Nick Nichols, CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based Nichols-Dezenhall Communications Management Group, Ltd., has a book out titled Rules for Corporate Warriors: How to Fight and Survive Attack Group Shakedowns, which purports to offer advice for the once-proud corporations hunted into near-extinction by the overwhelming power of left-wing activists and their allies in the anti-corporate media. PR strategies for dealing with activists tend to fall into either the "good cop" or the "bad cop" category, and Nichols is definitely in the "bad cop" camp, advising clients that activists are evil and must be ruthlessly crushed. If you want to see a sample of his advice and don't want to shell out $25 for the book, check out our free download of the presentation he gave recently to the National Pork Producers, in which he quoted the philosophy of Al Capone: "You can get more with a smile, a kind word and a gun than with a smile and a kind word."

Charlotte Beers, the former advertising executive in charge of improving America's image in the Muslim world, recently spent three days in Cairo talking about mending fences. According to the New York Times, however, "Egyptians who spoke with her came away shaking their heads, saying American officials do not appreciate that Muslims feel picked on by the United States, or how deep feelings run for the Palestinian cause -- or just how heavily history weighs here." Notwithstanding US military successes and PR efforts by people like Beers, "the Afghan conflict seems to have confirmed Osama bin Laden as a folk hero." According to an Egyptian merchant interviewed by the Times, "Anyone who is a Muslim who says 'No' to the United States is a hero. Every day you turn on the television and you see the Israelis killing Palestinians with U.S. weapons. No matter how much the U.S. tries to change its image in the Arab world, what we are seeing with our own eyes is much stronger." According to a Saudi commentator, every scene of dead civilians in Afghanistan serves as a recruitment tool for anti-Americanism. "The whole Muslim world is watching this with shock and horror," he said. "Among the young, new animosities are created and there are new calls for revenge. This is dangerous; this is the atmosphere that creates terrorism, creates extremism."

Saudi Arabia is paying $100,000 to Patton Boggs, an affiliate of Qorvis Communications, to lobby on its behalf in the U.S. Congress. According to Kevin McCauley, editor of O'Dwyer's PR Daily, the Saudis have been getting "PR fit for a King (or at least a Prince)" lately, notwithstanding their complaints that they are victims of a "savage media campaign" in the West. The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal recently queued up for an interview with Prince Abdullah, producing stories that "dutifully carried the Prince's line." The Kingdom's PR firms, Qorvis Communications and Burson-Marsteller, are declining to take credit for the friendly coverage, which comes in the face of the fact that Osama bin Laden and most of his terror network hails from Saudi Arabia.

M.A. Shute, a former staffer from the Hill and Knowlton PR firm, orchestrated the tearful media interview of Linda Lay, wife of embattled former Enron CEO Ken Lay. The Lays are trying to portray themselves as victims rather than villains in the company's financial collapse. According to PR pro Jeremy Garlington, however, putting the wife in front of cameras is a "flawed media strategy." It was a mistake, he says, to claim that the Lays are "on the verge of financial ruin ... despite Kenny Boy cashing in nearly $200 million in company stock last year. According to Linda, a majority of that money was used to pay off 'bad debts.' But they didn't live lavishly, or so says the subject sitting against a backdrop of mahogany walls and oriental rugs in their own home."

Apparently it takes more than strong fences to protect nuclear power plants from terrorists -- it takes paramilitary squads with guns pointed straight at you. That's the take-home message from an advertisement which the Alexandria, Va.-based Smith & Harroff designed for the Nuclear Energy Institute. The ad, which ran in the January 26 National Journal, celebrates the "highly committed, highly trained ... expert marksmen" who stand ready to fend off any threat that might come their way. (Question: How many rifles would it take to shoot down an incoming jetliner?)

The news media reacted initially to the terrorist attacks of September 11 with great care about not getting ahead of the facts, but over time the press is inching back toward pre-September 11th norms of behavior, according to a new study of press coverage of the war on terrorism. In the beginning, solid sourcing and factualness dominated the coverage of bombings and their aftermath, according to the study, conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism with Princeton Survey Research Associates. As the story moved to the war in Afghanistan, however, analysis and opinion swelled -- so much so that the level of factualness declined to levels lower than those seen in the middle of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.

DuPont, one of the world's worst polluters, hires PR firms with green credentials and access to environmental activists, firms such as Ecos in Australia and M+R Strategic Services in the U.S. M&R is a PR/lobby business begun and owned in part by Donald K. Ross, an advisor to foundations who is on the board of the League of Conservation Voters. Ross's PR firm M&R does business with dozens of major health and environmental non-profits, many of them funded by the individuals and foundations he advises. Recently M&R sent an urgent appeal to groups asking them to sign a joint letter to President Bush calling for "a major national initiative to end childhood lead poisoning." However, M&R's appeal failed to reveal that M&R works for DuPont, a company now named with others in forty-five government lawsuits to hold them accountable for contamination of U.S. housing with lead paint. Advocacy groups including the Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning have rebuffed M&R and its client DuPont saying "their recommendations to the President are incomplete and out of balance." These groups are now circulating their own letter to the White House.

