Issue #23/78, November 18 - December 2, 1999  

by Matt Taibbi

FOR THOSE OF YOU out there who've never read Adweek magazine, I advise you to check it out. It's a good read. Because it is written by and for advertising professionals-who tend to be very glib, literate, witty people-its copy is sharp, entertaining and well-paced pretty much from beginning to end. The Adweek reader is assumed to be an obnoxious know-it-all, so if you happen to actually be one, the magazine's approach is usually pretty refreshing.

I personally find Adweek fascinating, a better read than Time or Newsweek. Do I want to read dull blowjob profiles of Tom Hanks or Madeline Albright? No, no way. Do I want to read a detailed analysis of how the Mentos candy company intentionally made atrociously bad commercials in order to gain market share? Yes, of course I do. That's the beauty of Adweek, there's no con in it--it's a magazine for con artists, not their victims. That said, we're all in a lot of trouble when "serious" political reporting stops being distinguishable from Adweek features. And let's face it, folks, we're there already. Judging by the early efforts at campaign coverage this election season, America has finally arrived at a stage of its development at which the difference between candidate and product is no longer perceptible, when viewed through the prism of the mass media. That's because what I call the "Adweek Special" is now the common currency of the political reporting trade.

The "Adweek Special" is a political article that reads like an Adweek feature--a journalistic phyla which itself, it is important to note, is distinguishable from all other types of business articles.

The typical Adweek article focuses solely on the perception of the product, not on the product itself. An example: in the November 8 issue of Adweek, there is an article which discusses the successes and failures of the Oldsmobile company advertising campaign. Titled "The 'Old' in Oldsmobile", the piece sharply criticizes the car company's mid-1990s ad campaign, which was aimed at young people and used the slogan, "It's Not Your Father's Oldsmobile". The Adweek analysis concluded that the slogan, instead of heightening the car's appeal to the next generation of auto consumers the company desperately needed to reach, instead had "the effect of bringing Olds' staid image to the forefront."

As a result, the magazine noted, Oldsmobile lost a significant amount of its market share to new car buyers in this decade. Adweek went on to suggest that the car company might have held on to its share by embracing its old image, rather than rejecting it. "What Oldsmobile could have done was create an image to show that owning an Oldsmobile is a kind of rite of passage," it wrote, adding; "Cigars and golf are traditional products that have nonetheless captured the young males Oldsmobile has been losing in droves."

Adweek's suggestion for an alternative strategy is totally natural, given its audience. An automotive trade magazine or a standard business journal might have suggested that Oldsmobile target the next generation by making different kinds of cars-since it was low fuel efficiency due to excess size and poor reliability compared to Asian imports that caused Oldsmobile to lose its customers in the first place. But advertising pros have no say in design issues; all they're interested in is how to sell an existing product. That's why it makes sense for them to suggest a strategy embracing the Oldsmobile's old "road sofa" image, rather than suggesting moves to make the Olds less sofa-like and a better and more sensible car.

Most of the year 2000 campaign trail articles you'll come across use exactly the same approach. Almost none of them seem concerned with whether or not we're being sold a good car. Instead, most of them seem fixated on whether or not the car in question is being marketed effectively.

There is no better example of the "Adweek Special" phenomenon in political reporting than the coverage of the candidates' race for possession of the "Straight Shooter" label.

Over a year ago-on August 31, to be exact--Time magazine ran a feature called "Is This What We Expect?" The crux of the article was that after its lengthy exposure to the double-talking Bill Clinton, the American electorate would look to a more straightforward and forthcoming politician to be its next leader. "After Clinton, Americans may be ready for a different kind of President-a straight shooter," Time wrote.

The Time article went on to quote a series of media analysts and political consultants, each of whom talked in their own way about how Americans in the next election would be looking for a more honest-sounding politician. Again, that's honest-sounding, not honest. Here's a typical excerpt: "'Candidates will appear to be more straight-shooting,' said [political consultant Hank] Scheinkopf, 'but they'll be more scripted than ever. They'll be programmed to be more spontaneous.'"

The magazine then went on to report--without irony--that some candidates were already working on their "authenticity" approach:

"Texas Governor George W. Bush...is field-testing his pitch in a shoo-in re-election campaign this season. In a new television commercial, the Governor tells the camera, 'I believe in accountability and responsibility. For too long we've encouraged a culture that says, 'If it feels good, do it, and blame somebody else if you've got a problem.' Bush strategist Karl Rove says the spot was written before Clinton's television address blaming Ken Starr for his problems. But it is the kind of straight-talkin' ad Americans will probably be watching for years to come."

Why is this an Adweek special? Well, for one, the issue of whether or not Bush actually is "shooting straight" is not addressed-- this isn't about making a better car, but making a better car commercial. What Time is talking about when it says "straight shooter" is a market position, not a character type. That's why that last sentence about the "straight-talkin' ad" makes sense in the internal logic of the piece, instead of leaping off the page as the insane bullshit that it is. Obviously, no ad scripted by professional political operatives can be genuinely "straight-talkin'", and whether or not brattish child-of-privilege political creature Bush actually believes in "responsibility" in any meaningful way is obviously also highly debatable. But you can have an ad that sounds straight talkin', and that's what Time is talking about here.

Fast forward one year. Gore and Bush, the two front-runners for their party's nominations, are now on the defensive, battered by the "insurgent" campaigns of Bill Bradley and John McCain, respectively. Rushing to the scene to cover the story, Newsweek magazine finishes what Time had started the year before. It puts caricatures of Bradley and McCain on its cover, over the dramatic headline, "Straight Shooters: How Bradley and McCain are scoring with the politics of authenticity."

