S1, Ep1 | Fake Experts and Real Bacon

Amy Westervelt [00:00:02] The American Breakfast is a staple of diners and kitchen tables up and down the country. But that wasn't always the case. In fact, the American Breakfast was the brainchild of the self-styled father of public relations man who literally saved the US meat industry's bacon. Welcome to rigged. The story of disinformation and rigged will rummage through the bag of tricks used by PR to shape the world you live in. These tricks are used to manipulate your feelings, fend off regulation and evade public scrutiny. Over the last century, they've rigged the media, the government society really to benefit the rich and powerful with sometimes ridiculous and sometimes profoundly serious effects on our democracy. This is a podcast about that war for hearts and minds and bacon right here on U.S. soil. I'm Amy Westervelt. Today's trick fake experts. But first breakfast

Gordon Ramsey archival [00:01:09] cracking your eggs nice and gently. Just a little sprinkling of the cayenne. Make the eggs a little bit spicy, then into a preheated oven for six to eight minutes. Meanwhile, onto my bacon and I'm giving it a classic American twist. We're just going to bring

Cooking show archival [00:01:24] it back down to ground level and make proper scrambled eggs and perfectly cooked bacon. We're basically just going over the most basic breakfast you can make. We're just going to take this simple ingredients. We just have eggs. We just had bacon and we have some toast.

Paula Deen archival [00:01:40] So one of the requests was show me three ways that I can cook bacon. While actually I could show you flour if I was in my house with my deep fryer.

Amy Westervelt [00:01:56] But it's hard to imagine it was ever rare for Americans to eat bacon with breakfast. Go to most diners in the country today and what's listed under classic breakfasts. Almost all include bacon, pancakes and bacon, bacon and eggs, French toast and bacon bacon with bacon wrapped in more bacon.

Mary Annaise Heglar [00:02:16] Let me tell you, as a vegan, breakfast is the most obnoxious meal to eat out because it's all bacon sausage. I couldn't eat a damn thing.

Amy Westervelt [00:02:27] This is Mary Annaise Heglar, my friend and frequent collaborator. I've spent most of the last 20 years researching disinformation and propaganda, and mostly that entails sitting in the dark corner of an archive, looking through the papers of a long dead PR guy and then going, Oh my God, this can't be real. Is it real? I don't know. To myself, when I need a sanity check something, I call up Mary.

Mary Annaise Heglar [00:02:53] I brought whiskey for this occasion because I have no idea where this is going.

Amy Westervelt [00:02:56] That's good. That's good.

[00:02:57] So, OK, it might seem totally normal that the classic American Breakfast is built around bacon because so many of the first settlers in America were from the UK or Ireland. Even the Brits were carrying, salting and eating pork belly from the early Middle Ages onward. And by the 18th century, it was a standard part of the English breakfast. Look, in one 180, the British people didn't exactly have a great life expectancy anyway. English immigrants to the American colonies brought pigs with them, and bacon really took off in the new world, where there was plenty of space to build hog heaven. By the 1870s, Cincinnati was known as Porkopolis and Chicago. Meatpacking plants were butchering more than a million pigs every year for workers doing manual labor on a farm or maybe in a mine or the railroads, a meaty breakfast helped them get through the day. But as the 20th century marched on, most Americans weren't doing that kind of work anymore. Even in factories, people weren't expending as much energy and a health food. Back to nature kind of movement emerged and began reshaping the American diet. So for most Americans, breakfast had become a pretty light meal, a piece of toast or a roll, maybe juice coffee. That's it. With the disappearance of the cooked breakfast, bacon was facing its own demise. It's Armageddon, if you like. Enter Edward Bernays, one of the founders of Modern Public Relations. If you listen to my other podcast, Drilled, you might remember Bernie's from his work with the oil industry. We'll stick a link in the show notes for those of you who are curious. At any rate, Bernays considered himself of high pedigree, often boasting about being Sigmund Freud's double nephew. Wait, what?

