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RIP, Prof. Brian Anse Patrick
He died of cancer, age 62, yesterday. He was professor of communications at the University of Toledo, pro-gun, and a brilliant writer and speaker. He authored "The Ten Commandments of Propaganda," "The National Rifle Association and the Mass Media," and other works, and spoke at the NRA's National Firearms Law Seminar a few years ago. His book on NRA and the mass media created objective measures of negative publicity (that is, not just your impression that this was negative, but ways objectively to measure it and assign numbers to it) and showed that X amount of bad publicity was associated with Y amount of rise in NRA membership.
A brilliant mind and a very good man. We will miss him.
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He was a good man and a good friend. I will miss him.
I am so glad I reached out to him after reading The Ten Commandments of Propaganda and thanked him for opening my eyes. We emailed back and forth a few times about books we were reading and then I didn't hear from him for a few months. Now I know why. I'm quite sad the world has lost a brilliant star that illuminates the truth - but his work will always live on. Still. What a loss.
I must say, I'm not a member of the NRA (although I am a gun owner), and truth be told, I didn't even know about the books Mr. Patrick wrote or his politics, some of which may have clashed with mine. However, he was by far my favorite professor when I was an undergrad studying Communication at the University of Toledo. While every other class focused on boring generalities and simple coursework (the type of studies that confirm to some how much of a joke degree Communication is), Prof. Patrick's Persuasion Theory course introduced many eye-opening concepts that were profoundly interesting to me. As I'm preparing to head back to school now, I wanted to check and see what was up to, and perhaps touch base. I'm saddened that I'll never have that opportunity. The world lost a great teacher and generally cool guy. May he R.I.P.
I am deeply saddened to hear of this.
Brian was a fine man, and generous to a fault. He penned a long, salient and thoughtful foreword for one of my books having barely known me for a day. I was happy to promote his Ten Commandments of Propaganda book whenever possible.
The deepest shame of this is that Brian was good at life a deserved much more of it.