Reprinted from the Influencing Machine by Brooke Gladstone And

An excerpt from The Influencing Machine by Brooke Gladstone and Josh Neufeld

Historian Daniel Hallin divides the journalists’ world The donut hole is the into three spheres . . . sphere of consensus, “the region of motherhood and apple pie.” Unquestionable values and unchallengeable truths.

The donut is journalism’s sweet spot: The place for the sphere of legitimate controversy. Here The sphere of people and opinions that issues are undecided, debated, probed. deviance is the the “mainstream of air around the the society reject as donut. Limbo. unworthy of being heard.”

Objective reporters don’t go there.

In fact, says Election coverage is on Hallin, the press the donut, as are discussions of social, plays gatekeeper, economic, even war policies, once they are by defining and nudged out of the sphere of consensus defending “the limits by people in authority. That’s where of acceptable political “objective” journalism thrives. conduct.”

But it’s much easier to see the whole donut from a distance. A hundred years should be enough.

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In 1909, Missouri Senator “The Senator insisted InfluencingMachine5ppFINAL.inddW. J. Stone strikes105 a on the use of the 3/29/11 2:47 PM waiter in a Pullman dining term ’to slap.’ ’I did car, but is acquitted not strike a man,’ he of assault: bad service explained, ’I slapped a is deemed sufficient nigger.’ Everyone who “provocation.” The Times travels much, and condemns the decision uses the dining cars, and rebukes Senator can sympathize with Stone . . . the Senator. The service is frequently bad.”

“But he ought not to have slapped him . . . No provocation justifies loss of self-control in a United States Senator . . . ”

“Doubtless his contempt for the Negro is an inheritance, as he is a Kentuckian by birth. . . But his argument that ’slapping a nigger’ is not ’striking a man’ will not hold good in many States of the Union.”

Let’s stipulate What falls into the sphere of deviance? that in the twenty-first century, hitting a The waiter’s perspective. It’s irrelevant. waiter who is late with your lunch is inexcusable, actionable behavior -- a view that fits squarely in the donut hole of consensus.

In 1909, it falls into the sphere of legitimate controversy. So the In fact, even to consider his side of the story, Times “objectively” examines the case or the grievances of Pullman waiters generally, and concludes that, all things considered, would smack of unseemly advocacy. The the racist Senator has dishonored himself legitimate debate extends only to the damage and his office. done to the dignity of the Senate.

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