The 2 Best Rigged Podcast Episodes
1) Welcome to Rigged
Introducing Rigged: A podcast documenting the history and evolution of disinformation in America.
2) S1 Ep4 | The Birth of SponCon
The legendary Herb Schmertz, VP of Mobil Oil, worked with PBS and The New York Times to invent sponsored content—sponcon—back in the 1960s.
3) Herb, Ep 3: The Next Citizens United Will Be a Climate Case
In more than 30 climate cases making their way through U.S. courts today, oil companies are using an argument they've been laying the legal groundwork for since the 1970s: that since everything they'v...Show More
4) Herb, Ep 2: A Legal Strategy
Worried that all their work creating Mobil's personality and a multi-pronged issue advertising campaign to go with it would go to waste if the TV networks deemed it all "propaganda" Herb and his boss ...Show More
5) Herb, Ep 1: The Panic
In the 1970s, Mobil Oil had invented the advertorial and was aggressively pursuing an entirely new type of marketing, branding the company as a person with a unique personality and opinions that deser...Show More
6) S1 Ep6 | How a Standard Oil PR Guy Shaped Post-War America
In 1944 the greatest threat to American industry wasn't World War II, it was convincing Americans to fall back in love with free-market capitalism after having experienced government systems that actu...Show More
7) S1 Ep5 | Fun with Front Groups
Astroturfing—the creation of fake grassroots groups to agitate for pro-business policies—has been a favorite tactic of industries and companies trying to avoid regulation for decades. In this episode ...Show More
8) S1 Ep3 | A Tie Is A Win
The tactic of science denial is fairly well known these days. In this episode, we dig into a lesser-known aspect: the PR strategy behind science denial, and the origins and architects of that strategy...Show More
9) S1 Ep2 | Ye Olde Crisis Actor Myth
You could be forgiven for thinking the crisis actor myth was cooked up by Alex Jones to sell people on school shooting conspiracies, but in fact it's more than a century old. In this episode we meet t...Show More
10) S1 Ep1 | Fake Experts and Real Bacon
In this episode we'll meet the godfathers of American PR, Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays, and explore the origins and evolution of industry-funded experts who shaped everything from the breakfast table to...Show More