As Congress debates campaign finance reform, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz wonders if we also need "journalistic finance reform -- that is, what are corporations buying when they lard their payrolls with prominent media folks?" Media pundits took fat contracts on the side from Enron -- ranging from $25,000 to $50,000 for Paul Krugman of the New York Times, Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal, Lawrence Kudlow of CNBC and National Review, and Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol. "It's hard for journalists who work for big companies, write books and appear on television to avoid all conflicts these days," Kurtz says. "But many of these commentators wax indignant when politicians of all stripes appear to be doing the bidding of those who fill their campaign coffers. For media people to line up at the same corporate trough is just asking for trouble."

For $15,000, Canada's "Business Television" program will produce a puff piece about a company's "philosophy and future vision," "innovative aspects" and "specific products or services, as well as successes and challenges." It will broadcast the show as news, without any information in the credits to inform viewers that money has changed hands. This is only one of the disturbing revelations in Paying for Time, a documentary that aired this week on Canadian public television and looks at a corrupt journalistic practice known as "pay for play."

Ralph Reed, the hard-ball political organizer and brilliant PR strategist behind the rise of the powerful Christian Coalition, went to work for Enron just as George Bush began his drive for the presidency. According to sources in the New York Times, top Bush political advisor Karl Rove recommended Reed to Enron (where he received ten to twenty thousand dollars a month) "to keep Reed's allegiance to the Bush campaign." We report in our book, Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, how Reed and his Christian Coalition worked on campaigns in legally questionable ways. Today Ralph Reed lives in Atlanta where he is Chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and runs a public affairs firm, Century Strategies, that specializes in corporate-funded "grasstops" lobbying. His website brags: "few know that he's good friends with Karl Rove, George W. Bush's chief strategist, and ... it was Reed's grass-roots efforts that helped Bush win several key primary victories."

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) is lobbying again against federal standards requiring automakers to improve automobile mileage of their cars. They claim that Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards force automakers to build smaller, more dangerous vehicles. As we document in our Impropaganda Review section, CEI has been flogging this argument for years, using questionable evidence. And who are they to talk about safety, anyway? Tobacco is the single largest cause of preventable death in America, yet CEI (which gets part of its funding from the tobacco industry) defends cigarettes by saying "there are things more valuable than health" and urging people to "think of smoking as a civic duty."

Peter Sandman's advice to corporations on "outrage management" was first detailed in PR Watch by Australian writer Bob Burton. Now Bob has contributed a chapter to a new book, Moving Mountains: Communities Confront Mining and Globalization, published by Contemporary Oxford Press/Mineral Policy Institute. With Bob's permission, we are making his chapter, titled "When Corporations Want to Cuddle," available from the PR Watch website as a free PDF download.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines "greenwash" as "disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image." Now a new term has emerged, "bluewash," which the New York Times describes as "allowing some of the largest and richest corporations to wrap themselves in the United Nations' blue flag without requiring them to do anything new." The highest-profile example of this, writes Kenny Bruno, is the "Global Compact," which asks business to adhere to nine principles derived from key UN agreements and is becoming a general framework for UN cooperation with the private sector. "The motivation of the Secretary-General is to bring corporate behavior in line with universal values," Bruno writes. "However, business influence over its design has riddled the Global Compact with weaknesses and contradictions. In the first 18 months of the Global Compact, we have seen a growing but secret membership, heavy influence by the International Chamber of Commerce, and a failure to publish even a single case study of sustainable practices. The Global Compact logo has been used without attribution by DaimlerChrysler, even as Global Compact officials insist that use of the general UN logo is strictly controlled. ... The Global Compact represents a smuggling of a business agenda into the United Nations," Bruno says, warning that this trend is leading to a "partial privatization of the UN," and the "globalization of greenwash."

During the heady late 1990s, Wall Street investment firms and bankers deliberately hyped Internet startup companies with no prospect of financial success, bilking countless small investors out of their money. This PBS documentary explains how it all worked, from the "roadshows" used to line up initial capital to the strategy of launching a new company, watch its stock price spike, and selling before the inevitable downturn (known within the trade as "flipping"). The "grandest irony," according to Frontline producer Martin Smith, is that "the Internet comes along and it promises democratization. It's all about you and me get equal access to the same information at the same time. That was the promise. And now we're investigating a scandal in which the bankers playing by the old rules decided who was included, who was excluded, who got information, who didn't get information."

PR trade publication O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) has hired Omnicom's Clark & Weinstock "as the Enron bankruptcy has 'put an unprecedented focus on the accounting profession and its self-regulatory system.'" PR Week reports AICPA has retained the Weiser Group in Chicago "to help in its effort to restore faith in the auditing and accounting system." Meanwhile, according to O'Dwyer's PR Daily, one of Anderson's PR flacks has taken issue with an National Public Radio report that Anderson "is trying to muzzle employees in the wake of the Enron affair." "We have responded to 343 media inquiries," Charlie Leonard of Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter and Associates told O'Dwyer's PR. Staffer were told that the national media relations team was to handle questions about Enron.