Bernays archival [00:04:50] Well, my mother was his younger sister, and my father was the brother of his wife.

Amy Westervelt [00:04:59] Weird flex. But. OK. Growing up with the Freud's had a huge impact on bearnaise.

Bernays archival [00:05:06] I heard about my uncle's theory of dream interpretation. I heard about psychology as being an important force in evaluating human behavior. I heard of repression and repression and suppression and projection and and taboos and Oedipal complexes.

Amy Westervelt [00:05:34] Bernays loved to tell this story. In fact, it's hard to find an interview with him where he didn't mention it. There are two types of PR guys the behind the scenes Svengali types who keep a low profile. And then there are the PR guys who make sure they're the story. Bernays was definitely the latter. He spent as much time on his own image as he did on his clients. They're part of this image was to cast himself as the father of public relations. If people took that to mean he was the world's first publicist, he didn't correct them. But that title actually belonged to his friend, colleague and mentor, a guy named Ivy Lee that you'll meet in a minute. First, more Bernays!

[00:06:18] Bernays loved sitting around listening to double Uncle Siggie's theories, but his father wanted him to do something practical with his life. He even sent Bernays to Cornell to study agriculture, hoping he'd follow his father into the green business. But it quickly became clear that this was not in the cards. Eddie Bernays was not a great guy. He fancied himself a member of the intellectual elite. He loved theater books singing. He wore expensive suits and flashy scarves, and he sported a mustache that definitely required grooming. He was a dandy, even by 1912 standards. Within a year of graduating, he was already working as a press agent for theater and ballet, and he loved it. He was already bringing Uncle Sigmund theories into that work, too. When I found one of the earliest examples of that, I had to run it by Mary.

[00:07:11] He had this idea for a poster for a Russian ballet that he was working for, and he he he had the one of the main dancers, a woman named Flor Ravel. And he put her in like a really tight dress and took her to the Bronx Zoo and had her pose with a giant boa constrictor.

Mary Annaise Heglar [00:07:37] Oh my! Why would he do this?

Amy Westervelt [00:07:44] Like sort of his first foray into incorporating his uncle's theories about repressed sexual desire into PR and marketing,.

Mary Annaise Heglar [00:07:55] Like what's the message here? Is the snake a dick?

Amy Westervelt [00:08:01] Basically, yes. Yes, very subtle. Very subtle,.

Mary Annaise Heglar [00:08:07] Nobody wants a dick that big! I don't know why he would do this.

Amy Westervelt [00:08:13] He was just trying to get people to go to the ballet man. And he thought, like, sexy lady. Oh, the snake. Yeah, that's it.

[00:08:23] But it wasn't all just snake dicks and ballet tickets. Bernays was about to have a huge impact on shaping the American story thanks to his successful work for the ballet. Bernays was tapped to join the government's propaganda arm was called the Committee for Public Information. It was a group of journalists, artists, filmmakers and press agents all brought together to sell the American public on the need to join World War One. The President Woodrow Wilson, had been elected largely because he promised to stay out of the war. Now he had to sell the public on a U-turn. That was the committee's job, and they delivered. Here's a speech they wrote for one of the country's foremost bankers in 1918.

WWI Archival [00:09:06] It is simply a question now of the survival of autocracy or democracy they are in now. Just grappled. It is a fight to the finish and it is up to us.

Amy Westervelt [00:09:20] Bernays' role was to paint the picture a broad of Americans as fiercely independent freedom fighters who would liberate Europe and shine a light on the path forward to democracy. Here he is, describing that time in the Adam Curtis documentary The Century of the Self.

Bernays archival [00:09:37] At the age of nineteen twenty six, I was in Paris for the entire time of the peace conference. Then, with heroin in this, we were fast and we were to make the world safe for democracy that was being slow.

