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Spin: From Tactic to Tabloid

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Journal of Public Affairs
J. Publ. Aff 6: 31-45 (2006)
Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.coin). DOI: 10.1002/pa.37

Spin: from tactic to tabloid

Leighton Andrews*
Member of the National Assembly for Wales; Honorary Professor, School ofJournalism,
Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University

• Over the last fifteen years, the word Spin has come to define both the process ofpoUtical
communication, and the practice of public relations itself. The history of the term requires
some examination. Arguably, until around 1992, Spin did not have such a widespread
meaning—it was simply one tactic in an election campaigner's armoury.
• Now it seems to embrace the whole process of communication, not only between election
campaigners and the media, but also between a Government and its people, or between a
public relations professional in any field, and his or her target publics.
• The development o/Spin as a word has gone through a number of stages which will be
addressed in the course of this paper. It now has widespread popular usage, which has
arisen through two principal processes: The increasing celebrity status of the spin-doctor
role: and the usefulness of the word to tabloid sub-editors.
• By 1997, when New Labour came into Government, the discourse of spin was firmly
established.
Copyright © 2006 fohn Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction between the Democrats and The West Wing

At the recent Democratic Convention in
Boston, the camera cut aw^ay from the first
main speaker, former President Bill Clinton, to
show celebrities in the audience. First up was
Richard Kind, the actor who plays the hapless
Press Officer, Paul, in Spin City. Next was
Richard Schiff, who plays White House Direc-
tor of Communications Toby Ziegler in The
West Wing. Here was the President on whose
watch the term 'spin' took off, arguably 'the
most celebrity-focused President' (Schroeder,
2004): and here w^ere two of the actors whose
careers bloomed thanks to the media's absorp-
tion with the subject. The interconnections
*Con-esponcience to: Leighton Andrews AM, National
Assembly for Wales, Cardiff Bay, Cardiff, CF99 INA,
Wales, UK.
E-mail: leighton.andrew^sOwales.gov.uk
cast run deep of course: at the 2000 DNC the
cast held a party for delegates, and visited their
biggest fan. Bill Clinton, in the White House
that year (TLehmann, 2003; Pampper, 2003).
Spin is now one of the most overused, and
arguably least meaningful, w^ords in use in
political communication. This is a global phe-
nomenon: as Esser e?«/. (2000) comment, 'over
the years, the usage of the term 'spin' has
broadened in all countries'.
Some recent examples will demonstrate the
development. According to the Daily Mirror
(Gilfeather, 2002a), the British Home Office
spentib27 million 'on spin in just 12 months': in
other words, the Government's advertising
budget, which includes relatively uncontested
items such as campaigns to persuade moto-
rists not to drink and drive, is now^ defmed as
spin, (see also, Katbamna, 2004, suggesting
that Royal Navy recruitment advertising was

Copyright © 2006 John WUey & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Public Affairs, February 2006
32
'spinning the official line on Iraq'.) Standard
government press releases are also defined as
spin (Gilfeather, 2002b).
But spin today also defines relationships
between a business and its stakeholders. The
New Economics Foundation, recording the
development of Corporate Social Responsibil-
ity programmes within business, warns that
they are so much 'Corporate Spin'. (NEF, 2000)
Beder (2002) analyses what she calls the
'corporate assault on environmentalism' as
'global spin'.
The term is often used anachronistically.
Bernard Ingham is the 'spinner of yesteryear'
(Atticus, 2002, and see Pitcher, 2002: p. 41)
though the term was not in widespread use
during his v^^ork for Mrs Thatcher. It has also
been used of Kennedy's press secretary, Pierre
Salinger (Henley, 2004). Similarly, it has been
used to define the profession of public relations
itself (Ewen, 1996) and to define one of its
founding fathers (Tye, 1998; note also Pitcher,
2002: p. 41). Had either book been written
even a decade earlier, it is unlikely that the
word spin would have featured in their title.
Increasingly it features in similar w^ays in
general reporting, for example in a review of
the latest film version of Graham Greene's Tbe
Quiet American:
As Greene might have suggested, it all comes
down to that point at which plain words
become political spin (Thomson, 2002).
Or in history:
Who was the greatest spin doctor of all?
Winston Churchill, Because he turned
Dunkirk into a kind of victory (John Serjeant,
in Clarke, 2002).
One historian has even applied the term to
the presentation of the record of history in
medieval England (Sharman, 2000).
In government, there are clear implications
of the spread of spin as a description, for
political life and campaigning. Spin has become
a euphemism for deceit and manipulation. But
it has now been generalised to mean addition-
ally, propaganda (Brow^n, 2003): so, for exam-
Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Leighton Andrews
ple, it is said of Osama bin Laden that 'his grasp
of spin is chilling' (Magnet, 2001). Pitcher goes
further: 'anything of w^hich one disapproves
has become spin' (Pitcher, 2002).
