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In a recent Economics Explained video "Emergency PSA - The End of YouTube in Australia" at 0:27 and 5:39, there was a claim that a specific Australian policy may have been timed to be announced while the general population was distracted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Guardian claims in Take Out the Trash Day – the perfect opportunity to bury bad news that the UK government buries bad news while people are distracted by Christmas.

Jo Moore suggested taking advantage of the September 11 attacks to release bad news, but it seems to have been a major blunder.

It sounds like a plausible hypothesis, that governments deliberately announce unpopular policies or release bad news when the population is distracted, but I'd like to know whether the hypothesis has been critically examined, and if so, what the conclusions are.

Golden Cuy
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    Trillions of dollars each year are spent to convince people around the world what product to buy, what philosophy to believe, what candidate to vote for.... It's frankly impossible to believe that any government would not participate in basic marketing for the simple reason that if the people in that government didn't - their campaign opponents would - and thereby it will always happen. – JBH Aug 23 '20 at 17:57
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    If they are good politicians, most everything they do will be deliberate. – Levi C. Olson Aug 23 '20 at 23:25
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    Legislation against net neutrality has been attempted every christmas during the last few years. –  Aug 24 '20 at 03:27
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    This could also be a good question to ask on skeptics.stackexchange, if you want answers based on evidence. – henning Aug 24 '20 at 08:23
  • In the 2007 Financial crisis, the Spanish president announced the massive bank rescue on the day of a very important Spanish football national match that Spain was favorite to win. He ended the conference with something like "But now something more important: Lets all support the national football team!". – Ander Biguri Aug 24 '20 at 09:32
  • @henning--reinstateMonica I was very tempted to ask there, but I was worried that it could be seen as a "motivation" question. – Golden Cuy Aug 24 '20 at 11:13
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    To go further : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine In this book, the author explains that some states use "shocking events" to put in place policies that otherwise will face a massive disapproval of the population. – Genorme Aug 24 '20 at 11:18
  • @AnderBiguri I tried googling about that before asking this question, albeit only in English, but couldn't find any articles about it. – Golden Cuy Aug 24 '20 at 11:23
  • @AndrewGrimm its from 2012, so its harder to find articles about it, also not all newspapers put those two things together. Publico has one. It was an Eurocup match in Poland that he left for. – Ander Biguri Aug 24 '20 at 12:03
  • It is common in the usa for the white house to release negative news or do negative things on Friday. – NDEthos Aug 25 '20 at 15:08
  • You're not saying it is, just a note that this idea (tactic?) is not unique to politics. – BruceWayne Aug 25 '20 at 22:11
  • @Genorme: That seems fairly different — using shocking events to persuade people that drastic policies are justified, versus using the events to distract people from the policies entirely. – Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine Aug 26 '20 at 08:53
  • Desperately sad this is even a thing... I don't care how much good we as humans do, the evil outweighs it all. The good will never catchup. – mxmissile Aug 26 '20 at 15:10

5 Answers5

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Yes, this has been studied in the case of US presidents, and the commonly held belief seems to be well evidenced.

Presidents tend to issue executive orders, and specifically ones that are likely to generate negative publicity, in coincidence with other important events that distract the media and the public.

CEPR study.

richardb
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Apart from a government using outside events as a distraction to release unpopular policies or publicise information that must be disclosed but might be damaging, it's actually a named practice to deliberately create such a distraction. When you have to publicly announce something damaging, you also go ahead and do something which is sensational, but not (in the long run) particularly damaging.

This practice as a, "dead cat," after a phrase coined by Lynton Crosby, who use the metaphor of "throwing a dead cat on the table." The idea being that everyone would be talking about the dead cat, and not the absolute disaster you are distracting them from.

For example, the recent focus the UK government has placed on immigrants attempting to cross the English channel in small boats as well as the blatant, jingoistic comments made by some Conservative MPs on the subject (such as taking Calais back from the French or sending the Royal Navy to intercept these boats mid-channel), is seen by many independent observers as a deliberate distraction from the government's mishandling of A Level results and the replacement of Public Health England with the highly controversial Dido Harding as head of the new body.

