Chapter 3
“Tall” Coffees and Assault Weapons
Tricks of the Deception Trade
ANYONE WHO HAS EVER STOPPED BY OUR MOST POPULAR COFFEE chain knows that a “tall” coffee does not appear to be tall in relation to anything else on the menu. Things are often not as they are described. “Large” olives are actually medium-sized. The Montana-based Evergreen Foundation is supported by companies that cut down trees, and the Washington-based Center for Consumer Freedom isn’t run by consumers but was set up by a lobbyist for the booze and tobacco businesses. And when a politician talks about a “cut,” he or she almost never means that spending will actually go down.
Such deceptive tricks are so commonplace and obvious we can shrug them off, ordering a “small coffee” or buying bottled olives whose real size can be seen. But others deceive us when we let our guard down. To remain unSpun, we need to recognize the common tricks of the deception trade.
TRICK #1: Misnomers
THE SO-CALLED “ASSAULT WEAPON BAN” SIGNED BY PRESIDENT Clinton in 1994 didn’t really ban assault weapons—at least, not the ones you see pictured so often in the hands of soldiers and terrorists. Fully automatic weapons of all kinds were outlawed around the time of George “Machine Gun” Kelly and Bonnie and Clyde. It has been illegal in the United States to own a real machine gun since 1934 (except with an expensive and hard-to-obtain federal permit). In fact, all that the assault weapon law “banned” was the manufacture and import of certain semiautomatic weapons, which can’t be fired any faster than an ordinary pistol or rifle despite their military-style looks. The very term “assault weapon ban” gave a misleading impression.
When Congress let the law expire in the midst of the 2004 presidential campaign, the misleading name was exploited for political benefit in a TV ad by the liberal political action committee MoveOn PAC. “This is an assault weapon. It can fire up to three hundred rounds a minute,” the narrator said, while a fully automatic AK-47 appeared on screen. “In the hands of terrorists it could kill hundreds.” Those words were punctuated by the sound of a rapid burst of machine-gun fire. “John Kerry, a sportsman and a hunter, would keep them illegal.”
Technically, those words were true: Kerry wasn’t proposing to repeal the 1934 law banning machine guns. But neither was Bush. Nevertheless, MoveOn PAC’s ad continued: “George Bush will let the assault weapon ban expire. George Bush says he’s making America safer. Who does he think he’s kidding?” The totality of MoveOn’s ad conveyed the utterly false message that Bush was about to approve the sale of real, fully automatic assault weapons that could “kill hundreds” in the hands of terrorists.
Much of the public was taken in by the ad. Language does our thinking for us, and people had been fooled in the first place by the statute’s misleading name. After the election, the National Annenberg Election Survey asked respondents to evaluate the truthfulness of this statement: “The assault weapons ban outlawed automatic and semiautomatic weapons.” The result: 57 percent found the statement to be either “very truthful” or “somewhat truthful,” while only 28 percent said it was either “not too truthful” or “not truthful at all.” By a margin of two to one, those who expressed an opinion had the wrong idea.
Even a simple term like “large” becomes misleading in the hands of the California Olive Industry. “California Ripe Olives grow in a variety of sizes: small, medium, large, extra large, jumbo, colossal and super colossal,” the industry website informs us. Of the seven sizes, “large” is actually the third smallest. This sort of silliness seems to be escalating. The Starbucks Corporation doesn’t even use the term “large.” The smallest size on the menu is a “Tall” coffee (twelve ounces); the next size up is a “Grande” (sixteen ounces) and the largest size Starbucks calls “Venti” (twenty ounces).
Such puffery is so common that much of the time we aren’t fooled, and can even make fun of it. When Seattle’s Best coffee shops came up with a new name for their largest coffee, the humorist Dave Barry advised: “Listen, people: You should never, ever have to utter the words ‘Grande Supremo’ unless you are addressing a tribal warlord who is holding you captive and threatening to burn you at the stake. JUST SAY YOU WANT A LARGE COFFEE, PEOPLE.” We think that’s good advice.