The development oispin as a word has gone
through a number of stages which will be
addressed in the course of this article. First, as a
technical definition of a certain tactic used in
political campaigning; then loosely as a general
term for political campaigning activities; to
describe the media operations of certain
governments, notably in the US and the UK;
and finally, as a description of the profession of
public relations. It now^ has w^idespread popu-
lar usage, which has arisen through two
principal processes: the celebrification of the
role of the spin-doctor: and the deep cultural
resonance of the phrase 'spin' itself, which has
become tabloid shorthand for the process of
political debate.I want to argue particularly that
the popular identity of the spin-doctor was
firmly entrenched by 1997, and that no matter
how New Labour behaved in office, the
discourse of 'spin' would drive one of the
primary defining narratives for the manage-
ment of government communications.
Spin: meanings
Steven Bamett, Professor of Communications
at Westminster University, has noted 'every
now and then a word or phrase appears w^hich,
quite suddenly and unexpectedly, seems to
capture a mood'. (Bamett, 2000) Bamett's
focus is the phrase, now widespread in media
commentary on culture, dumbing Down.
Similar views could have been expressed in
the 1980s of a phrase like Political Correctness,
(Dunant, 1994) or for the phrase 'The chatter-
ing classes' (Watkins, 1989). The same might
also be said for Spin.
It is important to define spin at the outset.
Chambers (2002) defines it as follow^s:
As a noun:
said of infonnation, a news report, etc.
especially that of a political nature: a favour-
able bias. The PR department willput a spin
on it.
Journal of Public Affairs, February 2006
spin: from tactic to tabloid
As a verb:
to tell lies, spun a complex web of lies.
It is of course difficult to talk about spin
without also talking about its practitioners,
who are spin doctors:
someone, especially in politics, who tries to
influence public opinion by putting a favour-
able bias on information when it is presented
to the public or to the media.
Moloney (2001) has noted that spin is a
'culturally rich metaphor' in the British con-
text. Though it appears to derive from US
baseball, it could equally have developed from
cricket, with equally deep resonances in
Britain. Esser et al. (op.cit.) comment:
Spin doctors mainly exist because there is no should be released to optimise its value and
such thing as objective truth. Facts, figures, what can be secured in retum for the release of
events and w^ords all have different meanings information'.
to different people. So their interpretation is
the key issue.
When does spin start to become noticed as a
phrase in politics? The first reference has been
tracedbyBayley(1999:p. 186: see also Obome,
1999: p. 117) to Saul Bellow's 1977 Jefferson
lecture, where he talks of politicians 'capturing
the Presidency itself with the aid of spin
doctors' (Bellow, 1994).
Chambers, however, says the real etymology
of the phrase spin doctor is the 1980s. In
broader use, according to Vallely (1995), spin
'first appeared in 1984, in the New York Times,
and migrated across the Atlantic in 1988'.
Journalist and political speech-w^riter William
Safire notes the NY Times editorial, October 21,
1984 referring to the 'Spin Doctors, senior
advisers to the candidates' who w^ould be
spouting opinions on candidate performance
later that night at the end of the Reagan-
Mondale presidential debate (Safire, 1993).
Bernard Ingham has said (Ingham, 1996):
It was, I think, in 1988 that, batting on the No
10 Downing street wicket, I first heard of
spin. A Daily Telegraph reporter telephoned
the press office to ask us to give him the 'spin'
Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
33
on a particular story. The terms of his request
gave us a bit of a laugh.
The political journalist Andy McSmith (1996)
believes that the phrase came into use in the UK
in the period after the 1988 US Presidential
election, and provides a useful definition of
how spin doctors operate:
Spin doctors are a product of the age of
instant communication, operating in the tiny
space between when a political event takes
place and vv^hen it is first reported to the wide
public.
Manning (2001: p. 114) sees the crucial art of
the spin-doctor as being 'how^ to bargain with
information: how much to release, when it
The phrase spin w^as occasionally in use in PR
world in late 80s in UK:
We are by no means immune here from
attempts to put a Government 'spin' on the
day's news (Mathieu, 1989).
John Tusa argued in 1989 that 'what has
happened since 1979 appears to be a tighten-
ing and refining by a host of ministerial minders
of the rules of engagement' (Tusa, 1989), but
the likliehood is that the 1988 US Presidential
election ('which some called the year of the
handler') began the process of focusing atten-
tion on election 'image-makers'. Gitlin says:
This w^as the campaign that made 'sound
bite', 'spin control', 'spin doctor', 'handler'
and 'photo op' (for 'oppportunity') into
household phrases (Gitlin, 1991).
Spin and spin-doctor did not make it really
into wide usage until after the 1992 British
General and US Presidential elections. The first
joumalistic use in the UK is believed to have
been in 1987 by the Guardian's Michael White
and Alex Bmmmer (White, 1998). In profes-
sional circles, the BBC's Nicholas Jones was
using the term by 1990 Gones, 1990).
Journal of Public Affairs, February 2006
34
Appearing before the Select Committee on
Public Administration, Mike Granatt, then Head
of the GICS, was asked to define spin. He told
the committee:
There are about as many definitions of spin as
there are people who spin actually Do
I spin? If I am talking on behalf of the civil
service and I am trying to make sure people
understand the point and I gloss it, I suppose
I am spinning. In terms of whether people in
my service or I, if I am a director, spin w^hen
something happens, in terms of whether we
should get stuck in and explain a particular
gloss on an event which has happened so
that the position of the department and
the Minister are clear, then I plead guilty to
that. That is what I understand by 'spin'
(Granatt, 2000).
