Public relations people who are offended by the exposés that appear in PR Watch sometimes complain that we offer a one-sided view of the industry, and they're right. We cover the dark side of PR--the coverups and outright lies used by powerful groups to influence public opinion and public policy.

Not all PR is this sinister, of course. Some public relations consists of relatively innocuous marketing efforts, and PR is even used to promote worthy causes, such as fundraising drives for charities.

Some people who dislike our take on the PR industry have even accused us of hypocrisy, pointing out that PR Watch itself helps promote causes that we believe in. In other words, they argue, we are engaged in public relations ourselves on behalf of our beliefs. If so, who are we to criticize the PR industry?

There is a key difference, however, between our work and the hidden machinations of the public relations industry. The difference is that PR Watch has no hidden agenda, whereas most of the campaigns that we expose rely on some effort to hide the identity of the real client whose interests are being served.

The PR campaigns that we expose in this issue are cases in point. When the "Natural Resources Study Center" rises to the defense of Japanese whalers or the "Employment Policies Institute" helps keep the minimum wage low for restaurants, self-serving messages are being disguised to make them look respectable by putting industry words in the mouths of seemingly independent third-party experts.

There is nothing wrong with citizens campaigning for causes that they believe in, but deceptive campaigns deserve to be exposed, and that's why the work of PR Watch is necessary.