Professor Roger Scruton, a darling of the moral right in England, asked one of the world's biggest tobacco companies for $5,500 a month to help place pro-smoking articles in some of Britain's most influential newspapers and magazines. "We would aim to place an article every two months in one or other of the WSJ [Wall Street Journal], the Times, the Telegraph, the Spectator, the Financial Times, the Economist, the Independent or the New Statesman," says the note, sent last October under the name of Sophie, his wife and business partner.

When it comes to the Enron scandal, "White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer has managed the spin duties expertly," writes William Saletan on Slate. By passing the buck, playing dumb, or dodging the issue, Fleischer uses classic spin tactics to evade the Enron-related questions of the White House press corps.

Bernard Stamler reports: "Its advertising is aggressive, and deliberately so. (Remember the body bags piled up outside Philip Morris headquarters in New York?) But although tobacco companies have complained before about the commercials made by the American Legacy Foundation, one company is now formally threatening legal action against the organization, apparently for the first time. The aggrieved company is Lorillard Tobacco of Greensboro, N.C., a unit of the Loews Corporation . It charges that American Legacy, which was created as part of the 1998 settlement between the tobacco companies and 46 states to run antismoking ads, has exceeded its mandate under the settlement by disparaging the tobacco industry. In a letter sent by fax last Friday, Lorillard's vice president and general counsel, Ronald S. Milstein, told Legacy that his company intended to take the foundation to court in 30 days to stop it from 'vilifying and personally attacking tobacco companies and their employees.' "

The Clearinghouse on Environmental Education, Advocacy and Research (CLEAR) has issued a special bulletin detailing efforts by anti-environmentalist to attack green activism. "There have been rhetorical attacks branding public interest groups as elitist and unpatriotic, further attacks on non-profit status of a handful of groups, and a renewed intensity in fighting 'eco-terrorism,' a term and concept environmental backlash leaders are trying desperately to get into circulation," the report states. Plans in the works include a renewed effort to enact vaguely defined federal "eco-terror" legislation that could limit rights to non-violent protests and would not deter violent crime, accompanied by "a nasty public relations ploy attempting to cast ALL environmentalism as 'eco-terrorism' to varying degrees."

The Pentagon's war reporting rules are the toughest ever for journalists, reports Neil Hickey, citing interviews with more than a score of foreign editors, Pentagon correspondents and other journalists. "Bush administration policy has kept reporters from combat units in a fashion unimagined in Vietnam, and one that's more restrictive even than the burdensome constraints on media in the Persian Gulf," he writes. "And at the Pentagon in Washington, where massive quantities of battle reports arrived hourly, Defense Department spokespersons spoonfed correspondents a calibrated daily ration of news about the military operations that has left those journalists frustrated and mutinous."

President Bush is stumping today in the southern U.S. accusing some of wanting to "raise taxes in the midst of a recession." New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says this is like Bush's claim that Enron's chairman Kenneth Lay supported his opponent in the Texas governor's race and "it sure feels like a lie. ... And the chest-thumping you hear is the sound of an administration trying to prevent any rational discussion of the fiscal mess its tax plan has created."

Tobacco lobbyist Rick Berman began his Guest Choice Network with $600,000 from Philip Morris. This month he renamed his tobacco front group "ConsumerFreedom.com" and under that name is running a full page ad on the back cover of today's Weekly Standard attacking the animal rights group PETA. Another full page ad in the January 28 issue of Newsweek attacks Greenpeace. The Newsweek ad features a quote from Patrick Moore, a former Greenpeacer who now trades on his past to make money attacking environmental groups for corporate interests. In the ad Moore calls Greenpeace "a band of scientific illiterates who use Gestapo tactics."

"The Department of Defense (DoD) public affairs office has thrown its support behind the making and release of Black Hawk Down, a film about the 1993 raid in Somalia that left 18 US soldiers dead," writes PR trade publication PR Week. The DoD provided boot-camp training to actors, technical advisors, eight helicopters, and more than 100 soldiers. According to PR Week, the DoD package cost $2.2 million. Pentagon public affairs officers also have discussed the movie with the media and arranged for screenings on military bases. "As a governement agency, we don't endorse products or services. But when there is something in the public interest, we support that," an army public affairs specialist told PR Week. The film was released earlier than planned to capitalize on the "US' mood following the September 11 attacks."

If you've ever wondered why local television news is so often so bad, the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) has the answer. PEJ surveyed local news directors and rated local television news in 14 cities. The first of a number of very troubling findings -- 53 percent of the news directors "reported advertisers try to tell them what to air and not to air and they say the problem is growing." The pressure to do puff pieces is constant and routine. The directors complained that consultants hired to improve ratings tell the journalists what to and what not to cover to maximize advertising revenue.

