., billing him at rates of $400 to $1,000 an hour.

[…]

The academics, working with eSapience, a little-known Cambridge company calling itself a new media and research firm, included Richard Schmalensee , dean of MIT’s Sloan School of Management; David S. Evans , adjunct professor at University College London; and Richard Epstein , a University of Chicago law professor.

Their mission was “to change the public conversation about Maurice Greenberg ,” according to a confidential plan summary. This was to be accomplished, in part, by organizing invitation-only events where “influencers” would hear Greenberg weigh in on insurance issues and by penning papers, editorials, books, and other content aimed at putting the executive in a favorable light, the summary said.

[…]

The eSapience plan, though it doesn’t name him, seems aimed at discrediting Eliot Spitzer , the crusading former New York attorney general who is now the state’s governor. As attorney general, Spitzer filed a half dozen civil charges against Greenberg, accusing him of using accounting tricks to mask AIG’s underwriting losses and faltering reserves. Some of the charges were later dropped, and Greenberg continues to contest the remaining charges.

[…]

While they aren’t mentioned in the suit, the eSapience plan summary presented to C.V. Starr lists several other academics as members of what it calls its “core academic team and network,” suggesting “they are ready to begin the development of the papers, articles, opeds, books, monographs, and other content related to our key themes,” such as the onerous insurance regulatory environment.

Three of those listed, Harvard Business School professors Josh Lerner and Andrei Hagui and Boston University law professor Keith Hylton , last week said they played no role in the Greenberg campaign. Another, Robert Hahn , executive director of AEI-Brookings Center for Regulation, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Renegade Evolution encourages us to spend some time today blogging for sex education (she has a great feminist blog by the way).

I thought to further this aim I’d talk about this recent Nation article about the scam that is the abstinence education industry. Basically, it’s just pork for the already-wealthy right-wing friends of the administration who use their money to attack abortion and fund denialist groups like the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America.

(more…)

As Paris Hilton gets ready for her short stay in jail, she increasingly is photographed carrying Jesus books. And today, she appears on my favorite blog wearing a “Faith” hoodie, and carrying Count Your Blessings, Spiritual Warrior, and some others.

Her behavior recalls Machiavelli’s advice:

…a prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the…five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. There is nothing more necessary to appear to have than this last quality, inasmuch as men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them; and in the actions of all men, and especially of princes, which it is not prudent to challenge, one judges by the result.

Oh when will we outgrow this infantilism? It’s scary that this pro forma “got religion” act, so frequently performed in this country, actually sways people.

We’ve been on for one month now. It was a pretty good start. We got about 110k pageviews, about 54k visitors, 100 entries and 1050 comments on those entries. We’ve gone through what makes a denialist argument, what makes a crank, 3 major categories of denialists (there are many more) and almost a whole deck of denialist cards – only the high cards are left.

If you like the job we’re doing, let us know. If there is something you want more of, we’d be happy to hear about it. As always, if you’re just joining us and you want to read what we’re all about, our “about” page summarizes the major posts to get you caught up to speed.

Some followup from the earlier post:

If Gonzalez thinks ID is science, and not religion, he may have an even harder time arguing that there is discrimination here. Professors, rightly so, have freedom of religion and can believe whatever they want in their personal lives. However, if he thinks ID is science, I don’t think it is discrimination to count that fact against a candidate, just as it wouldn’t be discrimination to give a student a lower grade for having a wrong answer on a test. Writing a book about DI applied to astronomy would be exactly the type of extramural statement that would “demonstrate[] the faculty member’s unfitness for his or her position.”

Final thought: It’s really impossible to say whether this is an academic freedom issue without knowing the process and substance of the ISU tenure review. Perhaps more details will emerge on the institutional appeal, but chances are, the decision of the committee will be upheld. Gonzalez could choose to sue, but in the process, Gonzalez would bear the burden of proving that 1) protected speech was involved (easier to prove if ID is a religion), 2) ISU impermissibly discriminated based on this protected speech, and 3) Gonzalez’s interest in expressing the ID hypothesis outweighs the institution’s interests. In the discovery process, Gonzalez would have to open his files and emails to the institution’s counsel, who would pick through it and may find embarrassing communications with the ID groups.

(In fact, if any of you are real jerks and want to have fun with this guy, I’d suggest filing a freedom of information act request under Iowa state law for Gonzalez’s emails with outside DI groups. His email may be exempt (I don’t know the particulars of Iowa law; in other states, requestors have obtained professors’ email), but it’s a fairly simple and low-cost intervention.)