Amy Westervelt [00:09:56] And this was eye-opening to Bernays. Woodrow Wilson is famously one of the country's most boring and uncharismatic presidents, and propaganda had transformed him into a superhero. Freedom Man and

Bernays archival [00:10:12] I came back to the United States. I decided that if you could use propaganda for war, you can certainly use it for peace and propaganda to be a bad word because you know the German using it. So what I did was to try to find some other words. So we found a way to counter the public relations

Mary Annaise Heglar [00:10:45] Wait wait i have questions. So before this was propaganda like an OK word?

Amy Westervelt [00:10:51] Yes,.

Mary Annaise Heglar [00:10:51] People were just like, Yeah, we're just going to spit out some propaganda.

Amy Westervelt [00:10:53] Yes.

Mary Annaise Heglar [00:10:54] No. Big deal,.

Amy Westervelt [00:10:54] Yes!This is also why I think it's so funny when people try now to to, like, differentiate between PR and propaganda because they're literally the same thing.

Mary Annaise Heglar [00:11:07] So, OK, so in 1910 or whatever you could say, I work in propaganda with a straight face. Yes.

Amy Westervelt [00:11:16] Yes. In fact, Bernays  wrote a book called Propaganda that was like considered a serious book. It wasn't like a critique of propaganda. It was like, Here's how propaganda works. You know, it was the same as like a book now that would be like the basics of public relations.

Mary Annaise Heglar [00:11:37] And so you're saying that what at the end of World War One, that was when propaganda became a bad word, a word you didn't want to say out loud, though people obviously kept doing it. That's right. And this guy was like, Let's just call it public relations.

Mary Annaise Heglar [00:11:52] Let's use two words instead of one.

Amy Westervelt [00:11:54] Yeah, that's exactly what he did!

Amy Westervelt [00:11:56] So how did this theater kid turned propagandist come to wage war on America's breakfast plate? And what does any of this have to do with bacon? To answer that, we have to go back in time a bit to talk about the early days of the American railroad. That's right. We're talking about trains! Back with that after this quick break.

Amy Westervelt [00:12:27] OK, so remember, at the top of this episode, I mentioned that there was another guy who started doing PR before Bernays: Ivy Lee. He got his start working for the railroads and the coal companies and eventually really made a name for himself working for the Rockefellers. We're going to talk about Lee again in this season because he was a real pioneer in this industry. But this time we're going to focus on one technique in particular: fake experts. Or, I guess, real experts, but secretly funded by corporations.

[00:13:03] Today, we have this very warm and fuzzy, almost romantic view of the railroads. Traveling by train feels cool or special. Maybe a little old timey. Of course, the majority of trains now as then are not for travel, but for freight, for cheaply and quickly moving stuff from one part of the country to another oil, coal, wood and all kinds of other goods zigzagged the country in trains every day. And back in the early 1800s, that was not a quaint or romantic affair. It was terrifying. Trains were constantly derailing and crashing because the industry cared way more about money than safety. They ran the trains too fast and too full, and it got so bad that in the late 1800s, the railways actually became the first industry to be regulated by the U.S. government. How bad does it have to be that you get regulated in the eighteen hundreds? It's like being kicked out of Westworld for bad behavior. So, yeah, not a huge shock that PR emerges right as the U.S. government first starts to regulate business. And as the vote is being extended to lots of people who are not captains of industry, PR was a handy way to keep power in the hands of the powerful in the face of creeping democracy. By the early 1800s, the public was starting to think this regulation thing was probably a good idea and that annoyed the shit out of industry, which made PR even more appealing. Miners began striking, and workers in other industries weren't far behind. Journalists began portraying America's executives as greedy industrialists who were cutting corners and exploiting workers. The public was hungry for industrialist blood, and this is when propagandist extraordinaire Ivy Lee stepped into the picture. Ivy Lee began arranging the first press tours and press conferences to show journalists just how much the railroad companies put into safety. He also created the Bureau of Railway Economics, which looked and sounded like an independent bureau of economists, but was entirely funded by the rail industry. The bureau's experts pushed the same line again and again. They said regulations and taxes would be bad. They'd just increase costs and force job cuts for the railroads, and that would make everything more expensive for consumers. No one wants that right. They said it made more sense to let the railroad companies handle these things themselves. And Lee left no stone unturned. One year to promote a rate hike for his clients, Lee created a coordinated campaign designed to get the public behind paying more to have their goods from here to books shipped across the country. Yes, you heard that right. That it was a good thing to pay more for shipping costs. First, he had the bureau right to journalists across the country briefing them that the railways had very high labor costs. Pretty soon, articles citing these costs started to appear everywhere. Then he placed ads and opinion pieces in more than 20000 newspapers. Then he hosted events with local chambers of commerce and businessmen, encouraging each of them to write to 10 friends in support of the reading increase. At a certain point. Lee even casually left folders of information in passenger cars on trains for passengers to just happen across. It's honestly a miracle he didn't go door to door at this point. He must have really enjoyed riding the rails. It was a very clever campaign of manipulation, convinced the public that the extra money they'd be paying would be going to workers, and it was absolutely not the fault of the railroad company. Probably those greedy unions. Very few journalists knew that the bureau had been created by Lee and funded by the railroad companies themselves. None had any idea the lengths Lee was going to. Decades later, Bernays would deploy a similar tactic on behalf of a client who needed to sell. You guessed it, more bacon. Today, if you know the name beach, not at all. It's as a baby food company. But back then, they were known for ham and bacon. From the late eighteen hundreds to the 1940s, they were one of the country's primary providers of both in the 1920s. They approached Eddie Bernays with a problem. You remember Eddie Bernays? He's the literal mustache twirling villain from part one. Fancy scarves? Double nephew, snake penis, that guy.

