Doug Henwood:
> Lots. When I got into the journalism racket, I was really surprised
> to learn how big a part publicists play in it. A lot of what
> newspapers and magazines write is either inspired by or paraphrased
> from press releases. Lots of people you hear on the radio or see on
> TV are there because publicists were chatting up the producers. Part
> of the problem is time - journalists and producers often don't have
> lots of it, but they have lots of time (in broadcast) and space (in
> print) to fill. So if some news item or interviewee is dropped in
> your lap, it solves both problems. Press kits for books now regularly
> include lists of questions that interviewers might ask (in case the
> producer - rarely the host! - is too busy to read the press release
> itself).
>
> KC paid the PR Newswire to distribute that, but the didn't pay the
> newspapers to repeat it.
Nevertheless, the creation of scarcity is an enormously important task in mature capitalism, as existing needs and desires are overwhelmed by capitalism's constantly expanding powers of production. While war, imperialism, waste, graft, and the like are all useful, putting the working class to further work as _voluntary_ consumers is a mainstay of scarcity-creation. Hence new products must be constantly brought forth and strenuously flogged in the hope that they, too, will become "necessities". The stories mentioned are surely given as inspiration and admonition to get on with this crucial work.
And thirty years from now, if all goes well, you'll have to buy a $30,000 robot to wipe your ass -- or risk expulsion from polite society, homelessness, disease, and death.