The increasing use of the term 'spin' of
course, suggests a time when politics was
unspun, more honest and open (Bew^es, 2000):
and we get an occasional glimpse of that w^hen
certain politicians are seen as plain-spoken
and uncomplicated, as when Estelle Morris
resigned (Daily Mirror, 2002).
Original meanings
According to Brendan Bruce (1992), Director
of Communications at Conservative Central
Office from 1989 to 1991:
Although lazy journalists sometimes use the
term carelessly to refer to any image maker, it
has in fact a very specialized meaning. The
concept w^as invented in the US and devel-
oped originally as part of the process
whereby the briefers fought to claim victory
in the Ford-Carter [Presidential] debates.
The principle to be established was that who
claims victoryfirsthas won. As Tom Rosenstiel
(1994: p. 309), LA Times Media and Political
Correspondent, records:
Spin was a uniquely American political
practice whereby, after a political event
had ended, campaign operatives emerged
Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Leighton Andrews
to try to massage how reporters interpreted
the meaning of the event. Spinning gave
political handlers a chance to explain away
and thus repair the damage a candidate had
done to himself, or to inflict damage on the
opponent that their candidate might not
have.... Debates in particular w^ere suited to
spin because they w^ere difficult to analyse
The UK does not have Presidential debates or
even debates between party leaders in General
Elections. Instead, party political conferences,
especially after the delivery of leaders' keynote
speeches, provide the most obvious UK con-
text (Lansley, 1995; McSmith, 1996; Gaber,
2000; Stanyer, 2001, passim).
Rosenstiel also noted that the development
of 24-hour news channels, and the increasing
competition between news outlets, contribu-
ted to the development of spin:
Spin also thrived because newspapers
increasingly felt they had to bring something
more to the events they covered than simply
telling people what happened. Television
had already done that. So analyzing the
strategy behind the debate became part of
the morning story (Rosenstiel: p. 310; see
also McCurry, 1996).
He also argued that spin doctors became
gradually became bolder, venturing into press
rooms in 1988, and by 1992 the press rooms
had become formal parts of the spin-doctors
itinerary. After one debate the Clinton cam-
paign burst into the press room before debate
ended to make an impact of confidence. 'Spin
had become institutionalized': and as a conse-
quence, said Rosenstiel, it had become useless
and was now dead.
President Bush's Press Secretary Mary Matalin
gave an honest overview after the 1992 campaign:
The spin room is now^ a campaign constant,
and the concept of hordes of reporters and
media personalities screaming at operatives
and spokesmen has entered the mainstream.
(Matalin and Carville, 1994: p. 400)
But US political professionals have no fears
about owning up to spinning themselves, so
Journal of Public Affairs, February 2006
spin: from tactic to tabloid
Matalin, describing the technique in more
detail:
Fact Correction was phase one. Phase tw^o
was political spin. Charlie would gather all
the spiimers together and give us marching
orders. We were not responsible for memor-
ising the fact sheets already distributed; our
job was to put a positive spin on our
candidate's performance, and to denigrate
the opposition (Ibid: p. 394).
Nor is this simply an attribute of the political
right. Her then partner, now husband, James
Carville, who headed political strategy for
Governor Clinton publicly accept their
involvement:
That's all one hundred percent pure, una-
dulterated, unrefined, unfiltered, spin. And
everybody knows it's spin, us them, the
world Gbid: p. 402).
Carville says:
The spin-room is the presidential equivalent
of the locker-room after the big game. But it's
a locker room where you don't know the
score. In fact, if you work hard enough you
can tell them the score (Ibid: p. 401).
Studying the 1992 British General Election,
Michael Billig, David Deacon, Peter Golding
and Sue Middleton, Loughborough University
Social scientists, found through media content
analysis that many of the stories were about
behind-the-new^s operations. They paid parti-
cular attention to a 12 March news report by
the BBC's Michael Crick for BBC Nine O'Clock
New^s. Crick said 'every day the so-called spin-
doctors from each party will be trying to
persuade the broadcasters to accept their
interpretation and their agenda'.
The researchers comment (Billig etal., 1993)
A linguistic curiosity illustrates the extent to
w^hich the news about campaign concerned
images and presentation. WTien Crick pro-
duced that early feature and, when he
introduced the w^ord 'spin-doctor' into his
Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
35
report, he gave a linguistic signal to indicate
that here was a curious term: 'the so-called
spin-doctors.' 'So-called allowed the speaker
to imply distance: the word w^as not really his
word, but belonged to the strange world he
was describing. Moreover, he explained the
word, as if he expected his auditors to be
baffled by the neologism.
But by the end of the campaign, they note:
the words had slipped into everyday news
usage: it could be used without definition
or pause. ... In two weeks the word had
become a standard, natural description,
depicting the world as-it-is.