Bernays archival [00:18:03] Many years ago, our client was the Beechnut packing company. We made a research and found out that the American public a very light breakfast of coffee, maybe a roll and orange juice.

Amy Westervelt [00:18:23] The US had fewer and fewer manual workers in the 1920s and 1930s. Chances were high that the average U.S. worker would be sitting at a desk or in front of a sewing machine. They didn't need a gutbuster breakfast to get them through the day. And that's not great news if you sell bacon. So what to do? Bernays borrowed a page from his old friend Ivy Lee's book and found himself a fake expert. Well, technically a paid expert. What if a doctor said it was actually healthier to eat a big breakfast? Or better yet, what if a bunch of doctors said that

Bernays archival [00:19:02] we went to a physician found that a heavy breakfast was sounded from the standpoint of health? Then a light breakfast because the body loses energy during the night and needs it during the day.

Amy Westervelt [00:19:22] There is a serious amount of spin packed into this one sentence. Bernays says, "We went to our physician. So right off the bat, it sounds like this is just your average family doctor. But we know from various documents Bernays left behind that he was in fact, the PR firms in-house doctor. So it's not exactly chicken pulses and whacking meals. And then before we even hear what the doctor has to say, Bernays is planting an idea in our heads. The body loses energy during the night. Sure, that makes sense, kind of. Then he goes on to explain how one doctor became many, all touting the health benefits of bacon.

Bernays archival [00:20:05] We asked the physician after telling him why we were talking to him. Would you be willing and at no cost to write to five thousand physicians and ask them whether their judgment was the same as his confirmed his judgment?

Amy Westervelt [00:20:28] Amazing. Would he be willing at no cost because he already works for us to write to five thousand physicians willing he'd be happy? Do anything to further the humanitarian mission of getting people to eat more bacon like I believe before him, Bernays realized that if the public knew that that doctor's expert opinion was bought and paid for, they would see right through the trick. We have no idea what exactly that doctor sent out or what exactly those 5000 other doctors set back. But we do know that Bernays sent a press release out to all the papers and magazines, saying All these doctors agree a heavier breakfast is better.

Bernays archival [00:21:10] That was publicized in the newspapers. Newspapers throughout the country had a headline saying Forty five hundred physicians urge every breakfast in order to improve health with the American people. Many of them stated that bacon and eggs should be embodied with the breakfast. And as a result, the sale of bacon went up.

