It's a nice word, spin. It has an endearing, near-onomatopoeic quality. A bit like bubble, but not quite as playful.

Spin: used to be associated with fun. Expert ball-twizzlers seeking to trick their cricketing counterparts by deploying spin in all its deceptive forms; kids inexplicably finding entertainment from a ‘top’ with an ability to ‘spin;’ spinning playing an intrinsic role in the nation’s most popular TV gameshows: light entertainment was at its height when 45 year old failed comedians with bad toupees would demand a bored, nubile model to cumbersomely spin a giant formica wheel in order for Terry from Barnsley to potentially win a Breville Teasmade.  It was a time when spin was innocent. ‘Spinnocent’, one might say (if one was an idiot).

Sadly, the etymology of the word spin has evolved. Nowadays, spin means duplicitous manipulation of the facts to steer opinion. The single syllabled delight of spin now conjures up the modern-day Machiavelli: the PR practitioner.  Think spin, and you think Campbell allegedly sexing up dossiers or Clifford sexing up the tabloids. You think of The Thick Of It’s Malcolm Tucker, a walking profanisaurus of channelled sociopathy, twisting and turning political agendas like a hyperactive balloon modeller modelling, um, balloons.

But I’m here to defend us PR folk. We’re not the only spinners that have truly tarnished the word spin. Spin is spreading. And I’m not sure if we can cope with it.

There were two examples in particular. The first was gentle, and very local: there was a Birmingham Mail news stand emblazoned with headline ‘Shock As Pope Steps Down Two Years After Brum Visit’. I’m confident that, even taking into account the fond reception the Papal One received on the Hagley Road in 2010, at no point did the Vatican City quake to the lament “I’m not risking driving past Spearmint Rhino again. I quit”.

It was an eyebrow-raising attempt to spin an international story into a local one. And I hope everyone from Acocks Green to Aldridge and everywhere in-between, is media-literate enough to have seen spin at its silliest.

Perhaps it’s a shame the Prime Minister and his opposition leader failed to display such savvy this week.

The bandwagon-jumpers responded to a national newspaper’s lead story on Hilary Mantel’s comments relating to the Duchess of Cambridge; Mantel, the award-winning novelist had made a speech at a London Review of Books event at the British Museum about royal lives. It referred to Kate Middleton, but predominantly in terms of the perception the media and public have of her.

One newspaper took these references far, far away from their original context, giving the impression the novelist had it in for Mrs Mountbatten-Windsor.

My interest in it isn’t so much about a newspaper using outrage to boost web visits for a gleeful advertising director. Nor is about the successful novelist who’s about to see a significant spike in her sales. It’s not even about the holier-than-thou columnists that have gathered together for a cause that’s marginally less meaningful than a snapped rubber band.

It’s the fact our leading statesmen fell for this misdirection. The impression given was that Cameron and Miliband’s advisers skim-read the story, turned no further than page four of the ‘Don’t Upset Queenie’ instruction manual, and knee-jerked a response into the media’s hands … even though the media hadn’t clamoured for such intervention.

Regrettably I nearly fell for it myself: when first asked about my thoughts on Mantel’s piece, my mind initially recalled the snippets of info I’d picked up on Twitter during my morning commute, leading my mouth to say “ooh, that does sound a bit strong – poor old Kate, eh?” I stopped there, realising I may have been metaphorically talking out of somewhere other than my mouth.

This is why spin thrives once more. The media are seasoned enough to understand what agenda-massaging content they can get away with.

Social media can make us think we have the grasp of a story within 140 characters.

The opinion of one influential commentator can be shared and retweeted so widely and so quickly, it can become the defining viewpoint of any issue regardless of its accuracy.

The 24-hour media puts politicians under pressure to react within moments to breaking news.

Busy 21st century lives (or, arguably, increasingly distracted 21st century lives) don’t allow much opportunity for reading and absorbing lengthy text.

Which makes it sound like I believe social media is poison; that traditional news media is as trustworthy as the packaging of an Everyday Value Beefburger. It makes it sound like I think modern life is rubbish. Despite my general hangdog demeanour, I don’t.

I do worry about our collective media literacy though, and our ability to recognise when we are being spun. I do think it’s disappointing that taking the time to fully digest a hard-copy newspaper is becoming a weekend-only pursuit.

And I worry that if we continue to be susceptible to spin, there’ll be Longbridge teenagers reminiscing in 2020 of when they heard the Pope resigned because he didn’t like Rednal.

* Keith Gabriel is a Birmingham-based PR executive