"Proving that irony is alive and well post-Sept. 11," observe Steve Rendall and Peter Hart, "a book deriding the national press corps for its flagrant liberal bias has been the subject of enormous attention in the same mainstream media that, the book argues, suppress conservative views." In their critical review of Bernard Goldberg's book, Bias, they note that "right-wing media watchdogs ... can find a socialist tilt in the weather report." Rendall and Hart, who work for Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, point out the flaws in Goldberg's book, which is "long on name-calling and vitriol, but short on substance. ... If, as Goldberg argues, there's a media tilt toward Democrats, then why have Republicans received a majority of newspaper endorsements in all but two presidential elections since 1932?"

James S. Kunen works in corporate communications and muses on Enron's 'Visions and Values' statement. Kunen notes that "a statement of Vision and Values, setting forth lofty goals and bedrock beliefs, is an absolute must for the modern corporation. The "V&V," as it's called, pleases investors and customers ... and supports employee morale by reminding one and all that the company strives to do good, not just do well. ... I know one writer who, while struggling to draft one of these corporate credos, threw up her hands in despair and observed: "Why not just come right out and say it? 'We will strive to make as much money as we can without going to prison.' "

"By pandering to anti-Arab hysteria," writes Eric Boehlert, "NBC, Fox News, Media General and Clear Channel radio disgraced themselves -- and ruined an innocent professor's life." University of South Florida computer science professor Sami Al-Arian received death threats and lost his job after conservative Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly revived discredited, years-old allegations from self-styled terrorism expert Steve Emerson that Al-Arian had ties to anti-Israel terrorists.

Synagro company has paid money in a wrongful death lawsuit, the first known payment to alleged victims of sewage sludge-induced sicknesses. However, important information in the case has not been made public, and the National Whistleblower Center has requested that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency obtain the settlement agreement. "Given the EPA's current approval of the dumping of toxic sludge, it is in the public interest for the EPA to obtain all of the information documenting the hazards of sludge." Our 1995 book Toxic Sludge Is Good For You first broke the amazing story of how sewage sludge became "biosolids," a supposedly safe and natural organic fertilizer promoted by the EPA.

Fortune reporter Bethany McLean was virtually the only journalist in America who dared write about Enron's financial problems prior to November 2001. Now that its collapse has become the nation's hottest story, teams of business journalists are digging into the largest corporate meltdown in American history. But as in the savings and loan debacle a dozen years ago, it took news organizations too long to piece together the clues. "It's fair to say the press did not do a great job in covering Enron," admits Steve Shepard, editor-in-chief of Business Week magazine. "Enron was really a systemic failure of all the checks and balances we have on corporate governance: integrity of management, board of directors, audit committee of the board, outside accounting firm, Wall Street analysts and ultimately the press. And all of us failed."

A food industry website reports that lobbyist Rick Berman addressed Tuesday's annual meeting of the National Turkey Association. "What many of you don't understand is just how many different ways this industry is being attacked by groups. They are coming at you all from the animal rights side, as well as biotechnology, antibiotics hysteria, anti-corporate, labor and the factory farms angle. ... There will be increased consumer anxiety, possible consumption taxes, further competition from alternative food providers, unnecessary market restrictions, and an influx of class-action suits." Berman urged industry to "shoot the messengers and take their credibility away." Berman's activist-bashing business was launched with $600,000 from Philip Morris tobacco company, which also happens to be the largest food company in the U.S.

"Afghanistan's Northern Alliance Junbish Party is using Philip S. Smith & Associates, Washington, D.C., to make sure it plays a leading role in the post-Taliban government," O'Dwyer's PR Daily writes. "Smith is a former Asia policy advisor for the House Republican Research Committee and senior legislative assistant to Rep. Don Ritter (R-Pa). He reports to Gen. Rashid Dostum, a former Communist who switched sides and fought the Soviet Union after it invaded Afghanistan. Dostum is the former warlord who controlled the key Afghanistan city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Smith's firm receives about $150,000 for the work. He also represents the Royal Lao Foundation and the Vietnam National Association."

The Project on Government Oversight has issued a report on reprisals and retaliation against whistleblowers at the U.S. Department of Energy. "Retaliation at DOE does not necessarily entail attempting to fire federal employees," it states. "In the majority of cases in the security area, DOE supervisors attempt to revoke the whistleblower's clearance on trumped-up charges. Then they remove them from any responsibility for oversight of security. On the other hand, contractors often lose their contracts, or their jobs, for blowing the whistle. ... Going back to the early 1980s, there has been a pattern of retaliation against federal and contractor employees who raise issues about security problems."

The Bush administration has announced that an eight-year-old, $2 billion federal program to create high-mileage gas vehicles was being scrapped and a new program -- focusing on hydrogen fuel-cells -- was being created. According to Jack Doyle, author of Taken for A Ride: Detroit's Big Three and the Politics of Pollution, this new fuel-efficiency initiative is more PR than progress.

