Political spin

Reader question:

What does the phrase "put a spin on it" mean?

My comments:

Politicians are constantly putting a spin on something. I mean, political spin is what comes uppermost to my mind. And that means they are twisting a story around in order to make the story appear more favorable. In other words, to put a spin on something is to lie about it.

Yes, you may have sensed it; there is a somewhat derogative connotation to the phrase.

Physically, if you spin something, you turn it round and round. You give washed clothes a spin, for example, to remove water. Figuratively speaking, if you spin a story, you, er, you just don't tell it straight. Take beggars in the street, for example. They are often seen "spinning" painful, hard-luck stories in front of passersby in order to win more sympathy from anyone who stops to listen.

And politicians and businesspeople tend put a spin on nearly everything these days if they make an address to the public, partially thanks (or no thanks) to the advent of the Internet. It is simply more difficult for anyone to hide anything any more. Hence all the spin, if you want to take a sympathetic view of it, is borne out of necessity, necessity to survive as administrations and companies all have to survive in order to thrive. But others see "the rise of spin as a real problem for democracy because it masks transparency and provides the public with distorted information" (How To Master Political Spin, uniffors.com, October 11th, 2007). Ah, serious.

Anyways, when you see terms such as "spin doctor", "spin a yarn", "however you spin it" you should know what they mean – a spin doctor, by the way, can be anyone from a political adviser, press agent, spokesperson of a company to a public relations expert.

Here are spinning examples from the media:

1. Selectively present facts and quotes that support your position. Sometimes a spin doctor can manipulate the words of an adversary and come up with a statement that ends up supporting the spin doctor's client. A good example of this is Ms. X saying, "I admire Mr. Z, but he has made a terrible error." The spin becomes, "Ms. X said today that she 'admires' Mr. Z."

2. The Mortal Kombat maker announced today that it has filed for Chapter 11 reorganization for its U.S. operations. In a press release, the company blamed the move on a change in ownership that happened last fall. That change pushed forward the deadline for Midway to pay off some of its debt, an obligation "Midway anticipated it would be unable to satisfy," the company said in a statement.

"This was a difficult but necessary decision," Matt Booty, holder of Midway's hat trick of titles — president, chairman and CEO — said in the statement.

Then, in one of the more humorous assertions ever from a company in such straits, Booty put a positive spin on things: "Midway enters this process with strong underlying fundamentals, as evidenced by solid fourth quarter sales that exceeded expectations."

Right. The underlying fundamentals are so strong that the company is seeking bankruptcy protection.

3. With the clock ticking down on his presidency, Bush and his aides used his last day of public events before Inauguration Day to try to put a positive spin on his record.

Farewell speeches are a ritual for departing U.S. leaders, but the stakes are especially high for Bush, who will step down with one of the lowest public approval ratings of any president in modern times – in the mid-20 percent range.

In a final ceremony at the State Department earlier on Thursday, Bush defended his foreign policy – from the unpopular war in Iraq to nuclear standoffs with Iran and North Korea. "We have made the world freer," he said.