And even if Gonzalez wins his case, what does it get him? A court-ordered appointment in a department where he’s not welcome! Generally, if you’ve lost your tenure case, it’s best to move on quietly and try again at another school. No other school will want to hire you if you make a federal case of it.

First, a disclaimer: I don’t know much of anything about this controversy surrounding Guillermo Gonzalez, but I do know a fair amount about academic freedom. I wrote an article several years ago on legal protection for professors’ speech. Legally, professors have the same rights as ordinary public employees, and so only a small spectrum of academic speech is protected by the First Amendment. As a result, many institutions have been successful when they decided to fire a professor based on their expression.

Of course, most of these disputes never make it to the courts. Internal rules at institutions, both substantive and procedural, guided by principles adopted by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), and norms that are tolerant of professors’ activities are the real law of academic freedom. Legally, academic freedom is too narrow for my taste; in the setting of the institution, it’s much broader, but not limitless. If it had no limits, no institution could made tenure decisions without accusations of discrimination.

It’s worth considering AAUP’s 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure in thinking about these situations. AAUP, a strong advocate of free expression, recognizes that academic freedom is contextual, and that it has its limits. Specifically, note how AAUP’s statement provides the greatest shield in contexts where the professor is speaking in her area of expertise, and less protection for comment on unrelated (“extramural”) matters:

Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject.

[…]

College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.

Interpretative comments to this second paragraph note that an institution can fire a professor for extramural activities under certain circumstances and through exercising adequate due process:

If the administration of a college or university feels that a teacher has not observed the admonitions of paragraph 3 (quoted above) of the section on Academic Freedom and believes that the extramural utterances of the teacher have been such as to raise grave doubts concerning the teacher’s fitness for his or her position, it may proceed to file charges…In pressing such charges, the administration should remember that teachers are citizens and should be accorded the freedom of citizens. In such cases the administration must assume full responsibility, and the American Association of University Professors and the Association of American Colleges are free to make an investigation.

However, circumstances where extramural activities can result in dismissal are rare:

Paragraph 3 of the section on Academic Freedom in the 1940 Statement should also be interpreted in keeping with the 1964 Committee A Statement on Extramural Utterances, which states inter alia: “The controlling principle is that a faculty member’s expression of opinion as a citizen cannot constitute grounds for dismissal unless it clearly demonstrates the faculty member’s unfitness for his or her position. Extramural utterances rarely bear upon the faculty member’s fitness for the position. Moreover, a final decision should take into account the faculty member’s entire record as a teacher and scholar.”

Some other observations:

These standards are usually viewed from the perspective of an institution trying to discipline a professor for political activities; a different set of procedural standards are used to evaluate nonreappointment, which is apparently what happened to Gonzalez. Academic freedom is part of reappointment decisions, of course, but the institution still can evaluate intramural work and determine for itself whether it is worthy of tenure.

People with good reasoning skills don’t fall for stupid things like spun arguments and advertising.

I always suspected that if we taught a basic reasoning class in public schools in which kids were taught about logic and critical thinking it might lead to a decrease in the efficacy of advertisement.

Reasoning abilities are influenced by intelligence and socioeconomic status, but they are also skills that can be learned and honed with practice, says a “decision scientist” at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Many people are affected by the way that information is framed, marketed or spun, as in advertisements, thereby exhibiting poor decision-making skills, says Wändi Bruine de Bruin. But people with strong reasoning skills make the same choices no matter how information is presented to them.

For example, if a brand of beef is advertised as being 95 percent lean, a person should be equally likely to buy it as if it is advertised as being 5 percent fat, she said.

Her research, set to be published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, shows a scientific link between people who are their own worst enemies and reasoning skills, although it is still unclear if the thinking problem causes the social incompetencies.

…

Bruine de Bruin’s study also looked at how different factors, such as intelligence and socioeconomic status, affect decision-making. She was surprised to find that, although these variables affect how well a person reasons, they don’t explain it entirely-reasoning appears to be a separate skill.

In other words, “smart people don’t automatically make good decisions,” said Eric Johnson, a professor at the Columbia Business School, who was not involved in the study.

If reasoning is a distinct skill, then a big question is whether it can be taught. Bruine de Bruin hopes to answer this question by teaching people better reasoning skills and following them over time to see how their lives change.

I can’t wait to see the outcome of the proposed trial, will it further substantiate the poor-reasoning = believing advertisement hypothesis? Also, I’d love to hear what the cognitive neuro people think of the study.