Certainly, Labour's political opponents are
always keen to pin the label on Labour, as in the
1992 election, when the Conservative spin
doctor Tim Collins, later an MP, said of Neil
Kinnock's performance at Labour's Sheffield
rally: 'Labour's spin doctors must have been
salving through their w^rists' on Kinnock's
Sheffield rally (in Jones, 1992). Media coverage
of elections became a story in itself in the 1992
election, with the Guardian's Hugo Young
presenting a programme on the broadcasters
and party image-creation. (Channel 4,1992).
Peter Riddell, Political Editor of The Times,
afterwards recalled that:
The very term 'spin doctors' rapidly became
a cliche in discussion of the parties' handling
of the media, and consciously borrowed
from the US (Riddell, 1992).
Gould (1999) also dates its arrival in Britain to
1999, though Pitcher (2002) recalls:
I went to a Private Eye lunch in 1992 where
the term came as news to editor Ian Hislop.
For Labour, prior to the election victory of
1997, admitting to spin w^as a dangerous sin:
the real issues are always about policy. Peter
Mandelson's comments go to the heart of this:
It's been claimed that I was the first person
in British politics to be labelled a spin-
doctor The truth is, of course, that much
of the ballyhoo about presentation w^as a
Journal of Public Affairs, February 2006
36 Leighton Andrews

smokescreen covering the real disagreements When Clinton moved into the WTiite House,
about policy... The myth of spin-doctor, as he took his communications chief George
conjurer, brings in its train a whole retinue of Stephanopoulos w^ith him. In his autobiogra-
misconceptions, in particular the 'black art' of phy (1999), Stephanopoulos accepts the term
briefing journalists (Mandelson, 1996) 'the President's spin doctor' (p. 310), and
confirms his role in running 'the White House
In the US, the Republicans are happy to stick spin machine' (p. 438). He defines his job in
the label on the Democrats: more strategic terms, however, which closely
That's more Carville Spin (Matalin/Carville: follow those of New Labour in government
later: 'The job is to think about policy, politics
p. 359)
and the press all at once' (Remnick, 1996).
and At this time Spin rapidly passes into profes-
sional jargon as a legitimate description of
I got the big spin Gbid: p. 13)
government communications in the United
States. John Maltese entitles his book on the
Spin outside elections role of the White House Office of Communica-
and into government tions Spin Control (Maltese, 1994). Summaris-
ing the Clinton media machine, political
So spin clearly began as a concept in US
correspondent How^ard Kurtz titles his book
election campaigns. Even there it moves from
Spin Cycle (Kurtz, 1998). But it is perhaps
being simply a tactic used after debates to being
Kurtz's subtitle that is more telling: Inside the
a description of arguing a position through with
Clinton Propaganda Machine. In six short
reporters. Carville admits to doubts about the
years, spin has moved from electoral tactic to
usefulness of the approach, but sees it as a fact
become synonymous with propaganda, an
of life, a part of the political game of agenda-
organized process of persuasion. Similarly,
setting with journalists. Asked by a journalist
Nick Robinson, ITN's Chief Political Corre-
whether post-debate spin made any difference,
spondent, referred to 'The Government's
he answered that it did not but it had to be
Propaganda Chief, Alastair Campbell' in ITN
done:
News 9 o'clock bulletin on the 1st April 2003.
Because if I didn't do it, you'd say that we lost Part of the reason may be the media's
and we were scared to come out and defend continuing desire to wrote about itself. The
our candidate (402). online magazine. Slate, started a feature called
the week/the spin when it launched in 1996
But spin moves beyond just the post-debate (Kinsley, 1996), which w^as to focus on 'meta-
argument, into day-to-day communications news—news about the news, a sense of how
with journalists. As Carville says: the week's key stories are being played and
When you're spinning a reporter, you're perceived... .and the spin they're getting'.
telling them how to look at a story. Or you're As Gaber notes (2000), Spin in Government
telling them they're covering it wrong I'd becomes controversial for two reasons:
make anywhere from three to ten spin calls a - The term spin itself, associated with elec-
day. More on a Friday. Friday is a big, big spintions, does not suggest the impartial relaying
day (431). of information expected from governments
to the media or the public.
And Matalin confirms:
- Meanwhile spin as practice suggests the
My first call was to Atm Devroy at The danger that government is used as an
Washington Post. Unfortunately for politi- election machine, implying improper use
cians she has a really astute political mind- of public funds, and corruption of public
. . . She knew I was spinning (Ibid: p. 79). servants into party apparatchiks.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Public Affairs, February 2006
spin: from tactic to tabloid
New Labour in opposition
In Opposition, New Labour was famed for
the strength of its media machine. Labour's
election operation was based in London's
Millbank Tower and 'Millbank' became a term
of abuse for anything done in the name of New
Labour, According to senior Dow^ning Street
aide Pat McFadden 'the very name Millbank
became a byword for ruthless professionalism,
speed and determination' (McFadden, 2002),
Like many other initiatives that owed their
origins to lessons learned by New Labour from
Clinton's campaign, 'The idea of moving Labour
campaigning to one modem, central space came
from those of us who had worked on Clinton's
campaign in 1992' (Gould, 1998a: p. 298),
Labour's formidable communications ma-
chine in opposition has been well-documented
from the early days of Mandelson 'the master
of spin' (Maclntyre, 1997) as Communica-
tions Director with the Shadow Communica-
tions Agency, providing advertising, polling and
media support (Franklin, 1994; Scammell, 1995;
Gould, 1998; Maclntyre, 1999; Routledge,
1999). The media side was significantly strength-
ened after Blair became leader in 1994 and
appointed Alastair Campbell, the Daily Mirror's
Political Editor, as his Chief Press Spokesperson.
