CBC radio spins The Spin

Bravo to CBC radio for pulling Spin Cycles out of its bag of tricks. The first show aired on Sunday morning at 11.

The first of six one-hour documentaries shone a light on the dark arts of public relations and political spin in the age of "truthiness." Producer Ira Basen, known for his excellent work on Ideas, explored the history of the public relations taking the listener from the earliest incarnations of PR in 1920s to the present day media management strategies used by the US military.

Basen leads us into the labyrinthine world where information is managed, massaged and manipulated by managers, often ex-journalists, who are paid by vested interests such as the military, pharmaceutical companies and governments. Sometimes the client isn't known.

Journalists may cry foul, says Basen, but they don't have to take the word of the spin doctors. “Spin itself is relatively benign. It becomes toxic when the press fails to do its job,” says Basen.

This typist says true to that, but if the power and budgets of public relations vested interests exceeds that of journalistic institutions, how are journalists supposed to do their jobs?

This is intelligent subject matter, well-presented and relevant to anyone who consumes news, the Internet or floats around in the soup of popular culture. Spin Cycles is proof of what CBC can do when it puts its mind to it.

Spin Cycles: A series about Spin, the Spinners and the Spun airs each Sunday morning at 11 until Feb 25.