Rindsberg’s examples cut across time and the political spectrum to show us how the paper of record has systematically misinformed readers, and how there are no serious indications that it has stopped doing so. No matter the fact that dynastic, corporate and military elites do not represent the whole of ‘modern man’, establishing processes with them does take up a large portion of the mental energy of Church leaders, sometimes at the expense of the vast majority of modern men.Īshley Rindsberg’s book, The Gray Lady Winked is a useful book in that it introduces readers to the reality of propaganda, and in doing so enables them to be more prudent in their reliance even on reputable sources when making communications decisions.

Of course, this introduces an insight into the problem. Accepting national propaganda efforts became, for many Church leaders, an acceptable way of gaining access to those elites. For example, on the eve of and during the First World War, many local bishops’ conferences had to balance the diplomatic efforts of the Pope to establish peace against their own long-term efforts to get a hearing at the national level, oftentimes with entrenched anti-Christian liberal and secularized dynastic, corporate and military elites who saw the Church as a non-entity. As one expert concludes, we all tend to be good at identifying propaganda, deceptions or lies when our opponents use them we all tend to be blind when our allies or supposed friends use them.Ĭhurch communications are part of this dynamic. In the past two hundred years, with the expansion of mass culture and the growing consciousness and desire for representative government among people, the nature of puzzle has become more acute.

Elements of it can be traced to the earliest civilizations. The problem of propaganda and the tension it introduces into how various political, social, cultural, and religious entities relate to each other is not new.

Ashley rindsberg the gray lady winked