SPIN – DOCTORING

“Explain to me just why I should waste my time with a load of fucking wankers like you when you`re not going to write anything I tell you anyway” 
 Alastair Campbell 

“ ….The word spin – doctor, which conveys the greater degree of menace, subterfuge and mystique in the modern PRO `s job, came later. It originated in the USA and is said to have derived from baseball. According to Dr Emma Lenz of the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recording use of the term was by Saul Bellow in his 1977 Jefferson Lectures. The Collins English Dictionary (1999 edition) defines spin – doctor as a person who provides a favourable slant to an item of news, potential unpopular policy, etc., especially on behalf of a political personality or party.

The word was not taken up in Britain until the early 1990`s, when it was indelibly associated with the rise to public prominence of Peter Mandelson and his school of New Labour media experts.” 

Peter Oborne and Simon Walters (“Alastair Campbell”)

Bruno V