Some names really can deceive, however, unless we keep our guard up. The makers of Smoke Away, a dietary supplement that purportedly helps people stop smoking in a week or less, paid $1.3 million in 2005 to settle a complaint by the Federal Trade Commission, which said there was no reasonable basis for the product’s claim. Also in 2005 the FTC announced more than $1 million in settlements against marketers of dietary or herbal supplements misleadingly named Lung Support Formula (which supposedly cured asthma and emphysema), Antibetic Pancreas Tonic (claimed to cure diabetes), and Testerex (supposedly effective in treating 62 percent to 95 percent of cases of erectile dysfunction). The FTC called the claims “false and outrageous.” In all those cases, the product names were mentioned as one factor contributing to the deception.
Don’t assume that just because a law is called an assault weapon ban or a product is called Smoke Away that they really do what their names imply. Always ask, “What’s behind that name? Does it really describe the thing they are trying to sell me? What would be a more accurate name for it?”
TRICK #2: Frame It and Claim It
FEW BUT THE RICH NEEDED TO THINK MUCH ABOUT THE FEDERAL estate tax, because it never touched the vast majority of Americans. In 1992, for example, the tax fell only on the richest 1.3 percent of those who died. But that’s when a group backed by some billionaire families, including the Gallo wine clan and the Blethen family, owners of The Seattle Times, began lobbying to repeal it. They seemed to have so little chance that few paid any attention. But then somebody decided that rather than call the estate tax by its proper and legal name, activists should instead refer to it as the death tax. The man who claims credit for this is James L. Martin, head of the conservative 60 Plus Association. He tells of establishing a “beer and pizza fund” to which he required his employees to contribute $1 every time they slipped and uttered the term “estate tax.” Other antitax crusaders picked up the name, and Republicans made it part of their political vocabulary around the time they took control of the House of Representatives in January 1995.
The term “death tax” was an intentional misnomer: obviously, what’s being taxed isn’t death, but bequeathed wealth. Nevertheless, the tactic worked. In 2001 the Republican-controlled Congress approved a gradual phase-down and temporary repeal, which will become permanent if foes of the tax get their way.
Why did this tactic work? The Republican strategist Frank Luntz explains. “The public wouldn’t support it [repeal] because the word ‘estate’ sounds wealthy,” he told an interviewer for the PBS documentary series Frontline in 2004. But call it a death tax, he added, “and suddenly something that isn’t viable achieves the support of 75 percent of the American people. It’s the same tax, but nobody really knows what an estate is. But they certainly know what it means to be taxed when you die.”
Although the term “death tax” was misleading, it framed the issue in a way that made people think of the tax unfavorably even before they considered any facts. A simple rule of persuasion holds, “Frame the issue, claim the issue.” Some supporters of the estate tax later regretted they had been so slow to frame the issue their way, as the “Paris Hilton tax cut.” Indeed, in 2006 the Coalition for America’s Priorities ran TV and radio ads calling estate tax repeal a giveaway to “billionaires and heiresses.” The radio ad featured a Hilton imitator praising the Senate as “awesome” for considering repeal: “So what that gas is over three dollars a gallon? Like…use a credit card!” As we write this, Congress is still debating whether to repeal the tax permanently or just narrow it radically to a very few, very rich families. Either way, the “death tax” misnomer was a powerful weapon that the other side was slow to counter.
Democrats had better luck framing
an issue when they attacked President Bush’s Social Security plan. Bush proposed to create an option for younger workers to divert up to 4 percent of their wages through the payroll tax to personal accounts, which would be invested in government-approved mutual funds. Critics, among them the AFL-CIO, called this “Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security,” as though the entire Social Security program would somehow move from governmental control to private ownership, which wasn’t at all what Bush was proposing. At a time when massive corporate fraud was being exposed at Enron and other major corporations, and the stock market had taken a huge dive, “privatizing” even part of one’s retirement nest egg was a frightening idea; it implied taking the retirement program out of the hands of the government and turning it over to Wall Street speculators. In 2002, CNN correspondent John King asked the president about “your plan to partially privatize Social Security,” and Bush protested: “We call them personal savings accounts, John.”
