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I see a lot of people drawing the obvious parallel between both-sides takes in climate and politics, but it's bigger than that. The PR industry invented both sides-ism to help industry deal with muckraking journalists. Standard Oil was one of the first to use it to great effect
In the 70s and 80s, Mobil Oil turned it into a damn science. In the 90s, the API, Exxon, et al knew so well how to weaponize both-sides journalism that it was a key part of a detailed strategy to use media to shift the public toward thinking climate change was merely a "theory"
Ivy Lee, Standard Oil's publicist and the first modern-day PR guy, created the whole crisis actor thing too. He claimed coal miners protesting low wages and poor working conditions were crisis actors back in the early 1900s. This shit is almost as old as the oil industry itself
So it's not just a matter of this being the same strategy that oil companies used, and tobacco companies. It was created by the PR industry on behalf of other industries, and the strategy has evolved, which each industry or PR guy adding new bells and whistles for over a century
This is why I've been harping on for years about media accountability. On climate, race, the current political quagmire ... why has the media continued to embrace both-sides approaches? After YEARS worth of discussion around "objectivity" why has there been so little change?
We covered this whole history in the 3rd season of @WeAreDrilled. Working on getting more up on the website about it too but this is a good start if you’re interested: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/drilled/id1439735906?i=1000458727231
