Process
Status Items Highlights Done See section below Claims None Questions None Output None
Highlights
Time 0:09:32
Lewis Powell’s Media Strategy
- Lewis Powell argued media should amplify defenders of the status quo and limit platforms for critics of big business.
- He believed media companies were giving too much publicity to attackers of the enterprise system.
- Powell suggested monitoring national television networks like textbooks to control the narrative.
- Powell’s memo advocated for constant surveillance to counter criticism of the enterprise. Transcript: David Sirota Here’s what Powell wrote about the media. Most of the media, including the national TV systems, are owned and theoretically controlled by corporations, which depend upon profits and the enterprise system to survive. Lewis Powell argued that media companies should therefore start deliberately amplifying defenders of the status quo and stop providing platforms to critics of big business. Much of the media, for varying motives and in varying degrees, either voluntarily accords unique publicity to these attackers or at least allows them to exploit the media for their Purposes. Joseph Pulitzer famously said that journalism should quote always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers never lack sympathy with the poor always remain devoted the public Welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty. But in 1971, Lewis Powell was making the opposite argument. He wrote that the news media had become too welcoming of those who challenge power. Powell’s solution? Take control of the media. The national television network should be monitored in the same way that textbooks should be kept under constant surveillance.
Time 0:12:24
Powell’s Supreme Court Appointment
- Richard Nixon nominated Lewis Powell to the U.S. Supreme Court a few months after Powell wrote his memo.
- Corporate friends and clients celebrated his confirmation.
- Philip Morris, a tobacco giant where Powell served on the board, threw a congratulatory party.
- Walter Cronkite of CBS News hosted a faux radio drama valorizing Powell’s life.
- Powell received a judge’s robe emblazoned with cigarette brand logos as a gift.
- As a Supreme Court justice, Powell engineered rulings equating money to protected speech and extending protections to corporations buying elections. Transcript: David Sirota A few months after Lewis Powell penned his now infamous Powell memo, President Richard Nixon nominated him to the U.S. Supreme Court. When Powell was soon after confirmed by the Senate, his corporate friends and clients celebrated. The tobacco giant Philip Morris, on whose board he served, threw a congratulatory party for Powell that included a faux radio drama valorizing Powell’s life. A radio drama hosted by CBS News’ own Walter Cronkite. A great change took place in the life of Lewis Powell on October 21st, 1971. All things are as they were then, except you are there. This is actual audio from that party, which we found on a vinyl record hiding deep within Lewis Powell’s personal archives. The party concluded with Powell receiving a gift of a judge’s robe emblazoned with the logos of cigarette brands. There’s a photo of Powell holding up the robe in our new book. You have to see it to believe it. As a Supreme Court justice, Powell would go on to engineer rulings that equate money to constitutionally protected speech, extend those constitutional protections to corporations Aiming to buy elections, and dismantle antitrust law. But Powell’s placement on the Supreme Court was just the beginning of this story because a movement was forming.
Time 0:14:34
Media’s Role in Powell Memo Implementation
- Instead of exposing the Powell Memo’s plan for political domination, some major media outlets joined in implementing it.
- Members of the Powell Memo Task Force included executives from CBS, ABC, and other media organizations.
- CBS President Arthur Taylor actively pressured CBS news journalists to make their coverage more pro-business.
- Taylor agreed with the memo’s assessment that the free enterprise system was in danger due to misunderstandings in academic and media circles. Transcript: David Sirota Rather than deploying journalists to expose the 1971 Powell Memo and its new master plan for political domination, some of the nation’s largest media outlets and their sponsors joined That master plan and began implementing it. According to a never-before document that we expose in our new book, members of the Powell Memo Task Force included CBS Vice President Richard Jenks, ABC Executive James Hagerty, Newspaper magnate Edward Scripps II, Metro Media Executive Mark Evans, Ad Council Chairman Barton Cummings, and Hill and Knowlton President James Cassidy. In correspondence with a local media president who was enthusiastic about implementing the Powell memo, CBS President Arthur Taylor wrote that he was actively pressuring CBS news Journalists to make their coverage more pro-business. Taylor wrote that the memo, quote, makes good reading and is in accord with my own thinking that our free enterprise system is indeed in danger, not only due to the misunderstanding In academic circles, but I might also add the misunderstanding in media circles.