President Theodore Roosevelt gives a speech at Pomona College in the early 1900s. Credit: Claremont Colleges Digital Library / Flickr Creative Commons
Political spin is as old as politics itself. Long before we were yelling at the talking heads on our TVs, Plato and Socrates were tearing apart the ancient equivalent of spin: rhetoric. We talk with historian David Greenberg about the evolution of modern spin.
Three Takeaways
- President Teddy Roosevelt kicked off the spin circus as we know it. “He wants the presidency to be a seat of activism,” Greenberg says. “And thinks that to do that he needs to mobilize the mass public.”
- When radio and TV took to the airwaves, so did the politicians. And they got advice on everything from whether to wear glasses to how to angle the lights so their bald heads didn’t create a glare.
- Spin isn't as bad as you think. It's how politicians make their arguments to the public. Our democracy couldn't really exist without it.
More Reading
- David Greenberg wrote an essay on political spin for the Wall Street Journal
- The Washington Post's review of "Republic of Spin"
- More from Greenberg on how Teddy Roosevelt invented modern spin