The influence of Campbell and other Labour
spokes people as spin-doctors becomes more
widely the subject of media comment from this
time Oones, 1995a,b). Spin-doctors were essen-
tial to explaining Blair's first speech to a Labour
Party conference as leader in 1994, in which he
announced that Labour would produce a new
statement of objectives: in fact, the abolition of
the controversial Clause IV of the Party's con-
stitution (Jones, 1999; Routledge, 1999).
But it ^vas arguably the 1995 Conference
speech, the first when Campbell was officially
Blair's spokes person, that attracted most cover-
age of 'spin', with suggestions that there ere
confusions between the different press spokes
persons, David Hill, Campbell, Mandelson, Joy
Johnson and Charlie Whelan. 0ones, 1999;
Stanyer, 2001) Campbell, in particular, sought
to ensure widespread coverage for Blair's
speech, and \vas anxious that the verdict in the
Copyright © 2006 John WUey & Sons, Ltd,
37
O.J.Simpson trial might detract from it (Stanyer,
2001: pp. 96-105 and 130-1; Brunson, 1995). As
the BBC's then Director-General, John Birt,
records:
Alastair Campbell in opposition once over-
stepped the mark and wrote a public letter to
the BBC demanding that Tony Blair's con-
ference speech should be placed ahead of
the O.J.Simpson trial verdict. I responded in
public, labelling his fax 'crass and inap-
propriate' (Birt, 2002: 290).
It is in 1995 that Bernard Ingham complains:
All this worship of spin-doctors is becoming
silly —Politics and journalism were much
healthier when we were called—at least
officially—press or information officers
—Spin doctors should keep their feet on
the ground (Ingham, 1995 and see also
Ingham, 2003).
The next year, in an influential speech.
Conservative chair Brian Mawhinney says that
spin doctors have become more high profile.
(Maw^hinney, 1996), and there is an increased
emphasis in media coverage, with the BBC
running a series called Spin (Eldridge, Kitzinger
and Williams, 1997: p, 113 and 120)andin 1996
a Panorama programme, iPR Week, 1996).
By 1996, Steve Richards, Political Editor of
the ne^v Statesman, is claiming that spin-
doctors have become 'near-mythical figures'
(Richards, 1996)
Spin, however, is coming to mean the entire
range of election weaponry as Labour builds a
formidable campaigning machine:
We restructured our campaigning around a
war-room in w^hich all campaign operations
and all campaign personnel were in the same
physical space; opposition activity was con-
stantly monitored; attacks were instantly
rebutted; dialogue w^ith the electorate was
constant (Gould 1998b; The Times, 1997),
There was a real focus on agenda-setting:
Gaining momentum means dominating the
news agenda, entering the new^s cycle at the
Journal of Public Affairs, February 2006
38 Leighton Andrews

earliest possible time, and repeatedly re- sion, on the other hand, at least as presently
entering it, with stories and initiatives that constituted, needs personalities 'current'
ensure that subsequent news coverage is set affairs, conflicts, dramas and mini-dramas,
on your terms. It means anticipating and pre- verbal duels. Its time spans are compressed
empting your opponent's likely manoeuvres, and its narratives archetypical. In the tens-
giving them no room to breathe, keeping ion between the two, it is the logic of the
them on the defensive. It means defining meditim that has triumphed (Ginsboutg, 2004).
the political debate on your terms (Gould
1998a: p, 294). By 1997, celebrity had transferred from
politicians to spin-doctors as well (Moloney,
Labour also made significant investments in 2000). Like politicians, spin-doctors are also
personnel, such as its Rapid Rebuttal Unit, subject to the attentions of the tabloids:
designed to respond immediately to claims by
The tabloid press provides a scandalous tum
the Conservatives (for example, Maclntyre and
on the meaning of the celebrity and presents
Wyrm-Davies, 1995; Robins, 1997), and also
us with the possibility that the supposed
in computer hardware and software, in the
unique talents of celebrities are vulnerable
shape of their advanced Excalibur system.
