by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton
A PR executive for DuPont once asked us, "Are you the people picking on Jack Mongoven?"
Yes, we are, and happy to oblige.
The first issue of PR Watch, published in October 1993, featured a lengthy exposé of the Mongoven, Biscoe & Duchin PR firm, documenting instances in which MBD employees have lied and used other unsavory tactics to gather information used to defeat environmental and consumer groups.
Mongoven told a reporter he was "outraged" by what we had written. "We always identify exactly who we are," he claimed. "In every case, we had identified ourselves as a Washington consulting firm. I don't think that makes you a spy."
Ever since that time, however, people have been slipping information to us, adding little tidbits about MBD's activities, which literally span the globe.
"Look which slime balls are poking their nose in down here!" commented an Australian environmental activist, who provided some of the MBD documents we feature in this issue. An activist in Michigan described her recent interrogation by an MBD operative as an encounter with "the forces of darkness."
Corporations, however, love MBD. Its dozens of clients include the biggest Fortune 500 industries and their lobby groups.
MBD has helped its clients divide and conquer citizen groups concerned about problems including acid rain, clean air, clean water, toxic wastes, South Africa, nuclear energy, dioxin, biotechnology, endangered species, oil spills and consumer safety.
The documents we quote in this issue show how MBD's activities on all of these issues are based on a crass love of profit and a callous disregard for what it sneeringly dismisses as the "emotions of the public and its concern for future generations."
MBD gathers dossiers on citizen groups in order to identify groups that can be persuaded to "cooperate with industry." Your first opportunity to cooperate comes when an MBD employee calls and asks you to answer some questions. If you meet its standards, the next step may be an invitation for your organization to "partner" with Big Business on some mutual PR project--perhaps with corporate contributions of money applied like a poultice on your increasingly numb conscience.
Unfortunately, many public interest groups--especially the ones headquarted inside the Washington Beltway--have allowed themselves to be mesmerized by these tactics. They ought to take a look at the documents reprinted in this issue, so they can see what they're getting mixed up in, and how they are being used.
