PR Watch, Second Quarter 2000, Volume 7, No. 2

Download PR Watch, Second Quarter 2000, Volume 7, No. 2

Flack Attack

Many of you have called during the last couple of months wondering why you haven't received a recent issue of PR Watch. The reason this issue is so late is that we have been busy wrapping up a new book, soon to be published by Penguin/Putnam. Titled Trust Us, We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future, it provides an indepth look at many of the themes explored in our earlier book, Toxic Sludge Is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry. We will provide you with ordering information as soon as it is available.

Targeting Children: Industry's Campaign to Redefine Environmental Education

by John F. Borowski

Florida's Orange County Convention Center is big. Big enough to hold the Sears Tower if you laid it on its side. So big you could walk ten miles and never leave the cement behemoth. Its electric bill is $325,000 per month.

This hulking structure in Orlando seemed appropriate for the carnival-like setting of the National Science Teachers Convention, held April 6-9, 2000. It was the largest gathering of educators in the nation: more than 14,000 science teachers and hundreds of exhibitors passing out armloads of pamphlets, packets, books, stickers, posters, and other educational goodies. But though there were a handful of conservation groups at the event, those of us sitting at the Native Forest Council booth were clearly in the minority.

Will CFA Save GM Foods?

Democratic party heavyweight Carol Tucker Foreman
has left her lucrative job as a lobbyist and returned to the Consumer
Federation of America (CFA) as director of its newly formed Food Policy
Institute. Foreman was CFA's executive director before joining the Carter
administration and then becoming an insider lobbyist for clients including
Philip Morris, Monsanto (the maker of genetically engineered bovine growth
hormone), Procter & Gamble (maker of the fake fat Olestra), and other
giants in the drug and insurance industry.


align="BOTTOM">CFA takes money from unions and corporations,
and Foreman's return signals a new direction as it seeks to become a major
player in biotechnology issues with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation.

Catching Flack: A Canadian PR Man Spills the Beans

The public relations industry does not brook criticism
lightly, as we discovered for the umpteenth time in June of this year
when an interview with PR Watch founder John Stauber appeared
on MediaChannel, a website that analyzes the global news and entertainment
media.


align="BOTTOM">When members of the PR industry learned that
the interview was scheduled to run, their "crisis management"
forces swung into action. Ray Gaulke, president and chief operating officer
of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), who complains that
"public relations doesn't have a forum to tell its side of the story
when the PR bashers take on our profession," described industry's
response in the Summer 2000 issue of Public Relations Strategist,
an in-house publication sent to the PRSA's 30,000 members.


align="BOTTOM">"We spoke to MediaChannel's senior editor,
Aliza Dichter," Gaulke stated.

Confessions of a Spin Doctor

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by Eric Sparling


I owe you an apology. I've lied, cheated and swindled.
Yeah, I know. You've done that, too, but I did it professionally. I spent
this past year working in a public relations agency.


align="BOTTOM">Let me boil it down for you. The job had one
goal: make you care about the things my clients cared about, even if they

Further Adventures of a Public Relations Turncoat

by Eric Sparling


I was cynical about public relations right from
the start. During one of my college PR classes, I was in charge of printing
T-shirts for a pub crawl. I came up with the slogan, "We're friendly
because we're paid to be." My classmates loved it. The head instructor
thought it was a gross misrepresentation of the industry. She was wrong.


align="BOTTOM">The public relations industry is growing rapidly
in Canada.

Survey Shows Most PR People Still Won't Admit Lying

"The cardinal rule in public relations, as
enunciated by the Public Relations Society of America and followed by
every self-respecting public relations practitioner is 'never lie,' "
says Fraser P. Seitel, editor of the PRSA's monthly magazine, the Public
Relations Strategist.Outside the public relations industry itself,
however, many people regard PR as a synonym for spin, insincerity and
deception. Now a survey by the trade publication PR Week shows
that a substantial number of PR people themselves agree with that assessment.


align="BOTTOM">Published in PR Week's May 1 edition,
the survey asked 1,700 PR executives about the ethics in their industry.

Facts Not Fear Wants to Make the World Safe for Styrofoam

Book Review by John Stauber


target="_blank"> width="204" height="255" align="RIGHT" border="0" naturalsizeflag="3"
hspace="12" vspace="12">Michael Sanera and Jane
S. Shaw's book, target="_blank">Facts Not Fear, purports to be a guide for parents of
school-age children confronted by "junk science" and "fearmongering
environmentalism." They say they were inspired to write the book
when Sanera "was driving his teenage son Andy and a friend to a movie.

Cool vs. Old School: Public Relations Faces the Information Age

by Dustin Beilke


Judging by the 1999 annual conference of the Public
Relations Society of America (PRSA), non-profit public interest groups
can look forward to some good news and some bad news in the bold new cyber
future.


align="BOTTOM">Titled "Surfing the Information Tidal
Wave,"the conference was held October 24-26 at the Hilton Hotel in
Anaheim, California. Seminars and workshops bore titles such as "Mergers
and Acquisitions: Public Relations' Critical Role," and "Counteracting
Anti-Corporate Online Activism."


align="BOTTOM">As the latter title indicates, the bad news
is that corporate America is ramping up its PR efforts to undermine grassroots
activists.