Burson-Marsteller's hiring of Lord Melchett is the focus of professor George Monbiot's weekly column in The Guardian: "Because regulation works, companies will do whatever they can to prevent it. They will threaten governments with disinvestment, and the loss of thousands of jobs. They will use media campaigns to recruit public opinion to their cause. But one of their simplest and most successful strategies is to buy their critics. By this means, they not only divide their opponents and acquire inside information about how they operate; but they also benefit from what public relations companies call 'image transfer': absorbing other people's credibility. Over the past 20 years, the majority of Britain's most prominent greens have been hired by companies whose practices they once contested. Jonathon Porritt, David Bellamy, Sara Parkin, Tom Burke, Des Wilson and scores of others are taking money from some of the world's most destructive corporations, while boosting the companies' green credentials. ... Burson-Marsteller's core business is defending companies which destroy the environment and threaten human rights..."

Theta Davis chronicles the rise of the Independent Media Center (IMC) movement, which sprang to life in Seattle, during protests there against the World Trade Organization in the fall of 1999. "After Seattle, IMCs began to pop up around the world, from South Africa to New York City. At current count there are more than 60 centers in 25 different countries. Some, like Seattle and New York, have permanent, physical offices. Others, such as Philadelphia, live mostly on the Net -- with meetings taking place online and in the homes of local members of editorial collectives." Some working journalists use it to publish stories censored by the mainstream media. Supported primarily by volunteer labor and donated equipment, the IMCs straddle the line between journalism and activism.

The U.S. Department of Defense recently issued a report stating that the "war on terrorism" could last as long as six years on a global scale. "In a paradox worthy of careful study, however, the mass media have been far more exuberant about progress in the war," notes Strategic Forecasting, a private intelligence company that provides businesses with strategic analyses of international events. "The media have to a great extent disregarded the constant drumbeat of caution sounded by everyone from U.S. President George W. Bush to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Adm. John Stufflebeem. Instead, they have spoken of the stunning victory of U.S. arms in Afghanistan and a new war-fighting paradigm in which air power, a few good men and the natives sweep away America's enemy, and they have generally engaged in an ongoing orgy of congratulatory coverage." In previous U.S. wars, military spokesmen tended to be uncritical cheerleaders, while the news media were supportive but often skeptical. This time around, however, "media and military have now completely reversed roles."

Alessandra Stanley reports how "television news executives are exploring niche news programming" to brand their network deep into the psyche of the younger audience that advertisers crave. "In a nobler version of the tobacco industry tactics, they hope to lure younger people to their product and then hook them. 'The idea is that you are investing,' David F. Poltrack, the CBS executive vice president for research and planning, explained. 'You know as viewers age they watch more television news. You want them to associate news with your brand.' " The September 11th terrorist attacks drew a massive young audience to TV news, but that effect has dissipated. "The Buffy crowd, which had briefly tuned in, has gone back to its old viewing habits, much to the dismay of advertisers who are obsessed with youthful viewers."

ePublicRelations president Ross Irvine offers his take on Lord Melchett joining Burson-Marsteller. Irvine writes: "Burson-Marsteller's London office has a new cash cow... Lord Melchett has joined B-M as a consultant in the company's corporate social responsibility unit. Here, he can be charged out a high rate, earn a good salary plus expenses, contribute significantly to the bottom line, satisfy WWP Group shareholders who own B-M, and offer little value to clients. ... The marriage of B-M and Lord Melchett raises some interesting questions and situations. Fortunately, they are easy to explain away. As Alan Biggar, chief executive of B-M's London office, said: 'This (the corporate social responsibility unit) is a growing area of business for us.' In other words: 'Show us the money. We must keep the shareholders happy. Thanks for the cash, Lord Melchett!' "

"Some of the nation's largest corporate advertisers, seeking greater control over television, are proposing to create their own shows to air on the major broadcast networks," the Los Angeles Times writes. With network advertising revenues down, some TV executives are open to corporate sponsored shows. Both Ford Motor Company and Coca-Cola are developing TV shows to promote their products. Ford's "No Boundaries" premieres on the WB network in March. Coca-Cola's "Stepping Stones" is set for NBC's summer season. Writes the LA Times: "'Blending a commercial message with a program so that the program is the message' offers an advertiser 'a perfect marketing fit,' said Robert Riesenberg, an executive vice president of Universal McCann, Coke's advertising agency."

Tarcher/Putnam publishing is today releasing the paperback edition of our latest book Trust Us, We're Experts! It is available in bookstores nationwide and on the usual websites for $14.95. One of the back cover blurbs is from reporter Anita Manning who wrote in an article in USA Today that " media critics John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton would like American consumers to become better spin detectors. Behind much of what we read in newspapers or hear on TV, they say, are not cold, hard facts, but public relations specialists, who are masters at 'spin control,' directing what information is presented, by who, and in what context.' "

The Wall Street Journal reports that, " Libya's Col. Moammar Gadhafi, is attempting a rehabilitation. Top U.S. and Libyan officials have held several unpublicized meetings in England and Switzerland in recent years to discuss improving ties. Public-relations campaigns and lobbying efforts on Libya's behalf are under way, funded in part by oil money and driven by a desire to cash in on future deals or resume business interrupted by sanctions. ... The four American oil companies that were forced by U.S. sanctions to suspend operations in Libya ... are eager to return to Libya. ...Conoco, Marathon and Amerada Hess, have hired Kenneth Duberstein, former chief of staff in the Reagan White House, to lobby on 'initiatives to protect U.S. companies' assets in Libya'..."

