David KucinskasThe Daily Northwestern
Wednesday afternoon, Medill students and faculty received an e-mail forwarded from Prof. Richard Roth informing them that consumer advocate and former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader wanted to give them a present.
Specifically, the e-mail told recipients that Nader had purchased more than a thousand copies of the book “What Liberal Media: The Truth About Bias and the News,” by Eric Alterman, and was donating them to the Medill community because he believed, “every student at America’s best journalism school should read it.”
Well, I thought, about five years ago I bought Nader’s book, “Crashing the Party: Taking on the Corporate Government in an Age of Surrender,” and now he’s returning the favor. And, after all, it’s kind of flattering to have a well-known public intellectual give you a gift, even if it’s just because you’re part of a certain group.
But after a little bit, I started thinking more critically about Nader’s gift. As famed economist Milton Freedman and libertarian science fiction writer Robert Heinlein were fond of saying, “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”
Did Nader have an ulterior motive for giving me a book that obviously has an agenda? Probably, but that in and of itself didn’t appear that threatening to me. I can deal with people telling me what to believe politically.
It’s the free gift part that sometimes gives me problems. For example, several weeks ago, I took a tour of the Miller Brewery in Milwaukee, Wis. The tour, along with the beer samples, didn’t cost a cent.
I wondered why Miller wouldn’t charge for the tour. That is, until I realized that immediately following my visit, I purchased Miller High Life.
I don’t think that Nader is trying to brainwash me per se, and I appreciate his benevolence. But I do recognize that the influence of free gifts can be insidious. I’ll read Alterman’s book, and I imagine it’ll be interesting. Yet, I’m going to try to think especially critically while doing so. After all, I’m sure Nader himself would expect nothing less of me.
