Others whose work influenced Bernays included the British political scientist, Graham Wallas, whose 1908 book, Human Nature in Politics, maintained that “the empirical art of politics” was not based on fact-based appeals to reason. Instead, he asserted, it “consists largely in the creation of opinion, by the deliberate exploitation of subconscious,

Two of Lippmann’s ideas were particularly significant as Bernays crafted the job of the “public relations counsel.” The first of these was Lippmann’s argument that people’s view of reality was guided by the “pictures in their heads.” Living within the cocoons of their personal lives, and with minimal direct access to the outer world, most people’s

The very fact that newspapers must sell to the public is an evidence that they must please the public and in a measure obey it. In the press there is a very human tendency to compromise between giving the public what it wants and giving the public what it should want.

Since news is the newspaper’s backbone, it is obvious that an understanding of what news actually is must be an integral part of the equipment of the public relations counsel. For the public relations counsel must not only supply news—he must create news. This function as the creator of news is even more important than his others.

The public responds to finer music and better motion pictures and demands improvements. “Give the people what they want” is only half sound. What they want and what they get are fused by some mysterious alchemy. The press, the lecturer, the screen and the public lead and are led by each other.

First of all, there are the circumstances and events he helps to create. After that there are the instruments by which he broadcasts facts and ideas to the public; advertising, motion pictures, circular letters, booklets, handbills, speeches, meetings, parades, news articles, magazine articles and whatever other mediums there are through which

Naturally the press, like other institutions which present facts or opinions, is restricted, often unconsciously, sometimes consciously, by various controlling conditions. Certain people talk of the censorship enacted by the prejudices and predispositions of the public itself. Some, such as Upton Sinclair, ascribe to the advertisers a conscious and

“Crowds have always undergone the influence of illusions,” he wrote, “Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master. Whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.”

The public relations counsel must lift startling facts from his whole subject and present them as news. He must isolate ideas and develop them into events so that they can be more readily understood and so they can claim attention as news.