The INQUIRER Guide to Spin Doctors

YOU KNOW the worst kind of spin doctors are ex-journalists. Despite having accepted the schilling (qv), they insist on being exscreamly pally when they sidle up to you and shove a dingy press release (qv) into your hand.

"I used to be a journalist you know," they say. "Before I realised I was really crap at it and could earn far more loot by pulling the wool over hacks' eyes," they don't say, but imply. It is the ultimate form of ingratiation. Our advice to young spinners is not to try this one on experienced old hacks and hackettes.

Any good journalist does not last long as a spin doctor. It is very humiliating to a real journalist to peddle lies you haven't invented yourself.

These days young spinners and spinnerettes have often been to "journalist college", where you can get "degrees" in spinning which last an incredible three years in some cases.

There are even "professors of journalism" these days, 'boffin about as well as, can you believe this, "professors of PR"? [No. Ed.]

A Digression
This is in sharp distinction to the old daze, when the mark of an intrepid hack was not only that he could go for days in an alcoholic days and still file word perfect copy but wouldn't be allowed back into the office and told to stay a-boozin' because if power dressing publishers saw how stories were conjured out of the haze, they'd wonder just what sort of organisation they were involved in.

Here are some true stories. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

A young lad left school with only two "O" level passes to his credit, in English Language and in English Literature. He approached a local newspaper for a job as an editorial assistant. He was told that a minimum of five "O" levels were required. Realising that he had a Remington typewriter similar to the one used to type his two passes, he just added six more. He got the job.

Two years later, going for another job, he discovered that when you passed "A" levels, the authorities used the same certificate. So he added three "A" levels too.

Another Digression
One of the top old hacks working in today's UK press was convicted of murder. His bosses just don't let him out of the office so they can keep their eye on him.

Back to Spinners
The relationship between a journalist and a PR man or woman is often described as "symbiotic".

Dictionary.com describes symbiosis as a close prolonged association between two or more different organisms of different species that may, but does not necessarily, benefit each member. And as a relationship of mutual benefit or dependence. See glossary below: Spindependence.

Sometimes real members get involved in the close association between journalists and PRs. This, of course, is the ultimate form of symbiosis, but generally speaking sexual contact is not part of the deal.

PRs often describe journalists as "cynical", not realising that the Cynic School, thought to have been en founded by Diogenes by Sinope, who was alleged like some ancient hacks to live in a barrel, attracted attention by their eccentricities and by their insolence. So it is not an insult to be described as deeply cynical.

The Glossary
It has become the established tradition in the INQ to always include a glossary for Guides, so we've been forced by the editor to include one here as well.

Spincredible Press releases that are hard to believe, in other words, an oxymoron.
Spindestructible A hack protected by spinsulation (qv) who is impervious to spinnuendo (qv).
Spindigo The colour of a journalist who has been spun a "line" by a spinner.
Spindoctrinate The inculcation of only the positive features of a product, a company or an individual.
Spinedible Free food at press gigs.
Spineffectual Strange, 'tis, how many words beginning with spin are oxymorons.
Spineleuctable As night follows day, as death follows life, as open pubs close, so it is a fact of life that press releases will arrive out of nowhere, a bit like a blizzard in the Sahara.
Spinefficient Another oxymoron.
Spinfest 1. To disseminate porkies about products or individuals in the form of press releases (qv) in the hope that hacks will not read between the lines or go to the last paragraph which in fine words butters the awful truth about said individuals, products, or companies. 2. A PR party (qv).
Spinfected A journalist who has taken the meaning of symbiosis that final intimate step and who therefore "sleeps with the enema".
Spinquirer A press release issued by, or on behalf of Breakthrough Publishing Limited and its main organ, the INQUIRER.
Spinsulation Hacks that are impervious to the subtle and cunning wiles of spinners are said to have spinsulation. It keeps their body temperatures level and both fed and watered whether it's summer or winter.
Spinsulted When a spinner rings up a hack and says: "Have you got the press release I sent you about [insert topic here]?" a wily and spinsulated journo will say: "I have never been so spinsulted in all of my life" and promptly hang up the phone. Wily spinners know this, so often mention "press trips" in the same sentence as "press releases", so the phone isn't slammed down on the hook, as it used to be called.
Spintact Unlike integrity, PR people are always very tactful to journos in public, while dissing them, gossiping about them, besmirching their reputations with spinnuendo (qv) and trying to get them fired behind their back.
Spintel A particular type of public relations person who invariably refuses to comment on unannounced products, and produces huge screeds on how to deal with the European press.
Spintelligence The ability to spot a PR pitch hours before it arrives.
Spintelligent An oxymoron.
Spinterminable Ah how you sigh when you get to a press conference and on the tables or the chairs there is a 400 page Powerpoint presentation, while the marketeers salivate at the thought of boring you to tears without food or drink for several hours.
Spinnuendo Making suggestions that may lead to symbiosis.
System Spintegrator A PR person who tries to foist press releases about companies who make white boxes. µ

See Also
The INQUIRER guide series
The INQUIRER Guide to Media Training I
The INQUIRER Guide to Media Training II
The INQUIRER Guide to Media Training III