Origins of Modern Spin

MARTIN MOORE is Director of the Media Standards Trust. He was formerly Managing Director of Human Capital where he provided strategic and editorial advice to the BBC, Channel 4, NTL, IPC Media, Trinity Mirror and others. He holds a doctorate in history from LSE where he continues his teaching and research.

• Introduction: What is Modern Spin? PART I: ORGANISING GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATION Idealistic Intentions: Striving to Speak to the People Expedient Outcomes: Communication Proves Harder than Expected Slipping Towards Spin: The Film-Making Experiment 'Information Management' Becomes a New Tool of Governance PART II: GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATION IN PRACTICE: THE PRESS Neither Free nor Fair?: Government Opinion of the Press Can Newspapers be Made 'More Responsible'? 'Press Freedom' Triumphs; Government Turns to Spin PART III: GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATION IN PRACTICE: BROADCASTING A Model Communicator? The BBC Objects to Being a Mouthpiece of the State 'Necessity' Justifies New Techniques of Manipulation Conclusion: Communication Moves Centre Stage

'Moore successfully interweaves context and human action, illuminating both the circumstances in which a continuous government management of information could emerge, and the human choices and lobbyings which caused it to do so... Moore has with great clarity and thoroughness charted one important moment in the accommodation of British political parties to the practice of high minded deviousness that Max Webber called the pact with the devil. - Rodney Barker, Archives: The journal of the British Records Association