Peter Bart: Billionaire CEOs Could Learn From Father Of Public Relations

Edward Bernays, a calm, courtly man renowned as the “Father of Public Relations,” would likely have been confounded by the erratic public behavior of today’s billionaire CEOs.

Bernays preached his doctrine of ”engineered consent” to rescue stumbling CEOs. Since he died in 1995, however, his “engineering” skills have had no impact on Jeff Bezos, whose stoic smile survives glitzy fashion parties one week and corporate budget cuts and Blue Origin explosions the next.

Further, Bernays was no longer available to “engineer” the decisions of David Ellison or David Zazlav, who quietly disclosed their enormous pay packages as a prelude to wide corporate layoffs.

Bernays might have preached words of caution to Paramount’s management team last week as they were dismantling 60 Minutes at a moment when the company was also re-stating its unstinting support of news autonomy.

Thousands of protests already had been registered by members of the creative community signaling alarm about future “course corrections” at the legacy news show and at CBS News and CNN, all of which may crowd under the Paramount-Warner corporate umbrella.

The petitions multiplied as a result of this week’s 60 Minutes terminations and Scott Pelley’s charge that new editor in chief Bari Weiss is “murdering” the legacy show. Pelley later received an emotional on-air tribute from a CBS news anchor.

Filmmakers, like government regulators here and abroad, are presently trying to compute the overall impact of the Warner-Paramount-Skydance merger, co-funded in part by Middle Eastern resources. Those assessments awkwardly coincide with the FCC’s Trump-instigated decision to “review” network broadcast licenses.

An Edward Bernays admirer might have cautioned Donald Trump against choosing this moment to foster a new $250 bill bearing his photo. That announcement in turn coincided with the negative credit watch registered by S&P based on Paramount’s balance sheet valuation.

Bernays, the PR guru who was a nephew of Sigmund Freud, worried about the negative emotional impact of mixed signals, while still admiring how the Hollywood studios skillfully “engineered” public opinion. Some of Hollywood’s most theatrical scandals were efficiently contained by press agents who nurtured their clout with cops and columnists alike. They also benefitted, of course, from the absence of social media.

In its prime, 60 Minutes, led by its famously autocratic founder Don Hewitt, could itself make or suppress news, operating within its own ground rules. Through manipulation of lighting and makeup, 60 Minutes guests could be refashioned as “heavies” or “good guys” to fit the show’s perspectives. (I appeared as an occasional “guest,” a now-and-then good guy.) Yet the reporting was faultless, the points of view persuasive.

Under its new management, will the show provide valid and expanded coverage of the new AI-enhanced corporate plutocrats? How will the Altmans and Ackmans of the techno wars cope with their political and economic clout?

Edward Bernays might have urged consultation with a shrink like his uncle, Dr. Freud, to help communicate their conflicting stratagems.