American Journalism, 27:2, 7-30
Copyright © 2010, American Journalism Historians Association
The Energy Crisis and the Media:
Mobil Oil Corporation’s Debate
with the Media 1973-1983
By Vanessa Murphree and James Aucoin
During the 1970s, Mobil Oil Corporation launched a public
relations effort that set off a clash of titans—with the oil company on
one side and the nation’s media on the other—over who would set the
agenda for public debate on energy policy. Although the campaign’s
purposes fell within the traditional schema of public relations, the
way the company carried it out set a new benchmark for corporate
communications. By taking on media giants such as the New York
Times and CBS via contentious issue advertising, the corporation
broke away from traditional and more diplomatic media relations
efforts and pioneered a public relations approach involving an aggressive attempt to influence media coverage and public opinion.
The company tried to tell journalists and the public how to think
about energy issues by establishing itself as an expert and editorial
commentator and then aggressively refuting what it perceived to be
unfair or inaccurate news media coverage. This article examines
Mobil’s uncompromising engagement with the media as a means of
“encouraging public debate” and controlling that debate.
…today’s energy crisis is controversial largely because the media have helped make it controversial
by printing and broadcasting material so inaccurate that anyone with any knowledge of our industry would have to disagree with it.
D
—Rawleigh Warner, Jr.,
Chairman, Mobil Oil Corporation
March 5, 1973
Vanessa Murphree is an
associate professor in the
Department of Communication at
The University of South Alabama,
1000 University Commons,
Mobile, Alabama 36688.
[email protected]
James Aucoin is a professor in the
Department of Communication at
The University of South Alabama,
1000 University Commons,
Mobile, Alabama 36688.
[email protected] uring the 1970s, Mobil Oil Corporation launched a public relations effort that set off a clash of
titans—with the oil company on one side and
the nation’s media on the other—over who would set the agenda
for public debate on energy policy. While Mobil’s efforts certainly
American Journalism, 27:2, 31-61
Copyright © 2010, American Journalism Historians Association
Still Reading Women’s Magazines:
Reconsidering the Tradition a Half Century
After The Feminine Mystique
By Amy Aronson
Among America’s most popular media, women’s magazines
have long received widespread critique—both inside and outside
academia, and not least from women themselves. Since the 1960s,
critical discussion has fallen into three basic camps. This article
maps those perspectives, and elucidates a fourth position, which
theorizes the eclectic nature of the American women’s magazine as a
hallmark of the form and keynote of its social identity from the very
start of the tradition. Seeing the women’s magazine as a magazine,
a miscellany, this article demonstrates the ways the inherent dynamics of the form have offered a wider range of gender discourse
and reader opportunities throughout its history than many previous analyses have allowed. The article offers a fresh and potentially
generative vision of the form in American history, while it also helps
explain the ongoing vitality of both the multiple strains of critique
and of avid audiences, despite dramatic changes in media options
and middle-class women’s lives over the past half-century.
H
istorically, women’s magazines have been among the
most popular forms of print media in America. Yet even
before the1830s, when Godey’s Lady’s Book put women’s magazines on the popular and commercial map, controversy
has surrounded their meaning and implications.
Critique has come from various quarters both Amy Aronson is an
assistant professor of
inside and outside academia, and not least from Journalism and Media Studies
women themselves. And from classrooms to at Fordham University,
chatrooms, books to blogs, the debate about the 113 West 60th Street
New York, NY, 10023.
impact of women’s magazines on women and 212-636-7738
[email protected]
gender is still in play today.
Over the past half century, the critical discussion has fallen into three basic camps. If these analytical positions were mapped as a two-by-two table, the current picture is
missing one whole quadrant. One block sees the women’s maga
American Journalism, 27:2, 63-85
Copyright © 2010, American Journalism Historians Association
Shell-Shocked in New Orleans:
A Competitive Press During a
Bloody Season, January 1973
By Stuart C. Babington
In the midst of a violent winter in New Orleans, the city was
held hostage for 36 hours on January 7 and 8, 1973, when a downtown hotel was set ablaze and shots began ringing out from the
roof of the high-rise. New Orleans reporters, with memories of the
graphic representation of a fire that occurred five weeks prior, began
producing words and images that were utilized all over the country. The present research looks at New Orleans press coverage—in
particular, newspaper coverage—through the lens of Vietnam-era
coverage, which had pushed the envelope in its emphasis on violent
content. The researcher finds that the New Orleans-produced content was certainly graphic and dramatic, but—rather than the result
of economic stresses—was a human reaction to weeks of dramatic
stories that had established emotional and graphic portrayals as a
new norm in the New Orleans area.
“It was shock and bewilderment. It wasn’t a kind of tabloid-kind of salaciousness, like, ‘Let’s get on this, let’s milk it, we got a story that’s going to
sell a load of newspapers.’ There was no sense of that—partly because it
was unprecedented; we had no frame of reference for thinking about this.
And two, it was our town, and we were appalled.”
B
—Times-Picayune reporter Bruce Nolan, 20051
ruce Nolan still possesses a shell Stuart C. Babington is
casing that serves as a reminder of an assistant professor of
the Sunday morning he spent ducked journalism at Spring Hill
College, 4000 Dauphin St.,
under the cover of a fire engine. Somewhere Mobile, AL, 36608.
much deeper in his collection of memorabilia he 251-380-3845
has an audiotape he made while crouched under [email protected]
the massive truck. Though he’s not sure he wants
to hear it again, he knows the tape contains the unforgettable sound
American Journalism, 27:2, 87-110
Copyright © 2010, American Journalism Historians Association
The Future Will Be Televised:
Newspaper Industry Voices
and the Rise of Television News
By Kristen Heflin
In the mid-1950s newspapers were the primary source of news
for most Americans. By the 1970s television had taken over as the
primary source of news. Through a thematic analysis of Nieman
Reports and Editor & Publisher from 1954 to 1974, this study examines how newspaper industry representatives characterized television news and how they planned to remain relevant during a time
of media transition. This study provides some of the historical context necessary to better understand the arguments and assumptions
made by the newspaper industry today as they face the competition
posed by Internet-enabled communications technologies.
I do not believe the American press is dying—unless it decides to commit
suicide. I think journalism is in the grip of a process that is painful to every
human being: the necessity to change.1
I
—Barry Bingham, 1959
n the mid-1950s, newspapers were the main source of news
for a majority of the American public.2 But, by 1974, 65 percent of Americans said television was their main source of
news.3 In less than twenty years the media landscape had changed.
After surviving the challenges posed by the in- Kristen Heflin is an assistant
troduction of radio, newspapers now faced a new professor in the Department
of Advertising and Public
competitor—television news.
Relations in the College
Television’s foray into news stimulated a of Communication and
great deal of debate and a wide range of reactions Information Sciences at the
from members of the newspaper industry. Some University of Alabama,
905 University Blvd.,
argued newspapers had nothing to fear from this 412 Phifer Hall
new competitor, dismissing television news as an Tuscaloosa, AL 35487.
ineffective novelty. Others recognized television 205-348-7158
[email protected]
news as a potential threat, but felt newspapers
were a superior medium that could never be replaced. Still others