and subject to dramatic falls as well as to
(Carr, 1997; McFadden, 2002), All of these
equally impressive moments of contrition
developments became part of the mythology of
and resurrection (Marshall, 1997),
Labour spin. As Gould has said himself of spin-
doctoring: Celebrity stmctures the relationship bet-
Somehow the name came to include anyone ween the media and politicians. It reduces
or anything included in what are believed to politics to personality clashes, and policy to
be the 'black arts' of campaigning (Gould, process. The discourse about media presenta-
1998a: p, 334). tion of politics is increasingly a discourse about
celebrity, about the individual actions of one or
another 'spin-doctor', reducing 'the cultural
Celebrity, the tabloids and television meaning of events, incidents and people to
The relationship of entertainment and politics their psychological make-up' (Marshall, 1997),
has a long history. The transfer of Hollywood- A reality TV show has been used to pick a spin
developed publicity skills to politics has been doctor for Israel (Urquhart, 2004),
well-documented Qarvie, 1992; Mitchell, 1993; Politics is now a soap opera, structured and
Puttnam, 1997; Schroeder, 2004). The develop- developed for tabloid consumption. The West
ment of politicians-as-celebrities has been Wing is literally the political world's own 'soap
analysed to death since Neil Postman's early opera'. It is 'avidly watched by Labour spin-
observations (Postman, 1987; Schickel, 2000; doctors' (Shrimsley, 2002). The Prime Minister is
Comer and Pels, 2003). Moloney (2001) has said to be a fan (Cockerell, 2004). In the UK, even
wamed of spin's role in this process. As Paul right-wing Conservatives enjoy it (Smith, 2004).
Ginsbourg has observed in his recent book on The West Wing is unusual however in its
Berlusconi: treatment of politics. The West Wing can be
argued to be a way of introducing voters into
The logic of democratic politics and the logic stories that are not fully explained in traditional
of television make uneasy companions. media coverage, including the process of govern-
Democratic politics depends upon lengthy ance, and the realities of the relationship
and complicated policy processes, upon the between the media, politicians and their staff
diffusion of power, upon participation in (Pampper, 2003), It can even be used as a peda-
decision-making. Its time-spans are pro- gogic tool (Beavers, 2003). Unlike the cynical
tracted and its narratives often undramatic. joumalistic view that politicians and their aides
It is sceptical of charismatic figures. Televi- are simply interested in self-advancement. The

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Journal of Public Affairs, February 2006
spin: from tactic to tabloid
West Wing actually treats them as human beings
seeking to deal with complicated issues (Pamp-
per; Levine, 2003). As Van Zooner observes
Soap conventions enable this political drama
to produce a hybrid understanding of poli-
tics, in which the different logics of rational
policy development, ieological struggle,
personal convictions and preferences, pub-
lic relations requirements, incompetence
and bureaucracy, unite into a coherent and
persuasive picture of 'best possible' political
practice (Van Zooner, 2003).
Most political shows do not fall into the
same category. Almost universally, they depict
politicians and their aides as vain, pompous,
craven, lacking intelligence or integrity, fo-
cused on career-advancement. They feed into
and draw^ energy from the tabloid style of depo-
sing deference and bringing people down to
earth (Street, 2001). The tabloid representation
of 'spin-doctors' feeds this same demand.
Moloney (2001) sees 'the incorporation of spin
into everyday language' as denoting 'a deflation
of the powerful', and therefore represents a
form of holding government to account.
Celebrity Spin-doctors
As Street observes, the spin-doctor has become
'a cultural icon' (Street, 2001: p. 145). Initially,
Stephanopoulos is the person w^ho embodies
this. He is 'the world's most famous spin-
doctor'(Draper, 1997). As spin moves into
common currency, he is 'the most talked about
practitioner' (Morris, 2000). He 'was treated
like a rock star' (Kurtz, 1998):
During the first months of the Clinton era,
Stephanopoulos with his boyish good looks,
tousled hair, and aura of pow^er, enjoyed a
brief flurry of attention from the tabloids as
the sexiest man in the President's inner circle.
Gossip columnists ^vrote stories on his dating
habits, his taste in restaurants, and other
personal aspects of his life (Walsh, 1996).
Hollywood soon gets in on the act. The
President's adviser in the movie The American
President is allegedly modelled on Stephano-
Copyright © 2006 John WUey & Sons, Ltd,
39
poulos (Morris, 2000). He is supposedly the
model for the narrator in the anonymous novel
Primary Colours (Rhodes, 1996). The Deputy
Mayor—the Michael J. Fox character—in ABC
series Spin City is said to be based on him
(Morris, op cit). The series began in the autumn
of 1996, at the same time as the Clinton re-
election campaign. The series itself fed back
into the real political campaign: Philip Gould
recounts how the media area at one Presiden-
tial debate in 1996 'had a huge sign over it
saying SPIN CITY' (Gould, 1998a: p. 333).
Stephanopoulos himself appeared in an epi-
sode of Spin City early in 1997 (ABC, 2002).
Alastair Campbell has posters of a Paramount
Comedy Channel advertising campaign for Spin
City on his bathroom wall. It is a mark of
Cambell's own celebrity status that he was
the focus of the ad. (Guardian, 2003; Ahmed,
2003)
Finally Sam Seaborn, played by Rob Low^e, in
T.V.'s The West Wing is supposed to be based
on him (Morris, 2002). Lowe himself denies this
in the DVD collection of the first series: 'First of
all, I just need to tell everybody he (Martin
Sheen) is not Clinton; I am not Stephanopou-
lous' (Warner Brothers, 2002). But a large
section of the West Wing fan website
www.bartlett4america.org is devoted to 'The
Clinton Connection' and says 'The first three
seasons of The West Wing are peppered with
political problems that may seem oddly familiar'.
Martin Sheen himself of course is an actor
who doubles as an anti-war activist in the USA.
