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

Flack Attack

Public Relations

The PR industry invisibly reaches into virtually every nook and cranny of the modern world.

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 et

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 c