Bush, of course, was trying to frame the issue his way; calling the accounts “personal savings” made it sound as though the owners would control their retirement money themselves, as they would a checking account. In fact, the accounts Bush eventually proposed allowed only a handful of investment choices, with little or no choice in how money could be paid out at retirement. Both sides used misleading words in the debate, but Bush’s nomenclature didn’t catch on. When he made a strong push for passage in 2005, opponents kept calling the plan “privatization,” and the idea was quietly dropped for lack of support. The issue had not been framed as Bush wished, as one of potential gain for younger workers. It had been framed as one of potential loss for Social Security beneficiaries generally.
George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at the University of California–Berkeley, has argued in a best-selling book, Don’t Think of an Elephant, that conservatives have been far better than liberals at framing issues in this way. He says that President Bush successfully framed the tax debate by talking about “tax relief,” as though taxes were an affliction, rather than “your membership dues in America,” as Lakoff would prefer. He also cites Bush’s use of terms such as “compassionate conservatism” and “No Child Left Behind” to make Republican policies more palatable to swing voters. “This is the use of Orwellian language—language that means the opposite of what it says—to appease people in the middle,” he argues.
Lakoff’s solution, however, is more such language—from the left. His Rockridge Institute is working on a “Handbook for Progressives” to assist his side. Even that title is instructive: note that the term “progressive” sets us up to think of people in favor of “progress,” advancing toward a bright future. Had he called it a “Handbook for Liberals” he would have used a more neutral term—but one that has lost popularity.
For the ordinary citizen or voter, the important thing is to recognize that both sides try to use words that we’ll automatically accept or reject without thinking too much. Indeed, sometimes just choosing a word means choosing sides. When discussing abortion, which word do you choose, “fetus” or “baby”? Are you “pro-choice” or “pro-life”? But there’s generally much more to any issue than a name or a slogan can tell us. Judging an issue or a product by its name is as foolish as judging a book by its cover. Better to say to yourself, “Okay, that’s what they want me to think. Now what’s the rest of the story?”
TRICK #3: Weasel Words
ANYONE WHO HAS GONE TO A SALE AT A RETAIL STORE IS FAMILIAR with the principle of “weasel words.” Weasel words suck the meaning out of a phrase or sentence, the way that weasels supposedly suck the contents out of an egg, leaving only a hollow shell. In “Up to 50 percent off,” the empty shell of a phrase is “50 percent off,” the weasel words are “up to.” “Fifty percent off” means half price, period. Having added the words “Up to,” the store can offer a single item at half price and mark down everything else by far smaller amounts, or not at all, and still, technically, be telling the truth.
Publishers Clearing House became the biggest magazine seller in America using lines such as “You May Already Be a Winner!” on the outside of their mailed sales pitches. “May” was the weasel word: the vast majority of recipients, of course, won nothing. In 2000, California and several other states sued PCH, accusing it of sending deceptive mailings labeled, for example, “[Consumer’s Name]: WINNERS CONFIRMATION FORM ENCLOSED” or “PCH FINAL NOTIFICATION FOR TAX-FREE $11,700,000.00 SUPERPRIZE.” That went beyond weasel wording to imply that the recipients were winners, according to the lawsuit. PCH denied any deception but agreed to refund $16 million to certain “high-activity” customers, and to make clear in future mailings that the consumer hadn’t yet been determined to be a winner. Qualifying language was to be equal in prominence to “winner” language.