The British press is lambasting and lampooning both the Burson-Marsteller PR firm and their latest PR hire, Lord Melchett. Here is a satirical 'memo' written as if it leaked from inside B-M: "Lord Melchett will be heading up our new 'corporate conscience' desk, which will work to uncover the hidden humanity inside organisations such as Monsanto... I can't help but think that if this initiative had been around back when Nikolae Ceausescu was our client, he might still be in a position to pay his invoice. ... Please give (Lord Melchett) as much cooperation as you can without showing him any files. ... Next week's CSR lecture is about how the public backlash against Big Tobacco is adversely impacting on Little Tobacco, and Dr Mike and his team will outline what we at B-M are doing to publicise the plight of small, independent tobacco farmers worldwide ..."

"America is four months into this crisis, and one comment about the course of events is now long overdue: the U.S. media have woefully mishandled their coverage of post-Sept. 11 developments," writes Andrew Stroehlein, who moderates a Poynter Institute online forum for journalists devoted to discussing media coverage of the war. "American journalists now consider themselves Americans first and journalists second, and the U.S. media thus take an uncritical approach toward U.S. government action, allowing themselves to become an arm of government policy." According to British journalist Paul Eadle, this reaction is understandable but dangerous "because it means there is no real debate over the exact nature of the threats that America faces and the most effective way of eliminating them." Without a strong, open debate on how best to guarantee its long-term security, Eedle warns, "America risks ending up like Israel--with overwhelming military superiority over its enemies but unable to stop a handful of determined people from inflicting terrible suffering on its citizens."

Burson-Marsteller's hiring of Lord Melchett, the former director of Greenpeace UK, prompted the Independent to examine the growing trend of British environmentalists "who have decided to work for the blue chip giants they once sought to humble ... In the past seven years, at least six directors of environmental groups have joined their one-time opponents in big business," including Tom Burke and Jonathon Porritt, former directors of Friends of the Earth; Des Wilson, who once headed the campaign to remove lead from gasoline; and Gavin Grant, who led a campaign to expose human rights abuses by Shell and the Nigerian government.

PR trade publication The Holmes Report writes: "Accounting giant Andersen--the former Arthur Andersen--is reportedly looking to recruit crisis management and other communications experts as it faces mounting criticism for its role in the collapse of Enron." Anderson has already hired the Virginia-based firm Hartz Consulting and retains Ketchum as its PR agency of record. But the company is expected to enlist more PR consultants as it faces Congressional investigations, a federal criminal inquiry and lawsuits from shareholders. According to The Holmes Report, in addition to PR help, Anderson has hired two major lobbying firms--the Duberstein Group and Griffin Johnson Dover & Stewart--to help it with the government investigation. PR Week reports Anderson has also hired Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Associates.

Burson-Marsteller's newest PR hire, Lord Peter Melchett, has been forced to resign from the board of Greenpeace International. Melchett blind-sided his fellow Greenpeace board members and eco-activists this week by taking a consulting job with one of the PR world's most notorious anti-environmental propaganda firms, Burson-Marsteller. Apparently Melchett has convinced himself that accepting a paying position with B-M will somehow help him change corporate behavior. However, as PR Watch has frequently reported, PR experts themselves acknowledge that corporate behavior is most affected by activists aggressively employing highly visible media and public organizing campaigns that directly confront and expose corporate wrongdoing. Melchett is window-dressing for B-M and gains them access to insiders at Greenpeace and other NGOs. For information on B-M's role in anti-environmental and anti-health propaganda campaigns, search this site using the word 'Burson'.

Today's New York Times reports that Russia has "strongly criticized Bush administration plans to store rather than destroy decommissioned nuclear warheads, suggesting that such plans would undermine the credibility of any new arms control accord.... ... An assistant secretary of defense, J. D. Crouch, told a Pentagon briefing that the United States would hold in reserve a substantial number of warheads as a 'responsive capability.' ... The testiness of the tone of Russia's statement today indicated the depth of feeling here that Washington is seeking to orchestrate a long- term advantage in nuclear weaponry, especially after Mr. Bush's decision last month to withdraw from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. That was the first such decision in the history of nuclear arms control. 'What reduction can we talk about if the United States can go back to the Start I level in just a couple of hours?' asked Aleksei Pikayev, director of an arms control institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences. 'It looks more like swindling,' he added."

