Spectrum

In World War I, President Woodrow Wilson started an agency for governmental propaganda. It became the precursor and template of today’s governmental manipulation of information which often creates fictions and promotes those in power. Author, scholar, and journalist Dr. John Maxwell Hamilton delves into the birth of American government propaganda in his new book “Manipulating the Masses: Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of American Propaganda“ and traces its impact on the American Presidency from Woodrow Wilson to President Donald J. Trump. The first governmental propaganda agency was created just eight days after the USA entered World War I and only existed for 1.5 years, but it became the template for how the government can manipulate information to steer public opinion, says Dr. Hamilton The Committee on Public Information (CPI) was America’s first and only ministry of propaganda but it left a powerful legacy. Hamilton explains the pervasiveness of the Committee’s reach. It touched every part of America in