More weasel words: Hawaiian Punch “Fruit Juicy Red” is only 5 percent fruit juice, according to the manufacturer. The other 95 percent is nearly all sugar water and coloring. “Juicy” is the weasel word, meaning something less than “juice.” Estée Lauder says its “Skin Perfecting Creme Firming Nourisher” makes “tiny lines seem to disappear.” “Seem” is the weasel word in that pitch; the wrinkles, of course, don’t really disappear. Egg Beaters advertise “the taste of real eggs,” but the product is really only egg whites colored by beta carotene, plus other non-egg ingredients. To get a “taste of” something means you aren’t getting it all.
Journalists are as guilty as anybody. Words such as “largely” conceal a writer’s ignorance of the true number. “Largely” could mean anything up to half. “Most” means more than half, but how much more? “Several” can mean any number higher than two or three, but less than “many.” A sentence that begins “Fifty-three Nobel Prize–winning scientists” has specific meaning, and the writer should be able to name all fifty-three if challenged. But a sentence that starts with “Many scientists” is a hollow shell that should alert us to the possibility that the writer is a bit hazy about the facts. One of the first things a journalist learns is how to “write around it” when a deadline is looming and there’s no time to fill a factual hole in the story. Readers should be aware of the weasel words used to disguise those holes.
TRICK #4: Eye Candy
IF YOU JUST LISTENED TO THE ANNOUNCER, A TV AD FOR THE ANTIDEPRESSANT prescription drug Paxil CR was quite direct about some of the unpleasant consequences that might result from taking it: “Side effects may include nausea, sweating, sexual side effects, weakness, insomnia, or sleepiness.” But if you just looked at the pictures on screen, you got a totally different impression. An attractive young woman was shown walking her dog in a park, chatting with friends, smiling, obviously depression free. She wasn’t sweating or sick to her stomach. She was strong, not weak. Her eyelids weren’t drooping, nor was she complaining of a sleepless night. The announcer continued: “Don’t stop taking Paxil CR before talking to your doctor, since side effects may result from stopping the medicine.” The announcer was in effect saying that this drug can even cause withdrawal symptoms for those who quit “cold turkey,” but what viewers were seeing on screen were some laughing construction workers happily taking a coffee break from the job. Viewers weren’t seeing any of the undesirable possible side effects they were being told about, and as a result, many of them probably weren’t actually hearing the words or taking them into account.
Propagandists know that when words say one thing and pictures say another, it’s the pictures that count. Scholars tell us that redundancy is correlated with retention. To minimize retention, a propagandist says one thing while showing the opposite. When the two differ, what we see tends to override what we hear.
Drug companies have become particularly adept at showing us smiling faces and flowery pictures while the narrator recites material they hope we won’t notice, such as those lists of unpleasant and even debilitating or dangerous possible side effects. In this case, the FDA thought that GlaxoSmithKline, the makers of Paxil CR, had gone too far. On June 9, 2004, the FD
A ordered the ad off the air as “false or misleading,” partly because it “fails clearly to communicate the major risks associated with Paxil CR.” The FDA denounced the use of pictures and sound to overwhelm the announcer’s words. “The compelling and attention-grabbing visuals and other competing modalities, such as background music…make it difficult for consumers adequately to process and comprehend the risk information,” the FDA said.
The CBS reporter Lesley Stahl learned about this same effect the hard way. According to Stahl, she was worried that a report in which she criticized Ronald Reagan during his 1984 reelection campaign was so tough that her White House sources might “freeze me out.” No worries: a Reagan aide, Richard Darman, called her afterward to say “What a great piece. We loved it.” As Stahl wrote in her book Reporting Live, the exchange continued:
STAHL: “Why are you so happy? Didn’t you hear what I said?”
DARMAN: “Nobody heard what you said.”
STAHL: “Come again?”
DARMAN: “You guys in Televisionland haven’t figured it out, have you? When the pictures are powerful and emotional, they override if not completely drown out the sound. Lesley, I mean it, nobody heard you.”
Her TV story had shown generally upbeat pictures of Reagan, and according to Darman those pictures were all that viewers carried away from her critical report. Darman had explained the basic principle of the “eye candy” effect: pictures tend to overpower spoken words. It’s just the way we human beings are wired.
unSpun Page 5