"The images that streamed from inside Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul were a propaganda dream for the United States government," notes the Independent. "Afghan women, after years of cruel subjugation by the Taliban, were daring to shed their veils and to expose their faces once again to the world and to sunlight." Meanwhile, in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the first woman ever to become a U.S. fighter pilot,is suing the Pentagon for violating her constitutional rights by forcing her to wear an "abaya," a burqa-like, suffocating, head-to-toe robe that allows no glimpse of flesh and has only two slits for the eyes. The Independent asks: "How can the US continue to require its own servicewomen to cover themselves in the Kingdom, when it is celebrating its success in liberating women from the custom in Afghanistan?"

Catherine Bennet examines a "deal with the devil," asking "Has Lord Peter Melchett been genetically modified? ... And what other explanation can there possibly be for the decision of Lord Melchett, quondam destroyer of GM crops, to join Burson-Marsteller...? Anyone who believes Lord Melchett's insistence that there is nothing contradictory about his appointment ...fails to appreciate Burson-Marsteller's fabulous coup in signing him up. ... As (B-M) suggests on its website, corporate social responsibility ('CSR') is something no forward-thinking company can afford to be without: 'Social responsibility has become as much of a corporate imperative as good customer service, high-quality management or healthy market share.' That is why it set up the corporate responsibility unit, whose principal task, as I understand it, is to help companies find ways of mollifying critics of their environmental or social practices."

Gary Polland, who heads the "well-connected" Houston-based firm Polland & Cook and chairs the Harris County Republican Party, has been smoothing out some of the "knotty issues" facing Pakistan since even before September 11th. According to PR trade publication O'Dwyer's PR Daily, Polland is "37.5 percent owner of a joint-venture known as 'Team Barakat' that is registered as lobbyist for the Islamic Republic of Pakistan." Team Barakat has a $180,000 contract, signed August 1 and effective Sept. 1, 2001, to advise the country and set up meetings with key U.S. policymakers. Some of the issues Team Barakat will deal with include "nuclear testing, Afghan refugees, Kashmir dispute with India, terrorism, human rights, economic debt restructure, child labor and Pakistan's transition to a civilian government." The firm reports to Pakistan ruler General Pervez Musharraf. Polland is a conservative Jew strongly supported by the Christian Coalition. He organized the Texas Inaugural Breakfast in Washington, D.C., last January to honor George Bush, which was attended by Majority Whip Rep. Tom Delay and Texas Senators Phil Gramm and Kay Bailey Hutchison.

A longtime Greenpeace activist sent the following comments to PR Watch: "The Lord Melchetts of the activist (and now corporate) world are only one symptom of a broader contagion. Is there even a real environmental movement anymore? How accountable are NGOs to their own base? ... Look how little is being accomplished in addressing Global Warming in the U.S. at a time when it's obviously a national security issue and a global security issue. I think this is in part because the environmental groups don't believe in mass movement building like they used to. Most of us are treated like consumer and spectator activists -- expected to pay our membership dues and trust that full-time salaried activists will solve the issue -- without expecting to get involved ourselves. How easy it is to confuse salaried NGO actors with real movement leaders. And when they leave to work for corporations, if they haven't built a base that can carry on the radical push for change, how weak the organizations become that they leave behind. But alas, Lord Melchett hasn't even fully left Greenpeace: Should Greenpeace International allow an employee of Burson Marsteller on their board?" The Melchett affair is receiving major media coverage in Britain from The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, on the BBC and elsewhere.

The Guardian Unlimited reports that "Lord Melchett, the former head of Greenpeace UK ... (has) taken a job at a PR company which has represented Monsanto and the European biotech industry. ...(T)he former Labour minister and farmer, who is on the board of Greenpeace International, is to become a consultant for Burson-Marsteller.... Burson-Marsteller is the company that governments with poor human rights records and corporations in trouble with environmentalists have turned to when in crisis." A Greenpeace memo sent to PR Watch naively states that "our view is that since GP has been giving advice to business for years it is no surprise that Peter will be giving the same advice in a different capacity." It is not unusual for leading Greenpeace activists, such as Patrick Moore and Paul Gilding, to become well-paid PR advisors to polluters, as PR Watch has reported. Melchett will minimally be window dressing for B-M, a PR firm with a poor reputation trying to recreate its own image.

Major media have been remarkably quiet about the Carlyle Group, "one of the most powerful, well-connected, and secretive companies in the world," which brought together high-powered former politicians including George Bush seniors with Saudi financial moguls and even members of the Bin Laden family. "The Bush administration isn't afraid to mix business and politics, and no other firm embodies that penchant better than the Carlyle Group," reports Red Herring magazine. "Walking that fine line is what Carlyle does best. We may not see Osama bin Laden's brothers at Carlyle's investor conferences any more, but business will go on as usual for the biggest old boys network around."