(Campbell, 2003). In 2003, Carville and Matalin
are appearing in George Clooney's new drama
series about the world of Washington political
consultancy (Russell, 2003). The UK also boasts
its own less successful attempts to bring the
world of spin to the small screen, such as The
Project (Hellen and Brooks, 2001). The rela-
tionship between Alastair Campbell and Tony
Blair is satirised in Bremner, Bird and Fortune,
with Campbell allegedly bullying Blair into
decisions. In Michael Dobbs' Hose of Cards the
politician is cleverer and more devious than the
spin-doctor and the journalist. Other fictional
representations of 'spin' included the movie
Wag the Dog (www.wag-the-dog.com) based
Journal of Public Affairs, February 2006
40
on the Larry Beinhart thriller American Hero
(1993), which was in fact a satire on the
Republican's late spin-doctor Lee Atwater,
and the airport bestseller Spin (Geary, 1995).
Even the Queen's former Press Secretary got in
on the act: (Shea, 1995) and latterly, so too has
the former Whitehall communications chief
Martin Sixsmith (Sixsmith, 2004).
In real life, Stephanopoulos's lifestyle is
glamorized. He and Carville are the stars of
a documentary on the Clinton campaign,
(Pennebaker, 1994). He gets a $3m book
contract for his memoirs (Rhodes, op. cit). He
becomes a TV pundit and then host of ABC's
This Week (Donegan, 2002). He was regularly
linked to the New Labour campaign in 1996
(Guardian, 1996; Independent, 1996). By
1996, the Editor of Campaigns and Elections
magazine was warning of the danger of political
consultants becoming 'polebrities—political
insiders who become celebrities' (Faucheux,
1996). It is generally a given amongst PR
operatives that they should never become the
story, as that would mean distracting attention
from the policy of the politician they serve.
For some young male New^ Labour figures
spinning had become glamorous: 'where it
really counts (lobbying, policy wonkery and
spin mastery) power remains firmly in male
hands.' (Wilkinson, 1998). Dee Dee Myers had
a similar complaint about the White House
(Brodie, 1996; Levine, 2003). Certainly, the
behaviour of some of the younger New Labour
apparatchiks appeared to suggest that they had
come to enjoy spinning for the sake of it—and
the recognition of proximity to power it
suggested. They certainly excited envy. One
Labour minister commented anonymously to
Ian Hargreaves and Steve Richards in 1997:
These people are running around like pigs in
shit, w^ith their bloated salaries, chauffeur-
driven cars, and their mobile phones, invent-
ing government policy in pubs (Hargreaves
and Richards, 1997).
Treasury spin-doctor Charlie Whelan's appe-
arance in a documentary on the Treasury ('an
injudicious celebration of the spin-doctoring
skills of Whelan' (Hargreaves and Richards,
Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd,
Leighton Andrews
1997) broadcast in the summer of Labour's
1997 victory 'made him a star' (Lloyd, 1997).
Lloyd argued:
The star w^as WTielan: hyperactive, frank,
profane, funny; and because the cameras
found a star to power the 50 hours of footage
from which 2 hours had to be carved, it stuck
with him.
Whelan subsequently said he came over as 'a
slightly naive, foul-mouth spin-doctor' (Whe-
lan, 2000).
The glamour of Millbank transferred itself
to the campaign staff who worked there. Some
connection with Millbank became a passport
to jobs in the early euphoria of 1997. Many
lobbying and PR companies hired young
staffers who had been often quite junior
personnel at Millbank (Economist, 1999;
Michie, 1998). Spin and lobbying became
intrinsically linked as a result. Lobbying became
a sub-branch of the spindustry. The arts of spin
became publicly saleable commodities, and
boasting of the skills of spin appeared for a
period to be popular, resulting in books like
that of Richards (1999). But the bubble was
to burst with lobbying scandals such as
'Drapergate'—principally a 'sting' by the
Observer newspaper on three lobbying com-
panies, GPC, GJW and LLM (Observer,
1998a,b). The high-profile lobbying activities
of Derek Draper and the high-octane spin of
Charlie Whelan may have been the exceptions,
but they gave a strong sense of young-ish males
intoxicated with pow^er. Pitcher alleges that
Millbank was 'a very sexy place to w^ork. You
could cut the testosterone and oestrogen with a
chain-saw' (Pitcher, 2002: p. 81). For a brief
period, thanks to the cult of celebrity and the
short-term glamour of Millbank, spin was sexy.
Conclusion
By the time New Labour entered Government,
the cult of the spin-doctor was firmly estab-
lished, and the discourse of spin clearly
defined. The problem for New Labour in
Government is that the tabloid, popular focus
on spin and process has come to dominate all
Journal of Public Affairs, February 2006
spin: from tactic to tabloid
discussion of Government Communications.
In Government, there have been three main
elements which have further contributed to
New Labour's reputation for spin: the moder-
nization of the Government media machine;
the attempts to re-shape the Government's
own communications strategy at different
stages of its life; and specific incidents of
spin—spincidents—which have revolved aro-
und different individuals with responsibility for
communications strategy or implementation. It
is these incidents which people remember—
and they have overshadowed the Govern-
ment's necessary reforms of its media machine.
