Not-So-Revolutionary PR [1]
Submitted by Bob Burton [2] on
In an interview with LobbyWatch, British journalist George Monbiot reviews the network [3] of the key players from Living Marxism [4]. One of its offshoots is Spiked Online [5], which has hosted numerous debates sponsored by the PR firm Hill & Knowlton [6] and more recently Clarke Mulder Purdie [7]. Key individuals are also involved in other groups such as the Science Media Centre [8] (SMC), the Institute of Ideas [9] and Sense About Science [10]. What they have in common, Monbiot argues, is masking their pro-corporate libertarianism with rhetorical support for science. In a submission [11] to the Board of the SMC, Andy Rowell from SpinWatch notes that, despite climate change sceptics [12] attacking the science behind global warming [13] analyses, SMC has been comparatively silent. "Of the 120 odd press releases the SMC has issued ... only about four have been on climate," he wrote.