GeoffAtkins
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    The thing (as well as the name) is quite a bit older... – Zeus Aug 24 '20 at 05:55
  • Do you know if there are any studies on how systematically this occurs? So far, this answer only adds a few more anecdotes. – henning Aug 24 '20 at 08:21
  • Down-voted due to the politicised opinion of referring to the desire to defend our country from unwanted, uninvited invaders, as “jingoistic”. This is a real problem: you wouldn’t accept people barging into your home uninvited. – Chris Melville Aug 24 '20 at 23:11
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    @ChrisMelville - It is not about dealing with immigration, it is the manner in which the Tories are talking about it. "Taking back Calais," or, "Sending in the Navy." Neither of which are realistic or actually particularly sensible solutions to this. – GeoffAtkins Aug 25 '20 at 06:00
  • @GeoffAtkins - Chris brings up a pretty good point (in a pretty bad way.) If you're looking to clarify an answer with an analogy or example, it should one that people don't find contentious. Let me give you a better example: German movies during the 40's - https://www.dw.com/en/movies-under-hitler-between-propaganda-and-distraction/a-37657886. With a good money quote: "Right from the beginning, many films were produced with the aim of distracting people." With Goebbels himself rejecting some of the over-the-top propaganist films as being "too blunt" and not being distractionary. – Kevin Aug 25 '20 at 18:54
  • @GeoffAtkins - I mean, if I was arguing "Putting people on the defensive is a counterproductive way to find common ground", I wouldn't use "When [Political Figure X] called [Political Party Y] a [Pejorative], the situation immediately polarized with [Political Party Y] refusing common sense compromises for the following year." Because if you agreed with Party Y, you wouldn't find my example clarifying at all. "Wait, but Party Y was just doing the right thing! Why would they compromise at all?" Instead, I'd use an example that wasn't contentious as a way of illustrating the idea. – Kevin Aug 25 '20 at 19:00
  • @ChrisMelville threatening military action against hapless people in leaky boats is pretty much textbook jingoism, as is framing the discussion in warlike terms. – barbecue Aug 25 '20 at 20:20
  • @barbecue - no military action is "being threatened against" the people. The navy aren't going to shoot them. They're simply going to turn them around back to France (again, a SAFE COUNTRY). This is a power that the UK border force or coast guard don't have. – Chris Melville Aug 25 '20 at 21:24
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    @ChrisMelville While I disagree that it's possible to send the navy anywhere without creating an automatic implicit threat of force, the point was that jingoistic is an accurate description of the language being used. Calling schlubs in tubs "invaders" is similarly jingoistic. Chauvanism/jingoism is just as much about HOW you say it as what you say. Example: "We have a problem with illegal immigrants. We need policies to properly address this problem." NOT Jingoistic. "We have a problem with foreign invaders threatening our way of life. We must stop this threat." Jingoistic. – barbecue Aug 25 '20 at 21:33
  • "is seen by many independent observers as a deliberate distraction from the government's mishandling of A Level results and the replacement of Public Health England with the highly controversial Dido Harding as head of the new body." - To say nothing about the UK government's abysmal response to COVID-19, as well. – aroth Aug 26 '20 at 07:13
  • Leaving aside UK partisan politics: the “dead cat” strategy is, I think, a bit different from what this question is asking about. In the “dead cat” situation, the new announcement is the distraction, and the current events are what the government is trying to distract attention away from. The question is asking about the situation where the current events are the distraction, and the new announcement is what the government wants to hide. – Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine Aug 26 '20 at 08:50
  • There was quite a furore over 'burying bad news' when the WTC attacks happened; https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1358985/Sept-11-a-good-day-to-bury-bad-news.html – Sobrique Aug 26 '20 at 09:49
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A common tactic used by both parties is the Friday news dump, where you put out a bunch of things that are either not that important or potentially bad. The TV series The West Wing had this note

Donna: Why do you do it on Friday?

Josh: Because no one reads the paper on Saturday.

Fewer people watch or read about the news on Saturday or Sunday. It's a bit less effective in the Internet age (where avid Internet users still read social media), but it is still done this way today

Machavity
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In one case an aide to the governing Labour party in the UK suggested that the 9/11 attacks would be a good cover for bad news. She wrote:

"It is now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury. Councillors expenses?"

(The latter question referred to a minor U-turn in government policy)

The way the memo was phrased strongly suggests that this kind of thing was standard practice in Tony Blair's government. Of course New Labour was notorious for spin; it was the era when the term "spin doctor" entered the public awareness.

Paul Johnson
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I've heard the term Burying for doing unpopular stuff while the population is distracted, e.g. passing legislation during FIFA worldcup finals or releasing reports on Black Friday.

Martin Schröder
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