Certainly we have now reached a time when
any form of communications by a government
is described as spin.
Today then, spin has made the progression
from a simple election post-debate tactic to an
all encompassing word for communication by
government. This journalistic concern has
been fed at different moments by specific
incidents w^hich have appeared to demonstrate
crises within the Government's management of
the media, all of which are categorized as spin.
These have been the incidents which have
taken the word spin clearly into the popular
domain through the tabloid press. They include
events such as resignations of Ministers such as
Peter Mandelson and Stephen Byers, press
spokespeople such as Charlie Whelan, Jo
Moore and Martin Sixsmith; the saga of Cherie
Blair's dealings with Peter Foster; the Prime
Minister's discussions with Black Rod in rela-
tion to the Queen Mother's funeral, the
lobbygate expose, and many others Qones,
2001; Franklin, 2003).
Major enquiries into Government Commu-
nications— by the Select Committee on Public
Administration, by the Committee on Standards
in Public Life, Mountfield, Phillis and of course
Hutton—which deserve discussion on their
ow^n merits have in many quarters simply
provided platforms which have kept the spin
story moving forward.
Not only has the word 'spin' moved beyond
its original origins as a description of a limited
election tactic into a general description, at
least in the US and UK of government commu-
Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
41
nication operations, but it has also come to
describe all organized communication. Valle-
ly's early article notes that royalty and financial
PR have spin-doctors. 'Politicians rely on them,
tycoons swear by them, even the Queen has
one. Paul Valely reports on the unstoppable rise
of the spin-doctors' (Vallely, 1995). PR is now
seen as a fashionable career, described as spin:
This is a sophisticated generation. They seem
to have grown up very quickly but to have
totally imbibed the culture of spin and
surface: but then again with everyone from
a prince to a chancellor of the exchequer
marrying PR girls, maybe it is not so
surprising (Stevens, 2002).
Leading PR consultants are described as spin-
doctors, such as Alan Parker of Brunswick: 'A
spin doctor sets his sights high' (Michie, 1998;
Blackhurst, 2000; Tomkins, 2001; Johnson,
2004). Pitcher (2002) argues that it all started
in the arena of financial PR.
As the BBC's Media Correspondent, Torin
Douglas has recognised:
The problem is that 'spin' has become shor-
thand for the whole apparatus of corporate
and public relations, much ofwhich is perfect-
ly proper —Spin's sin has been to damage
credibility and forfeit trust—the very oppo-
site of good communications (Douglas, 2002).
So serious has this become that the British
Institute of Public Relations held a conference
at the end of 2002 entitled Public Relations—
substance or spin? The IPR's President Ian
Wright called for spin doctors to sign up to a
general industry ethics code (Wright, 2001).
One PR professional closely associated with
New Labour, Colin Byrne, has blamed the
media for its obsession with spin 'The trashing
of our desire to communicate w^ith target
audiences, via the media, as "spin" and there-
fore suspect, has implications for all PR
professionals' (Byrne, 2002).
Some writers have expressed their concern
that the media has become so cynical that it is
now deeply and fundamentally suspicious of all
political communication and all politicians.
Journal of Public Affairs, February 2006
42
(O'Neill, 2002; Bamett, 2002a,b; Kettle, 2002;
Lloyd, 2002, 2004a,b). Both Alastair Campbell
and Bernard Ingham have suggested it is the
media who are the real spin-doctors. Ingham
has said 'the biggest spinners in the business
are the journalists themselves' Gngham, 1998).
Campbell has said '90 per cent of what is
commonly described or derided as "spin" is
put there by new^spapers with an agenda'
(Campbell, 2004). Gould, Mandelson and
Campbell have all accepted that spin has
damaged politics (BBC, 2002; Kite, 2002;
Mandelson, 2002).
Alastair Campbell has reflected that in
Labour's increasing professionalism, and the
media response to that, lay 'the seeds of spin'.
He has accepted that Labour in government had
perhaps carried on too long with the practice of
opposition: 'we appeared, and perhaps we
were, over-controlling, manipulative' and 'we
carried on for too long in government with the
tactics of opposition'. But he ended with a
warning that goes to the heart of the concern of
this article:
If the public comes to believe all commu-
nication is spin, no matter how much we may
want to blame the media, it is ultimately our
problem, a problem for our political culture.
(CampbeU, 2002)
Biographical note
Leighton Andrews A.M. w^as elected to the
National Assembly for Wales in 2003, wiimiiig
back the Rhondda constituency seat for Labour.
He is Honorary Professor at the School of
Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at
Cardiff University. He taught in that depart-
ment immediately prior to his election. A
member of the Journal of Public Affairs editorial
board, he has been Head of Public Affairs at the
BBC, Managing Director of the SMART Com-
pany, Managing Director of Westminster Strat-
egy, Chairman of Political Context, Joint
Managing Director, The Rowland Company
and Managing Director, Sallingbury Casey, UK
Campaign Director, UN International Year of
Shelter for the Homeless, and Parliamentary
Officer, Age Concern England.
Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Leighton Andrews
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