WEBVTT - The Panic: How Mobil Oil Changed Advertising Forever 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:04.240 Everyone has a story I can learn from to be 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:08.840 fearless like her, to have the confidence to achieve my dreams. 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:12.680 To know this ad that you're hearing. It starts out 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:16.880 with a little girl dressed in an Amelia Earhart outfit. 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:23.760 Then it pans to a montage of women playing golf professionals. Clearly, 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:29.320 nearly one hundred thousand girls are participating in lpga Usta 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:34.879 Girls Golf. It's about so much more than golf. It 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:38.320 sure is golf Lady, because this ad was paid for 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:41.800 by Chevron, who sponsored the program. And it's not just 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:45.720 Chevron either. Take a listen to this recent Conico Phillips ad, 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:51.640 which sounds like it's actually advertising an education nonprofit. 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:53.760 Who's gonna hold you back. 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:57.720 I always wanted to be a teacher. It was just 0:00:57.720 --> 0:00:59.320 something that came natural to me. 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:04.000 If I knew I wanted to be a teacher when 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:07.399 I was a middle schooler, and now I'm a teacher 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:08.600 here at my old middle school. 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:15.320 Ads like these and the activities behind them, from sponsoring 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:19.880 sports events and teams to funding education initiatives or supporting 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:23.800 women in stem have become so common that you might 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:27.280 be wondering why I'd bother calling attention to them at all. 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:31.160 But it's important to talk about why companies, and especially 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:34.920 oil companies, spend so much money on stuff that is 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:39.400 entirely unrelated to their core business and why you almost 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:42.640 never see an ad that's about what they actually do. 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:46.600 It's not so much about being a good corporate citizen 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:52.120 as it is about seeming like a citizen period, someone 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:58.400 with ideas and policy positions, morals, ethics, a philosophy, a reputation, 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:05.880 and most of importantly, a personality that's mostly due to 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:09.560 a guy. Longtime listeners of this podcast might recognize one 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:11.840 of my long running obsessions. 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:12.600 Herb Schmirtz. 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:15.880 Here's what ol Herb had to say about the idea 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:19.160 of companies doing philanthropy for philanthropy's sake. 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:23.960 It shows a sophistication and awareness on the part of 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:30.040 corporations that they can tie their business interests to other 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:34.960 interests in the cultural and educational and philanthropic area and 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:38.320 yet be able to show to whomever's interested, whether it 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:43.440 be shareholders or whatever, that there is a bottom line 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:45.000 payout for the giver. 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:51.760 Herbschmirtz was a fascinating dude. He worked in military intelligence 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.280 and as a labor lawyer, sorting out disputes, mostly on 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:58.520 behalf of the government. In the nineteen sixties, he actually 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:02.720 helped to end a major life Shorman strike. Here's LBJ 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:06.560 and his labor secretary talking about it and. 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:11.200 Wants order longshowman. That's the serious one, and I should 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:15.280 I should sit down and bring you or give you 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:17.760 a complete memorandum on that that one is not in 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:22.160 good shape. The dock when is just not in good shape? 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:26.400 What can we do beforeward through it? And it's very 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:27.840 likely to bring it out. I had them in this 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:31.560 last week. And the trouble is that the that the company, 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.840 the employers want to settle it in Congress and the 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:37.960 union want to sell it in the White House. About 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:38.800 what it comes down to. 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:45.280 Schmertz also helped run JFK's presidential campaign. Eventually he ran 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:51.120 Bobby Kennedy's campaign too and Ted's. In between running campaigns 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:55.640 for the Kennedys, Herb Schmertz had another job, VP of 0:03:55.760 --> 0:04:01.160 Public Affairs for Mobile Oil. Mobile initially hired Schmertz as 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.200 a labor lawyer, but when he returned to work after 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.800 taking a leave of absence to work on Bobby Kennedy's campaign, 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:12.000 the company thought, hmmm, maybe someone so tight with the 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:16.200 Democrats would be more helpful in their public affairs office. 