MOST OF WHAT YOU READ IN THE PRESS IS JUST REWRITTEN PR RELEASES: How the Public-Relations Apparatus Works. “One of the open secrets of the media ecosystem is how much coverage is shaped and orchestrated by public-relations professionals. This is especially the case when some previously unheard-of person suddenly becomes the center of a media blitz, and we are given to believe that this is an organic outpouring of attention. A recent New York Times profile of Lioness, a P.R. firm representing workplace victims — of discrimination, sexual harassment, and all manner of other bad behavior — pulls back the curtain a bit on how the game is played. Lioness may represent a virtuous cause, and it may even be that all its clients are virtuous; but the game is the same. It requires little imagination, or knowledge of recent controversies, to grasp how the same tactics have been used to craft political narratives that seem to appear out of nowhere.”

The more readily the press cooperates, the less likely that the cause is virtuous.