PR Watch, Fourth Quarter 1995, Volume 2, No. 4

Flack Attack

by John C. Stauber and Sheldon Rampton

The Hazel O'Leary flap prompted another round of grumbling in the PR industry about the "bad rap" that the industry keeps getting.

Minneapolis PR pro Paul Maccabbee penned a complaint about what he called a "volcanic explosion of media lava," arguing that "O'Leary was wise to investigate how to get her department's message out" so that "news reporters can be held accountable for past stories. . . . A government agency without a PR staff is an agency that has no voice in the newsroom, no finger on the pulse of its constituency."

Nuking the Messengers

by John C. Stauber and Sheldon Rampton

High-level waste from every nuclear power plant in the country is set to hit the nation's highways two years from now, headed for a Nevada storage dump that will probably never be built. Almost no one in the United States even knows the plan is in the works. On December 13, the day Congress was scheduled to vote on the plan, a reporter for National Public Radio in Utah was shocked to learn for the first time that the plan existed, and that 92% of the waste is slated to travel by truck or train through her state.

Spin Doctor Strangelove, or How We Learned to Love the Bomb

by John C. Stauber and Sheldon Rampton

The symbiotic relationship between nuclear power and the PR industry began during World War II, when the U.S. effort to develop the atom bomb was still a top-secret war program code-named the Manhattan Project.

As "the Bomb" neared completion, the US turned to an elite group of public relations practitioners known as the "Wisemen." With government security men guarding the doors, the Wisemen met with Major General Leslie Groves, chief of the Manhattan Project, at the University Club in New York City. Groves briefed them on the project and asked for advice on how to handle PR for the first bomb tests in New Mexico.

Showdown In Glitter Gulch: Nevada Bets Against Nuclear Waste

by John C. Stauber and Sheldon Rampton

The radioactive waste from nuclear power plants contains the deadliest substances known. It consists mostly of spent fuel which, although it is no longer suitable for generating power, will remain radioactive and lethal for over 100,000 years. At the government's Hanford, Washington, test reactor in the late 1940s, engineers used remote-controlled machinery to remove radioactive waste, put it into heavy containers, and bury it in the ground near Hanford. This crude method has remained the basic model for disposal ever since, despite promises by experts that "science will find a way" to dispose of it safely.

Temporary Storage of Permanent Waste: the Nukem Strategy

by John C. Stauber and Sheldon Rampton

The government's inability to develop a permanent storage site for nuclear waste has forced utility companies to fall back on a "temporary" plan--storing spent fuel locally in the yards of power plants across the country. A strategy for dealing with this latest embarrassment is outlined in an industry-published article titled, "The Public Relations Behind Nuclear Waste." It begins: "So . . . the necessity of keeping spent fuel in dry casks and in the yards of power plants is adding yet one more blemish on the face of the nuclear industry, is it? Not when good PR is used. Many utilities across the United States are finding that public relations campaigns, when launched well in advance of dry cask installation, are turning potentially negative situations into positive ones. . . . Make no mistake about it. All the public relations in the world will never cause the public to greet radioactive waste with open arms. But for those utilities running out of pool space, a smart PR program will make them better equipped to temper the tempest and to get the public thinking about waste in a more scientific way."