March 21, 2005
Spin
I’ve heard that the US administration spent $254 million in its first four years to buy self-aggrandizing puffery from PR firms. It is said that at least twenty agencies made and distributed fake news segments for them to local TV stations. The word is out that there are even journalists and columnists being bought just to spin and whirl us like carnival cotton candy.
I suppose it’s no secret that OoN runs on a slim-to-nothing budget that up until now has worked just fine until recently when we took a leave of absence in the UK that cost us a bundle. Of course, it did give us some new ideas about Nowhere (the column, not the place). But when we came home to discover how much can be made by spinning, we thought maybe we might recover our losses and get one of those paid journalist’s job. Of course, we aren’t really journalists, just country preachers, but neither, we hear, are those who sell their wares to the White House press room.
Fake news seems to help our secular leaders. Being preachers and all, we could probably be good at that, and heaven especially knows old mother church maybe could use some fake news to help with the Good News. On the other hand, when it comes to puffery, our beloved primates seem to be doing quite well on their own.