PR colossus Fleishman-Hillard adds former President Clinton's Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor to the firm's international advisory board. Kantor is a partner at Mayer, Brown and Platt law firm, where he advises clients on international corporate and financial transactions. He also serves as a senior advisor to Morgan Stanley and is a board member of Pharmacia, Monsanto, and Korea First Bank. Kantor joins a "distinguished group of national leaders" on the international advisory board, including Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, Clinton's former Defense Secretary William Cohen, and former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

The Wall Street Journal recently gave a plug to ActivistCash.com, a new website that claims to expose where "activists get their money." ActivistCash.com attacks environmental, health and animal rights activists as "nannies," "anti-choice zealots" and "hypocrites" who pretend to represent grassroots citizens while taking money from foundations. According to Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel, ActivistCash is needed because activist groups "have been reluctant to let anyone see their records." But ActivistCash keeps its own finances hidden, so PR Watch investigated and found (surprise, surprise) that its funding comes from the very industries that share a vested interest in attacking activists, specifically the tobacco and alcohol lobbies, as well as restaurant chains and taverns that want to keep employee wages low, avoid paying health insurance, and drive up sales of their high-markup products: booze, soda pop, fatty foods and cigarettes.

The National Council of Teachers of English has announced that "Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber won the 2001 George Orwell Award for their book Trust Us, We're Experts! which details language abuse by the food, chemical, tobacco and oil industries. ... The NCTE Committee on Public Doublespeak has been giving its Orwell Award annually since 1975. Named in honor of author George Orwell, who championed clarity in public language, the award recognizes an author, editor, or producer of a published work or nonprint media presentation that effectively treats the subject of public doublespeak and makes an outstanding contribution to the critical analysis of public language."

PR trade publication O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports: "The Arab Intellectual Foundation plans a $2 million media drive to counter what it feels are the 'negative images' of Arabs and Islam that are presented in the Western press in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks." Saudi Prince Khalid Al-Faisal is the president of AIF. Arab businessmen have been asked to contribute money to the campaign which will "promote the Arab perspective on the war on terror."

ABC News correspondent John Stossel comes under harsh scrutiny in a January 7, 2002 Nation article. Journalist Mark Dowie looks into Stossel's rise from humble consumer-interest reporter to million-dollar network star. As network news divisions were forced to become profit centers in early 90s, network executives wanted "talent" to sell the new news product. "Professional attention-grabbers ... became free-market winners. By cleverly blending blue-collar social values with Wall Street economic values, they got rich," writes Dowie. "And a handsome young Princeton graduate, confused about his politics but certain of his ambition, followed their lead. [Stossel] dropped the Naderite stories, became a hero of the libertarian right and got rich." PR Watch has also followed Stossel's journalistic endeavors, in which he regularly distorts and misrepresents the facts to the benefit of big business.

The seventy-eight chemical companies that manufacturer, sell and promote the ocean of agricultural poisons poured on crops in the U.S. each year have yet another new name for their U.S. lobby and trade group. As of the new year they are to be called "CropLife America." According to their news release, " ' This is more than just a name change, it's a change in the way we think about our industry and its positive contributions to society,' said James C. Borel, (of) DuPont Agriculture and Nutrition. 'CropLife America will reflect our industry's multiple technologies, including ... biotechnology and ... chemicals.' ... CropLife America was founded in 1933 as the Agricultural Insecticide and Fungicide Association. In 1949, the name was changed to the National Agricultural Chemicals Association and in 1994 it was changed to American Crop Protection Association."

Incepta, the marketing and public relations firm, branched out into detective work with the purchase of the US-based Global Intelligence and Security. The management team at Global Intelligence, which carries out business intelligence and investigations, includes several former executives from Kroll Associates, one of the best-known private detective and investigations agencies in the world.

We're proud as punch that our investigative quarterly PR Watch has won a 2001 Utne Reader Alternative Press Award. According to the folks at the magazine, "since 1989 the Utne Reader Alternative Press Awards have recognized excellence in alternative and independent publishing. Utne Reader's editors select nominee publications through their extensive reading process and careful examination, honoring the efforts of small publications that provide innovative, thought-provoking perspectives often ignored by mass media." If you are not a paid subscriber to PR Watch, please become one now by using the link on this web page - we depend on your support to fund our work.

Mark Crispin Miller examines the growing power of the world's 10 largest media multinationals: AOL Time Warner, Disney, General Electric, News Corporation, Viacom, Vivendi, Sony, Bertelsmann, AT&T and Liberty Media. "The media cartel that keeps us fully entertained and permanently half-informed is always growing here and shriveling there, with certain of its members bulking up while others slowly fall apart or get digested whole," he observes. "But while the players tend to come and go--always with a few exceptions--the overall Leviathan itself keeps getting bigger, louder, brighter, forever taking up more time and space, in every street, in countless homes, in every other head. ... Of all the cartel's dangerous consequences for American society and culture, the worst is its corrosive influence on journalism."

PR pro Fraser Seitel has issued a list of the worst PR gaffes of 2001, with awards going to the now-defunct Extreme Football League, Sharon Stone, Bill Maher, and the Enron board of directors.