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:20.040 Schmertz thought the rough and tumbled tactics he'd learned of 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:23.400 running campaigns in DC could be helpful to Mobil too, 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:27.080 and so he got a promotion. It helped that the 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.039 company's CEO at the time, a guy named Rolly Warner, 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:33.200 had a lot in common with Schmertz. They were both 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:37.440 Ivy League educated but good at talking to normal people, 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:39.760 and they both thought it was important for Mobil to 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.920 stand up for itself more often. In the early nineteen seventies, 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:47.679 with an oil crisis brewing and Americans pissed off about 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:50.560 waiting in line for hours to get gas, the two 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:54.960 hatched a plan to take charge of Mobile's public image. 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.280 You have to find unconveyed no ways to communicate to 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.480 the public. It's not a question of convincing the press 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:06.720 of anything. It's a question of convincing the public. And 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:10.320 to do the job properly, you have to really go 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:13.480 around the press, or beyond the press, or against the 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:16.400 press to get a story out so that the public 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:18.359 focus is on it, not the press. If you're just 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:20.760 going to limit yourself to getting the press to focus 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:22.160 on You're not doing the entire job. 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.840 At the time, issue advertising, this thing of an oil 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:31.320 company doing an ad about diversity or environmental initiatives, it 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:36.560 was relatively new. Schmertz eventually called it affinity of purpose marketing, 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:41.080 not great branding, but he explained why in a speech. 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:45.240 The term affinity of purpose marketing is a term that 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:49.000 I developed because the American Express has caused related marketing. 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:54.599 But it basically says the same thing. 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:59.200 Affinity of purpose marketing cause related marketing. Today this is 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:04.120 basically just marketing, But back then it was pretty revolutionary, 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:08.279 especially in the oil industry. Schmertz thought the company needed 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:11.960 to focus on ideas and issues rather than just selling 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:16.080 gas at stations, and to do that it needed more 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:20.920 than just the ideas themselves. Mobile needed a personality. Here 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:25.200 he is a leader in life, describing that personality, well, 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:26.640 it was multifaceted. 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:31.720 It was a personality where we believed very strongly about 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:36.120 the importance of public policiation. Secondly, we believed fervently that 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:40.120 as a sort of a custodian of a large corporation 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:45.080 and as custodians of vast resources and employment and everything else. 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:47.920 That we were not doing our job if we did 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:51.640 not participate in the marketplace of ideas. Third part of 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:55.800 our personality was we believed in that a democracy is 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:59.080 composed of a group of free institutions. We believed in 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:04.080 free market, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, academic freedom, 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.719 freedom to organize and participate in union activities. 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:12.480 Government intrusion into the marketplace of ideas would limit our 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:15.520 freedom of speech and distort the selection of our leaders. 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:20.640 Wow, if Mobil was a person, they'd be kind of 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:25.640 a Dick Ben Shapiro as a company. Anyway. You'll note 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:29.080 too that a lot of these so called personality traits 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:33.720 are more like policy positions. But over time, Schmertz started 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.600 to do various things to build out a sense of 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:40.920 who Mobile was, and he very intentionally did things that 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:44.120 no other oil exec had really thought about doing. At 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:46.680 one point he described his approach to this as being 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:50.440 like a political campaign for a company. He sponsored a 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:54.640 bunch of art exhibitions, for example, and started a literary prize, 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:59.280 the Pegasus Prize, in nineteen seventy seven, to honor works 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:04.480 from country whose literature is rarely translated into English. For Mobile. 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:08.559 It also helped to strengthen the company's relationships with various 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.320 Middle Eastern countries where it was hoping to drill for oil. 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.840 Schmertz also hired writers to write weekly opinion pieces that 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:19.800 he edited and paid to run them in The New 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:24.400 York Times, and of course, he sponsored Masterpiece theater. 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:29.000 The Bust of Base Theatre is brought to you by Mobile, 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:33.040 proviting the fuel but helps public television. 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:38.120 Run Hirschmertz wrote a whole book about his tactics. It's 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:41.839 called Goodbye to the Low Profile. In Spanish, it went 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:47.960 by the much better title Elsilenzio noesentable. Silence isn't Profitable. 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.960 In it, Schmertz implores his fellow PR guys to stop 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:54.959 being nice to the press, to stop being quiet about 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:57.360 it when they think that the press is being unfair 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:00.439 to them, and to start shouting their ideas from every 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:04.840 corner of the public square that they can access. Schmertz 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:09.080 gives a fascinating window into his whole process in this book. 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.200 At one point he talks about commissioning a survey to 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:15.480 gauge the public's opinion of Mobile before and after the 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:19.800 launch of his big issue advertising push, and he remembers 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:23.800 fondly how the survey taker said to him, Mobile must 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:28.360 be the thinking man's oil company. Did the survey taker 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:32.040 actually say that, We'll never know. The point is that 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.480 was Herb's goal, classing up Mobile and making it the 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:39.679 literary gentleman of oil companies. But while there is a 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:43.080 lot of evidence to suggest that Herb really liked to 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.960 hobknob with the creative elite, that wasn't the goal. It 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:51.160 was just a fun side benefit. The point was humanizing Mobile, 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:56.679 making him seem smart and trustworthy. Oh yeah, Mobil is 0:09:56.720 --> 0:10:02.160 definitely a hymn I bother making an oil company seem 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:05.480 like a smart, trustworthy dude, so that when he came 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:07.400 at you with ideas. 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:10.199 Like, hey, why don't we be more off for drooling. 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:13.160 You might be more likely to think it's not a 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:14.199 terrible idea. 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:20.160 According to the US Geological Survey, there may be sixty 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:24.120 billion barrels of oil or more beneath our continental shelves. 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:26.839 Some people say we should be drilling for that oil 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:30.120 and gas. Others say we shouldn't because of the possible 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:34.320 environmental risks. We'd like to know what you think, write Mobile, 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:38.240 Pole Room six four nine one fifty East forty second Street, 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:42.920 New York, one one seven. We'd like to hear from 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:43.360 all of you. 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:47.439 So, Okay, this is interesting history, right, but why are 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:50.480 we talking about it today? Well, at a certain point, 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:55.679 Schmertz and Warner ran into an obstacle. They wanted to 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:58.240 take the advertorial program that they've been running with The 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:00.400 New York Times and do it on TV. 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:00.880 Two. 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:05.000 Schmertz commissioned a few videos, and they went to the 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:11.480 big three TV broadcasters, ABC, CBS, and NBC. Remember this 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:16.640 was before cable was widespread and long before streaming. The 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:20.800 three big broadcasters were a major source of information and 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:22.760 entertainment for the American public. 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:23.800 Two of the. 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:27.920 Three, ABC and CBS turned the ad buy down flat. 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:31.800 They said it would violate their ethics clauses and that 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:34.720 it might run a foul of the fairness doctrine, which 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:39.760 required broadcasters to present both sides of controversial issues. They 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:43.600 told Schmertz that when it came to covering important political issues, 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:48.040 they left that to their journalists. Running these new fangled 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:52.000 ads of mobiles felt like broadcasting propaganda and they weren't 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:58.479 into it. Let's all pause for a moment and appreciate 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:02.800 in America in which met corporations had a shred of 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:08.680 dignity for Mobile, though this was an all hands on 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:12.160 deck moment. If the TV guys said this was propaganda. 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:15.040 What if the New York Times started to feel weird 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:19.880 about running it every single week. What if PBS decided 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:23.480 its partnership with Mobile was no longer kosher. What if 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:27.240 all that work on developing a personality, getting their ideas 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:30.520 into the public square was just a waste of time. 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:34.800 In the end, they couldn't have it, and so they 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:38.720 developed a strategy that would protect their new human version 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:42.160 of Mobile. And that is a problem we are still 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:45.840 very much dealing with today. That's the story we're going 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:50.400 to get into in this drilled mini series. Welcome to Yeah, 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:54.160 Why Not herb? A three part mini series on the 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:59.040 oil guy who popularized corporate personhood and how it's become 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:04.440 one of the biggest problems facing climate action today. Part one, 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:07.720 The Panic After this quick break. 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:22.920 Mister Olsen, are you taking the position that there is 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:27.560 no difference in the First Amendment rights of an individual? 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:33.720 The corporation, after all, is not endowed by its creator 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:41.320 with inalienable rights, So is there any distinction that Congress 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:48.760 could draw between corporations and natural human beings full purposes 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:50.000 of campaign finance. 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:53.000 What the Court has said in the First Amendment context 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:57.760 New York Times versus Sullivan, Gross Chain versus Associated Press, 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:02.880 and over and over again a corporations are persons entitled 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:04.600 to protection under the First Amendment. 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:08.800 That's the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg talking to Ted Olsen, 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:12.640 former Solicitor General of the United States, a founding member 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:16.160 of the Federalist Society and a partner in the corporate 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:20.360 law firm Gibson Dunn, which represents Chevron along with several 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:24.320 other companies in the fossil fuel business. To the extent 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:27.640 that Americans think about the idea of corporate free speech 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:31.240 at all, it tends to hinge on this one Supreme 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:35.680 Court case from twenty ten, Citizens United versus the Federal 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:39.800 Election Committee. It was a weird case. Basically, a tea 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:43.600 party Republican group called Citizens United made a movie about 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:47.040 Hillary Clinton, and they thought it was a documentary, but 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:49.760 it was very obviously not. It was a bit of 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:53.760 campaign marketing. It was called Hillary the Movie. 0:14:54.960 --> 0:15:00.000 She is steeped in controversy, steeped in sleeves. That's why 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:01.440 they don't want us to look at our record. 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:04.520 Obviously, this was not a movie that was going to 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:08.200 get a theatrical release, but Citizens United had arranged to 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:11.160 release it as a video on demand offering on a 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:15.920 few cable channels right before the Democratic primaries in January 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:20.600 two thousand and eight, but it was classified as electioneering communication, 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:24.120 which had been made illegal by the Federal Election Commission. 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:27.280 The producers fed a lawsuit in the U. S. District 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:29.520 Court for DC, trying to get a ruling that would 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:32.440 allow them to show the film and various promotional ads 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:35.720 for it. The District court judges ruled that there was 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:39.920 quote no reasonable interpretation of the movie other than as 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:43.400 an appeal to vote against Senator Clinton, so it clearly 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:49.280 qualified as electioneering communication. The producers appealed to the Supreme Court, 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:53.040 which took the case up. For some reason, it was 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:55.200 a weird decision to begin with for them to even 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:58.120 hear this case, because by the time they could hear it, 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:00.920 the election would have been passed and the whole argument 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:04.480 would be a mood point. When it ruled in twenty ten, 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:07.880 the Supreme Court upheld the District court on the fact 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:12.240 that the film was in fact electioneering communication. But it 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:16.560 applied what's called the strict scrutiny test to the First 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:20.480 Amendment and concluded that because the money for this film 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:25.000 wasn't being paid directly to a candidate for a campaign, 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:29.640 it wasn't illegal under the FEC's laws. Just to make 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:33.480 it clear, the Justices emphasize in their ruling that corporations 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:35.960 and labor unions can spend as much as they want 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:39.160 to convince people to vote for or against a candidate, 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:42.480 and they don't have to disclose who's paying for what 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:44.160 or to what end. 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:50.640 It basically says that from now on, corporations can spend directly. 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:52.240 From their treasuries. 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:58.960 And that opens up this, I mean incalculable pool of money. 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:02.520 This is Robert her a professor at the Journalism School 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:06.320 at the University of Oklahoma. I went looking for Professor 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:10.440 Kerr because he wrote two very detailed academic books about 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:14.400 what he calls the corporate free speech movement, and one 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.760 of them focuses entirely on mobile Oil's role in it, 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:21.160 which we're going to get to in a minute. But first, 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:23.760 more on the impact of Citizens United. 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:30.159 All the business corporations in the world can now spend 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:34.359 freely from their stockholders' money. Really, Over the years, because 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:36.760 I wrote so much about it, people often ask me 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:40.720 to participate in different kinds of discussions, and a lot 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:45.080 of people first will say, well, I think corporations should 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:47.560 have a right to speak, and that's a broadly held view. 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:52.280 Corporations should have a right to speak. And then when 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:54.280 I'll say, okay, but do you think they should have 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:56.919 a right If you've invested in a corporation, should they 0:17:56.960 --> 0:18:01.880 have a right to spend your investment for political purposes? 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:05.160 And they almost always say no. Almost everybody, whether they 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:09.200 call themselves liberal or conservative, they almost always agree, well, no, 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:12.240 I invested that because I wanted to make a profit. 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:13.159 I don't want the. 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:17.520 Corporation deciding which political side, because when people think about it, 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:23.560 they realize, you know, wherever their personal political views lie, 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:27.840 if a corporation can spend the stockholders' money, they might 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:30.080 spend it for someone you support, but they could very 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:31.600 well spend it for someone you don't. 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:35.480 What a lot of people don't know is that there 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:39.320 was a key case that came a few decades before 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:43.160 Citizens United that was really the first domino to fall 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:44.760 on corporate free speech. 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:50.960 There was a pretty big effort to get a Supreme 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:54.040 Court ruling that basically supported corporate speech and the right 0:18:54.840 --> 0:19:00.520 of corporations to do advertising of their not just product aising, 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:03.360 but of their you know, positions. 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:08.960 That's Brown University environmental sociologist doctor Robert Brule. The ruling 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:11.880 he's referring to was a case called First National Bank 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:15.760 of Boston versus Ballatti. It was brought by a bank 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:18.719 that wanted to be able to advertise in favor of 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:23.399 a ballot referendum that it had also backed financially. It 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:27.920 violated a state law in Massachusetts that prohibited corporations from 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:31.119 this sort of political funding, but the bank decided to 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:33.879 challenge that law in a case that went all the 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:37.320 way to the Supreme Court and won. It was the 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:41.359 first time the Court had stepped in to define corporate 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:42.840 First Amendment rights. 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:49.639 I don't think people really appreciate how big of a 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:54.600 deal that was in shifting the rules of speech in 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:59.959 the public space that now suddenly corporations could use their budget, 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:08.400 which are enormously larger than individuals, to advocate their position 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:12.840 in the public space. And as a sociologist, I would 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.879 say that what this did was it allowed for a 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:20.639 systematic distortion of the public space. Is that it gives 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:28.119 corporations basically a loudspeaker to amplify their voice above everybody else's. 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:33.560 And in a media environment where there's many, many competing voices, 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:39.720 the ability to get your message out repeatedly, over and 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:45.560 over and over again an opposition to other voices is 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:50.439 enormously influential in getting your viewpoint to be part of 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:54.119 the public discussion and eventually become part of the taken 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:56.840 for granted worldview. 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:00.720 And here's where we bring it back to Mobile Oil 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:03.800 and our old pal Herb Schmirtz. 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:06.760 And Mobile was one of the leading corporations to fight 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:08.960 for that legal right. 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:12.480 That's why Robert Kerr wound up writing a whole book 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:15.520 about Mobile's role in shaping free speech, a book he 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:17.080 actually interviewed Herbsmirtz for. 