PR Watch, Second Quarter 1999, Volume 6, No. 2

Flack Attack

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align="BOTTOM">During the reign of Catherine the Great in
Russia, one of her closest advisors was field marshall Grigori Potemkin,
who used numerous wiles to build her image. When she toured the countryside
with foreign dignitaries, he arranged to have fake villages built in advance
of her visits so as to create an illusion of prosperity. Since that time,
the term "Potemkin village" has become a metaphor for things
that look elaborate and impressive but in actual fact lack substance.

align="BOTTOM">Today, the public relations industry has become
adept at creating its own Potemkin villages, such as the supposed "green
showcase" that Olympics promoters in Australia are building atop
a toxic waste site.

align="BOTTOM">The effort to create a "green Olympics"
arose in response to activist criticisms of environmental damage caused
by past Olympics games.

Greenwashing an Olympic-Sized Toxic Dump

by Dr. Sharon Beder

When the Olympic Games begin in the year 2000, you can expect to see them hyped as the "greenest" summer Olympics of all time. But a massive toxic waste dump will lie underneath the fine landscaping of the Olympic site. It will be covered by a meter of dirt and a mountain of public relations.

The Olympic Games will be held at Homebush Bay in Sydney, Australia. Homebush Bay is a former industrial site and armaments depot which was previously subjected to years of unregulated waste dumping. In recent years asbestos-contaminated waste and chemicals including dioxins and pesticides have been found there, along with arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury and zinc. It is the worst toxic waste dump in Australia, and the bay into which the waste leaches is so contaminated that there is a fishing ban. The sediments in the bay have concentrations of dioxin that make it one of the world's worst dioxin hot spots. The dioxin is largely the result of waste from a Union Carbide factory which manufactured the notorious herbicide Agent Orange there during the Vietnam war.

Media Self-Censorship in Australia's Olympics Bid

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by Dr. Sharon Beder

Perhaps the rarest and most perverse form of flattery
that a writer can receive is to have the government seek to suppress his
or her work. I had the opportunity to experience one of these institutional
efforts at censorship in 1993, when two senior government officials--the
general manager and the information manager of the Homebush Bay Development
Corporation--visited me and the head of my university department, demanding
to see a copy of an article I had written for New Scientist, the
international science magazine.

Selling a Leaky Landfill as the "World's Best Practice"

by Dr. Sharon Beder

In 1989, Australian government authorities decided
to use Homebush Bay as the site for a future Olympic Games. Even the chance
of winning an Olympic bid, however, could not justify spending the $190
million that experts estimated it would cost to contain and treat the
toxic wastes buried there. The government therefore sought a cheaper,
more modest remediation strategy that could be carried out in time for
the 1993 Olympic bid.

align="BOTTOM">Authorities considered various options for
dealing with the wastes.

ACSH Defended

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Letter from Roger P. Maickel, Ph.D.

align="BOTTOM">As a career professional scientist with more
than 30 years of tenured service at two Big Ten universities plus a decade
as a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, I feel qualified
to challenge your criticism of the American Council on Science and Health
(ACSH) as expressed in your Fourth Quarter
1998 issue.

align="BOTTOM">First of all, I have been a member of the ACSH
Board of Directors for a number of years and a Scientific Advisor virtually
since its inception.

The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of PR

by Larry Tye

book review by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton

The Father of Spin book review Today, few people outside the public relations profession recognize the name of Edward L. Bernays. As the year 2000 approaches, however, his name deserves to figure on historians' lists of the most influential figures of the 20th century.

It is impossible to fundamentally grasp the social, political, economic and cultural developments of the past 100 years without some understanding of Bernays and his professional heirs in the public relations industry. PR is a 20th century phenomenon, and Bernays -- widely eulogized as the "father of public relations" at the time of his death in 1995 -- played a major role in defining the industry's philosophy and methods.

Eddie Bernays himself desperately craved fame and a place in history. During his lifetime he worked and schemed to be remembered as the founder of his profession and sometimes drew ridicule from his industry colleagues for his incessant self-promotions. These schemes notwithstanding, Bernays richly deserves the title that Boston Globe reporter Larry Tye has given him in his engagingly written new book, The Father of Spin.