Minority Rules

America’s free society in the 21st century operates on two fundamental principles:
1. The majority rules.
2. The minority rules.

Do you see a reason for conflict here? If you do, congratulations. You are smart enough to become eligible to win a free medium Coke at McDonald’s. If you see that these two principles make “conflict” the most important word in 21st century American free society, then you are as smart as Britney Spears or Karl Rove and may have a lucrative future in entertainment or politics.

Every American knows about the majority rules. Well, I take that back. Most Americans know about the majority rules. That principle is one of the rocks of the Constitution. We all learn about it in school. And then some of us forget it in the time after class it takes us to get to the water cooler.

But very, very few Americans know about the minority rules. We are all exposed to that principle every day, but we have no idea it is happening because it isn’t taught in school. Unless you want to become a journalist. Or a pop star (or a pop star’s mother). Or a politician (or a politician’s chief adviser). If you want to be any of these, you must go to Media School.

In Media School, you are given a Media Toolbox. This very week I gave my college journalism students the Toolbox and I told them it was the single most important document in journalism.

“If you know the tools in the Toolbox, and how to use them,” I said, “then you will never again in your life have any trouble analyzing and organizing any given pile of raw information, and turning it into a news story. Or a PR pitch. Or a marketing program. Or a love letter. Because with the Toolbox, you go straight to the heart of the matter.”

The Toolbox works by teaching the students what people want to know, or need to know, or may be interested in, or may be fascinated by.

A few students understand immediately that, with that knowledge, they may also use the Toolbox to manipulate people. These are the students most likely to go into entertainment and politics. And terrorism, for that matter. Nobody knows the Toolbox better than a terrorist. If you want a textbook example of a terrorist using the Toolbox, go back and look at the Five W’s – Who, What, When, Where, Why – of the 9/11 attack.

The Five W’s are in the Toolbox, but they are not as important as the 12 Event Values. In fact the Five W’s owe their existence to the 12 Event Values, or the “Daily Dozen,” which are Conflict, Progress, Disaster, Prominence, Novelty, Proximity, Sex, Sensationalism, Human Interest, Timeliness and Consequence.

In the last 100 years, media professionals have used the Toolbox to create a dynamic, exhilarating and addictive Manipulation Media in America. This media’s power is astonishing, and scary, because it is in the Manipulation Media that the minority rules.

Television is the most popular of the Manipulation Medias (the others are Books, Magazines, Movies, Radio, Recording, Advertising, Marketing, Public Relations and Politics). Television also most clearly demonstrates that the minority rules. Take Oprah Winfrey. The woman has fame, influence, wealth and power. There aren’t many Americans who have not heard of Oprah.

Yet Oprah gained this fame, power and wealth with a television show whose Nielsen Rating is between 4 and 5. Let’s be generous and say 5. That means that 95 percent of the Nielsen survey was watching something else.

Does this minority make Oprah a spokesperson and role model in 21st-century America? Well, yes, it has. Fascinating. I’m writing a book about it. If, in a population of 290 million Americans I sell 100,000 copies, I’ll be invited on Oprah to talk about it.