PR Watch, First Quarter 2000, Volume 7, No. 1

The PR industry invisibly reaches into virtually
every nook and cranny of the modern world. Luckily for us, so too do PR
industry whistleblowers.

align="BOTTOM">Just as McDonalds boasts that its hamburgers
are identical throughout the world, many PR firms use a global template

Secrets and Lies: How Shandwick PR Tried to Destroy the Rainforests of New Zealand

by Nicky Hager and Bob Burton

Shandwick, the world's fourth largest PR firm, boasts that it provides a "complete portfolio of public affairs services--from government relations, corporate communications, opinion research, and grassroots mobilization to advocacy advertising, coalition building, and litigation and crisis communications--a single source of expertise, knowledge and reach." It also proclaims that "our work and behaviour must exceed the highest standards of ethics and integrity." It claims to "advocate vigorously, serve creatively and act always with integrity."

In 1999, however, these ethical pretensions were publicly called into question by hundreds of pages of internal documents about a covert, multi-million-dollar PR campaign, led by Shandwick, to "neutralize" environmentalists opposed to rainforest logging in New Zealand.

When Helicopters Attack: A Near Accident Leads To Coverup

by Nicky Hager and Bob Burton

In February 1997, a small group of Native Forest Action supporters established a treetop protest in the rainforests where Timberlands was logging, erecting tiny platforms made from wooden planks and rope.

The protest prevented logging for nine weeks. In response to mounting public pressure, the government announced it was looking at options to resolve the controversy. Timberlands went on the attack.

Shandwick's Story: From Good-for-Nothing to Global Threat

public relations

Peter Gummer, the British chairman of Shandwick,
is candid about why he started a PR firm. "When I started off in
public relations, it was a business that people went into because they
weren't good at anything else," he wrote.

align="BOTTOM">While working at a London venture capital firm
in the early 1970s, Gummer observed a parade of his peers establishing
their own businesses and making serious money. "So I thought that
I'd like to start my own business.

Building Bridges and Splitting Greens

by Nicky Hager and Bob Burton

Timberlands biggest problem was that it was opposed
by New Zealand's largest environment groups and supported by only one
very small group. It needed to muddy the waters sufficiently to make the
public think that environment groups disagreed among themselves about
its rainforest logging proposals.

align="BOTTOM">Shandwick's PR papers devoted considerable
attention strategies for "bridge building" with "Environmental
Lobby Groups." The company was not about to back away from its plan
to log the rainforests.

Erasing the Writing on the Wall: Timberlands Censors Its Critics

by Nicky Hager and Bob Burton

Shandwick's efforts to stifle public expressions
of opposition to rainforest logging knew no limits. In June 1997, Shandwick's
Rob McGregor worried that anti-Timberlands graffiti was flourishing in
Wellington. Large walls displayed messages such as "Timberlands--Rainforest
Vandals."

align="BOTTOM">"What is your policy regarding this type
of graffiti?" McGregor asked in a memo to Timberlands.

Shandwick Takes Aim at a Goldman Prizewinner

Cath Wallace

(photo by Bob Burton)

In 1991 Cath Wallace, a senior lecturer in public
policy at Victoria University in Wellington, was acclaimed as one of the
world's leading advocates for the environment when she received a prestigious
Goldman Environmental Prize in recognition of her role in leading the
campaign for Antarctica to be declared a World Park.