PR Watch, Fourth Quarter 2001, Volume 8, No. 4

In the aftermath of September 11, there is no question that the United States faces a vicious and determined enemy. Unfortunately, the public relations industry is contributing mostly confusion to the campaign against terrorism.

On the one hand, PR firms have turned September 11 into an excuse to market ideas, causes and products that have nothing to do with stopping terrorism. Patriotism is being used to sell everything from automobiles to Star Wars and corporate tax breaks.

by Sheldon Rampton

References to Pearl Harbor prevailed during the first days following the terrorist attacks of September 11. President Bush joined a chain of pundits and government officials in warning that the "war on terrorism" would be prolonged and difficult like World War II and would require similar sacrifices. Whatever those sacrifices may entail, however, the public relations industry is determined to ensure that they do not include wartime frugality.

"PR Needed to Keep Consumers Spending," proclaimed a headline in O'Dwyer's PR Online on September 24.

Steven Milloy, the Cato Institute's self-proclaimed critic of "junk science," took the attacks on the World Trade Center as a cue to speak up for asbestos, which is still a product liability concern for manufacturers even though it was pulled off the market years ago due to its link with lung cancer.

"Asbestos fibers in the air and rubble following the collapse of the World Trade Center is adding to fears in the aftermath of Tuesday's terrorist attack," Milloy wrote in a September 14 column for Fox News.

by Sheldon Rampton

Both internationally and in the United States, the "war against terrorism" has provided propaganda cover for crackdowns on human rights and civil liberties. Like other PR efforts to capitalize on the September 11 tragedy, this rhetorical use of terrorism has a long prehistory. As early as 1976, a media plan developed by the Burson-Marsteller PR firm advised Argentina's brutal military junta--then in the process of murdering thousands of Jews and leftists--to make over its image by "calling a meeting to examine terrorism and means of eliminating it," thereby identifying "Argentina as a member of a group of free world nations condemning all classes of terrorism," which "would immediately unite it with those countries which respect human rights and civil liberties." In the wake of September 11, countries throughout the world have resorted to similar ploys:

by Laura Miller and Sheldon Rampton

"I am not a National Security strategist or a military tactician," says John W. Rendon, Jr., whose DC-based PR firm was recently hired by the Pentagon to win over the hearts and minds of Arabs and Muslims worldwide.

"I am a politician," Rendon said in a 1998 speech to the National Security Conference (NSC), "and a person who uses communication to meet public policy or corporate policy objectives. In fact, I am an information warrior, and a perception manager. This is probably best described in the words of Hunter S. Thompson, when he wrote 'When things turn weird, the weird turn pro.'"

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