The Top 3 Things I Learned from All the Worst Humans

All the Worst Humans

I want to understand how narratives are crafted and “selected truths” become the dominant story.

Phil Elwood is an expert at it.

He wrote a book called, “All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians”.

When he says “All the Worst Humans”, he means it. He’s shilled for brutal dictators Assad and Gaddafi. He tricked a member of congress into helping the Qatari government sabotage the US bid to host the FIFA World Cup, resulting in Qatar’s selection and, ultimately, human rights abuses and unexplained worker deaths.

He once helped the leader of a foreign country blackmail the United States.

I’m not saying he makes good choices.

But he does know how to spin a story with the best of them.

Here are the top 3 lessons I took away from the book:

Top 3 Lessons

Lesson 1: The 3 Vs

Medicine loves a triad. Let’s add one more:

• Victim

• Villain

• Vindicator

If you want a story to stick, you have to give people a victim to save, a villain to hate, and a vindicator to root for.

If your client is actually the villain, you’ve got a couple options:

• Find an angle that turns them into a victim or vindicator

• Find a bigger villain and draw as much attention to them as possible

(🤓 Nerd Challenge: If you can name more than 3 medical triads without looking it up, email me back and I’ll send you a celebratory GIF)

Lesson 2: “Once you have ink, your story becomes real”

Phil Elwood and other high-level PR operators may be good, but they aren’t magicians.

Even they can’t just publish a story and expect people to go along with it.

Instead, they launder their stories through legitimate outlets. Once it’s mentioned on CNN or published in a newspaper, the story is real. It has legs.

One of the most consequential health-related examples of this in the modern era:

The Lancet, 1998, “Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children”, Wakefield et al.

The title seems inocuos enough, but this paper still haunts us. It suggested a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and autism.

The data were falsified. The whole notion has been debunked time and time again. The Lancet retracted the paper in 2010.

Doesn’t matter.

Once it gets printed—especially through a prestigious institution like The Lancet—it becomes ‘real’.

Lesson 3: Journalists are Woefully Outmatched

Here’s a scary stat: for every journalist, there are 7.5 PR pros.

And guess who makes more money? The PR pros, and it’s not even close.

But the relationship is part symbiotic and part abusive. (Symbusive?)

As Elwood says in the book, “[Journalists] need us because we’re a main source of information feeding today’s nonstop hunger for media content”.

And so, without technically lying outright, PR operators have found ways to feed the media beast with stories that advance their clients’ agendas.

Here are a few tactics they use:

• Field Testing Stories: When developing a story/angle for a client, Elwood will try out various narratives on a group of journalists. He calls them up individually and says things like, “If, hypothetically, my client decided to do ‘x’, would that be newsworthy?”

• Dangling Exclusivity: You can generally get a foot in the door if you offer information that ‘no one else has’.

  • Side-note: if you ever want to leak documents, Elwood implores you to do it “the old-fashioned way”, printed out and handed off in person. No email.

• Manufacture Legitimate Sources: “Astroturf organizations are shell nonprofits used to create the illusion of grassroots support for a cause.” One of Elwood’s astroturf organizations: “The Healthy Kids Coalition”. You can also throw money at credible experts, like the Sackler family did to push OxyContin.

• Strategic Selection: Know the goals of each media company, its rivalries, funding sources, and editorial practices. Pitch accordingly.

• Control the Negative Story: If you know that a news outlet is preparing a negative piece about your client, get ahead of it by pitching the story yourself to a different, less influential outlet. Give them everything they need and an urgent deadline.

Around the Internet:

• Science perspective on the US withdrawal from the WHO

• My friend, Dr. Carolyn Wolf-Gould, sent this letter to her patients in the wake of HHS communications blackout. (Carolyn and I worked on a book together)

• Antiabortion groups plan Facebook campaign to recruit men whose sexual partners have had abortions, encouraging legal action against healthcare professionals

• RFK Jr. has already made ~$2.5 million for referring clients to a law firm suing Merck over the HPV vaccine, an arrangement that would continue even if he is confirmed

• The President reinstated the global abortion gag rule, with a maximalist interpretation

• Study shows a diverse media diet is associated with higher trust in vaccines

• The World Economic Forum released its annual Global Risk Report, presenting findings from a survey of over 900 experts. Take a look at what tops the list of short-term risks:

Living Rent-Free in My Brain

You know the iconic “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” chant we all associate with Jerry Springer? It was engineered into existence by the show’s executive producer (and evil genius) Richard Dominick.

Long before Jerry Springer became a household name, they recruited people off the street to fill the studio audience and told them to chant his name. Viewers at home assumed he was already famous. 

This is a prime example of how ‘social proof’ can be (mis)used to subtly convince you that someone is credible.

Source: “Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action!” Netflix Documentary

Quote I Like

Thanks for reading 💪. See you next week,

Ky

Like this post? Forward it to a friend!

Are you that lucky friend? Subscribe to this newsletter for free!

P.S - We’re all going to need ways to remain connected to the ‘real world’ and find moments of joy. I’m an amateur photographer who likes to take amateurish pictures. Here’s my favorite snap from the week:

This newsletter will always be free.

If your love language is buying people coffee: