The Uber-Spin of the "Auto-Industry Bailout"

By Todd Herman, Founder of SpinSpotter

Before I use Google News Search to track a little spin today (see below), I have the fiscal duty and general joy to say that SpinSpotter is a great tool for seeing spin on the big-five news sites. As we grow and as you teach our SpinBot, it will be a great tool on all of them. As proof of that I offer this: our users have already taught us that the phrase indusrty-bailout is a “dead give away for advocacy of the plan” they have also taught us that “The Big Three” is also a Spin-Laden term especially since Toyota is number one, and Detroit’s automakers are near collapse unless they get our tax money (or, rather, our line of national credit). Our SpinBot has been calling those phrases out since before the CEO’s from Detroit flew to D.C. in their Globe-Warming machines.

In the media narrative, though, how is the phrase “auto-industry bailout” being utilized? A self-serving way to ask that: what is the Uber-Spin?

Google News Search is a really cool way to tap the Uber-Spin, the evolving narrative around how news gets colored---one day we will do a better job at that. From Google’s servers, then, comes today’s object-lesson in Uber-Spin. The American Media seems to have invested in, and helped re-sell the phrase “auto-industry bailout” and the meme that it’s the industry -not three companies- that need a “bailout”.

Fun with Google News Search:

“Auto-industry bailout”: returns 5,755 stories:

Adding “Toyota” and “BMW” to the Search returns three (6) news stories!

That means Google News found all of six news stories about the so called "industry bailout" which contain any discussion of the number one automaker, Toyota and another brand which builds cars in the United States.

The search returns for “auto-industry bailout” and “Toyota” is better at 294 returns though it clearly indicates the fact that the news media accepts the notion that this is an industry-wide bailout.

Tomorrow I will take a look at how are human Spin Spotters edit the phases “bailout” and “auto-industry bailout”.