Abstract:
In 1969, President Nixon's Postmaster General, Winton Blount, set out to reorganize the Post Office by turning it into a government corporation. Aware that the Congress and the postal unions liked the old system, were well served by it, and would put up enormous opposition to the reorganization proposal, Blount hired Madison Avenue marketing specialists and established an outside lobbying group to sell reorganization to the American people through the media. The carefully calibrated and comprehensive campaign was instrumental in pushing postal reorganization through the Congress in 1970.
Learning Objective:
The case is an illustration of just how effectively officials can manage the press, establish the policy agenda, and frame the issue. Officials are required to be strategic in their approach to press relations, activist in their behavior, and willing to treat the communications aspects of the policy as an integral element of the policymaking itself.