Amy Westervelt [00:21:42] Oh gee, I wonder why they just happened to suggest bacon and eggs as part of that heavier breakfast. So a bacon industry hungry for profits and a PR man hungry for kudos work together to build an American institution, a classic American breakfast, bacon and eggs. But the PR industry's use of paid experts didn't stop at the diner, since Lee and Bernie is loads of other industries have used paid experts. Eventually paid experts became key to a new trick. Science denial a very effective tactic embraced by the tobacco companies, oil companies, chemical companies, you name it. Here's a food industry funded expert in 2015, telling people they really don't need to worry about antibiotics in meat.

Center for Accountability in Science [00:22:34] But is this meat actually healthier for consumers? Antibiotics are an important tool for farmers to treat sick animals and prevent animals from getting ill by strategically using these drugs. Farmers in Shaw only meat from healthy animals eventually makes it to your plate. Choosing a burrito or a footlong sub labeled antibiotic free might make you feel like you're making a healthier choice. But in reality, you're simply paying more for a label.

Amy Westervelt [00:23:03] He works for the very independent sounding Center for Accountability in Science, an organization funded largely by the food and restaurant industries. Here's cancer researcher Clarence Cook little in the 1950s, telling people they probably don't need to worry about smoking.

Murrow archival [00:23:22] Dr Little have any cancer causing agents been identified in cigarets. No, none whatsoever, either in cigarets or in any product of smoking. As such,

Amy Westervelt [00:23:35] at the time, even Edward R. Murrow, the famous journalist little was talking to There, had no idea the research he was citing had been paid for by the tobacco industry. And then there's the oil funded Austrian physicist Fred Singer. He doesn't want consumers worrying themselves about climate change and CO2.

Singer archival [00:23:55] Certainly manmade, yes. So it's plausible that humans could be affecting the climate. They would just have to look at the data. That's what we do know. The satellites don't show any warming.

Amy Westervelt [00:24:07] Singer around the very pro-environment sounding science and environmental policy project funded by a web of fossil fuel groups and dark money right wing think tanks. There are plenty more examples across really any industry that might not love the idea of regulation and look, nonprofits hire experts and fund think tanks, too. The problem here isn't so much that companies have a research agenda that's sort of to be expected. It's how they hide that agenda and try to porn industry funded research off as being completely independent or even name a think tank, something like the Center for Science that helps the little guy. So you think they're on your side? People shouldn't have to untangle a web of dark money organizations to figure out what information they can trust. It's an unfair burden to put on the public. Unfortunately, that's the world the PR experts created, and now we all have to live in it. But if you know how to spot certain techniques, you can save yourself a lot of time and confusion. To recap, here are the signs that you're being pitched by a fake expert. They misrepresent the other side's viewpoint, making a straw man argument when they can easily tear to pieces. They cherry pick data points and studies, sharing the bits that support the argument and ignoring everything else. They don't tell you who's funding them or any of the research they quote. There, overarching message is that you shouldn't worry about whatever problem they're discussing and the powers that be. Have it under control. The point of these kinds of campaigns is to convince you that whatever you're worrying about don't it's fine the grown ups habit and not that's it for this episode. Next week, we're going to take a dark turn and learn about a technique that's been around for over 100 years. In fact, one of the very first PR techniques The Myth of the Crisis actor.

[00:26:12] Thank you for joining us on this hair raising journey through the murky history of PR. Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to take this ride all the way to the end. Rigged is an original Critical Frequency production. Lots of documents, photos, videos and other fun facts about the wild world of PR are on our website at Rigged Dot Media. Our producer is Martin Salt's Bostwick. He also scored this season. Artwork is by Matthew Fleming. Our fact checker is Ashley Bryan. Our First Amendment attorney is James Wheaton of the First Amendment project big thanks to Mary Agnes Hagler, who you'll hear throughout this series. If you want to hear more of Mary Mary joking around. Check out Hot. Take the show we do about climate change. Archival tape in this episode is courtesy of the Library of Congress. The show is reported by me. Amy Westervelt. Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time.