You have to have your bullshit-sniffing device tuned to maximum sensitivity levels to guess from that cover that the Newsweek editors are not saying that Bradley and McCain are actually "straight shooters". But they're not. When you look inside at the actual lead article, here's what it says in the sub-headline:

Bradley and McCain are selling this year's hottest commodity: the aura of authenticity that comes from a life that starts outside politics."

The sub-head gives you two clues that the forthcoming article is an Adweek special, and not news.

The first is the Adweek language-"selling", "commodity", the kind of words you see everywhere in political writing these days. (Some examples from just this one article: "Bill Bradley's life story seems simple to tell-and to sell." "John McCain's life seems just as powerful-and marketable." "This is shaping up as the year of the straight shooter-slickly packaged to sell.") Use of words like these hit the news consumer like body blows in boxing; when enough of them pile up, the head becomes ripe for the knockout. Sooner or later, people will actually start to believe that elections are sales contests.

The second hint is the word "aura". Newsweek coyly stops short of saying Bradley and McCain are selling actual "authenticity". Over and over again, they repeat that what Bradley and McCain have to offer is the appearance of authenticity, the aura of it.

Here's the confusing thing about Adweek specials in political coverage, the reason why the writers of these articles should all be whipped and put in thumbscrews: they not only fail to inform, they actively misinform. When I pointed out to one friend of mine the subtle use of the word "aura" in the sub-head, his answer was, "Well, what they're saying is that Bradley and McCain are able to have the aura of authenticity because they are actually authentic."

Is that what Newsweek is saying? Maybe they were--I wasn't sure. So I took a closer look. Not until the end of the article did I find the answer. It turned out my friend was wrong:

If you are a candidate in the anti-slick era, you don't want to see stories about how you're being handled. There have been almost none about Bradley and McCain, and almost nothing else about Gore and Bush. The idea in this era is to look independent, even ornery-and to seem to ignore traditional mechanics while you quietly use

Other Recent Adweek Specials Writer: Frank Bruni, New York Times, November 4 Excerpt: "MEREDITH, NH-Gov. George W. Bush of Texas today wrapped up a feverishly busy visit to New Hampshire that saw him log hundreds of miles, lunge for every hand in his path and, above all, look less like a carefree front-runner than a scrappy contender who had just broken a sweat...probably just the image that Mr. Bush wanted to project." Translation: Although in reality it is a wing of the giant multinational Campbell's Soup corporation, the Pepperidge Farms company has managed to win over consumers by marketing itself as a small mom-and-pop operation. Writer: Rachel Collins, AP, November 17 Excerpt: "MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley is counting on a mother's testimonial and black-and-white footage of his past to pitch himself to voters as a man of character." Translation: In order to escape lingering consumer mistrust of its unreliable product, Chrysler reminded potential buyers of its proud tradition through reruns of grainy black-and-white commercials from the company's glory days in the 1950s. Writer: Mark Barabak, LA Times, November 16 Excerpt: "Forget about 10-point economic plans or book-length education proposals. Amid a sea of tranquillity, with peace abroad and prosperity at home, what voters seem to crave is authenticity. And candidates are striving to deliver--even if they have to fake it." Translation: What heady businesses like the Starkist Tuna company have come to understand is that consumers don't really care if their products are environmentally friendly, so long as they say they are on the label.

them...While Gore changes his clothes almost maniacally...Bradley's showy obliviousness to fashion is a strategy in of itself."

The passage goes on to describe a Bradley photo op:

"Campaigning in New Hampshire, [Bradley] reluctantly bought a pair of shoes. They were as similar as he could find to the ones he was already wearing. They were the first shoes Bradley had purchased in a quarter of a century. How does the world know that? He explained it, at length, to reporters in the room."

So, Newsweek is not, in fact, saying that Bradley and Gore give off the aura of authenticity because they are authentic. Here the magazine is clearly saying that the aura of authenticity comes as a direct result of a deceptive technique. If the candidates are trying to "seem to ignore traditional mechanics while you quietly use them", well, that means what it means-that they're being deceptive in order to seem authentic. Studied obliviousness is not the same as obliviousness. It is, in fact, its opposite.

When you look at it that way, you realize: the headline on the cover should not have read "Straight Shooters!" It should have read "Not Straight Shooters!", or "Bullshit Artists!" Because that's what the article says. Look at that last sentence about the shoe incident--writer Howard Fineman was clearly being sarcastic about Bradley's would-be slovenliness. He sees through it as a marketing ploy. But the cover to his story tells us that this isn't a marketing ploy, but "shooting straight."

A few other problems with this piece. Look at the word "reluctantly" in that last paragraph of Fineman's. In that sentence, he's writing "reluctantly" like he means it--as though Bradley was actually reluctant to buy shoes. But in the next sentence, he's being sarcastic, implying that Bradley was all too happy to have the chance to buy shoes on the campaign trail. This is bizarre, schizophrenic analysis, and confusing as hell, even to a press critic. It's like putting the Wizard of Oz on the cover with the headline "Wizard!", and showing us the man behind the curtain in the text.

Think of it another way. Imagine that an entertainment magazine decides to do a profile of a TV show about two rugged gun-totin' Dirty-Harry-style cops. It puts the two bushy-mustached actors on the cover standing back to back, guns raised, over the headline, "Tough Customers!" Now, that headline makes its own kind of sense-- even if the actual people on the cover are really fag actors who'd run shrieking out of a bar if you so much as looked at them the wrong way.

But where it doesn't make sense is in a politics magazine. Politicians aren't supposed to be actors, even though we all know they are. We might accept the manipulative aspect of our relationship with elected politicians, but we're not supposed to celebrate it. The Wizard loses his powers if we see the man behind the curtain. That magazines like Time and Newsweek are focusing on the acting talents of our politicians is proof that the political process in America is bankrupt of any other appeal to us. Or that we miss the Wizard enough to willingly pretend that he's still real.