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:20.720 He was very pleasant, you know, a little bit argumentative, 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:24.680 but not much. He said that looking back, he thought 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:28.399 the Mobile op eds demonstrated that corporations can participate in 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:32.080 the dialogue and that Mobile had achieved leadership. 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:33.840 And that's basically true. 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:37.960 They did nobody, no one else utilized The New York 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:39.960 Times op ed page the way Mobile did. 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:43.600 I don't think he meant it this way, but wooh, 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:48.560 sick burn on the New York Times embarrassing. Anyway, Mobile 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:52.880 didn't just shape public discourse by using the media as 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:56.640 a tool. It also got involved in shaping the legal 0:21:57.040 --> 0:22:01.399 structures that would allow them to have more influence, to 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:03.600 be the loudest voice in the room. 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:10.040 He got into Bolotti some I don't think in his mind, 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:13.720 at least many years later, he wasn't looking back like, yeah, 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:16.959 we won that and that change history. He was on 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:19.800 the side that won and it did change history. And 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:22.200 of course that's the thing I can talk about endlessly. 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:27.199 But he said the reason they got into it at 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:31.159 first was that they saw the energy crisis of the 0:22:31.240 --> 0:22:34.280 nineteen seventies coming, and it was a big deal anyone 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:36.800 who was alive then as I was, I mean, it 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:44.560 dominated not just media discussions but popular discussions. And you know, 0:22:44.600 --> 0:22:47.720 man on the street, everybody was for years and years 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:50.399 was talking about the price of gasoline going up, the 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:53.720 long lines at the gas stations, and you know, sometimes 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:57.120 the gas stations closed because they had no gasoline. And 0:22:57.600 --> 0:23:01.480 he said that Mobile felt that media in general were 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:04.120 getting it wrong and that they had to come in 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:05.919 and correct things. 0:23:06.640 --> 0:23:09.960 That's why mobile got into what they called issue advertising 0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:13.440 or affinity of purpose marketing. But they started to look 0:23:13.440 --> 0:23:16.560 for ways the law could protect that type of marketing 0:23:16.720 --> 0:23:19.119 because of one big threat to it in the early 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:24.159 nineteen seventies. Here's Schmertz talking about that threat in a 0:23:24.200 --> 0:23:27.679 promotional video he made for the National Association of Manufacturers 0:23:27.760 --> 0:23:31.240 to circulate to executives at other big corporations. 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:35.400 Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, 0:23:35.680 --> 0:23:39.480 or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:42.199 of speech or of the press, while the right of 0:23:42.240 --> 0:23:45.240 the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:48.880 for a redress of grievances. That was the first Amendment. 0:23:50.240 --> 0:23:52.480 And you may not be aware of it, but there 0:23:52.480 --> 0:23:57.160 are two constraints imposed by television networks that we contend 0:23:57.280 --> 0:24:00.920 are not consistent with these First Amendments, right, And I'd 0:24:00.960 --> 0:24:02.720 like to discuss these constraints with you. 0:24:03.920 --> 0:24:07.159 Yep, it was the TV thing I mentioned before. In 0:24:07.200 --> 0:24:10.199 the early nineteen seventies, high on the success of his 0:24:10.280 --> 0:24:14.080 Weekly New York Times advertorials, Schmertz tried to take a 0:24:14.200 --> 0:24:18.879 video version to the three big networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC. 0:24:19.720 --> 0:24:22.800 AC and CBS turned it down flat. NBC accepted a 0:24:22.840 --> 0:24:26.480 couple of the ads, but asked for major edits. It 0:24:26.520 --> 0:24:29.159 was a huge threat to this plan that he and 0:24:29.280 --> 0:24:32.639 Mobile CEO Rolly Warner had cooked up to try to 0:24:32.720 --> 0:24:37.080 mitigate the impact of the energy crisis on Mobile's reputation 0:24:37.359 --> 0:24:41.479 and profits. But Schmertz sold it as a huge threat 0:24:41.680 --> 0:24:46.280 to all businesses and to the American way of life. 0:24:47.480 --> 0:24:50.040 The first constraint, what you may not be aware of, 0:24:50.320 --> 0:24:54.680 is that the television networks take the position that controversial 0:24:54.720 --> 0:24:58.760 issues of public importance should only be presented in formats 0:24:59.000 --> 0:25:02.920 determined by broad cash journalists. They contend that the public's 0:25:02.920 --> 0:25:06.800 interest will best be served by this limitation. The second 0:25:06.840 --> 0:25:10.959 constraint involves the ability to purchase time to present what 0:25:11.000 --> 0:25:15.680 we contend is issue or opinion advertising. The networks take 0:25:15.720 --> 0:25:19.520 the position that they will not sell commercial time to 0:25:19.640 --> 0:25:25.479 advertisers to present what they define as controversial issues of 0:25:25.480 --> 0:25:29.280 public importance. Now, some of the things that they have 0:25:29.440 --> 0:25:34.639 considered controversial are offshore drilling, oil company profits. The energy 0:25:34.680 --> 0:25:37.800 crisis itself has been considered a controversial relationship by one 0:25:37.840 --> 0:25:41.520 state station. Now When you put these two constraints together, 0:25:42.040 --> 0:25:44.879 the result is that the American people are not getting 0:25:44.960 --> 0:25:48.240 adequate information to make up their minds on a very 0:25:48.240 --> 0:25:51.679 crucial issue, namely, the energy crisis and the development of 0:25:51.720 --> 0:25:53.600 adequate energy for the United States. 0:25:54.520 --> 0:25:58.159 Schmertz and Warner immediately started talking to business groups like 0:25:58.200 --> 0:26:01.800 the National Association Manufacturer Is, the Chamber of Commerce, and 0:26:01.920 --> 0:26:06.560