Dedicated to Barrett and "Chuck" (aka McSweegan? I think so) ...
and the Ratbags Team:

http://www.ratbags.com/posse/whoarewe.htm#BARRETT

http://www.io.com/%7Ebrettw/PR_War.html

Deforming Consent:
The Public Relations Industry's
Secret War on Activists

"The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of
great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of
corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of
protecting corporate power against democracy." -- Alex Carey  

by
John Stauber and
Sheldon Rampton
All Lynn Tylczak wanted to do was keep a few kids from being poisoned.

A housewife in Oregon, her imagination was captured by a PBS
documentary about a technique used in Europe to prevent children from
accidentally swallowing household poisons. Common antifreeze, for
example, is made of ethylene glycol, whose sweet taste and smell
belies its highly poisonous nature. As little as two teaspoons can
cause death or blindness. About 700 children under the age of six are
exposed to antifreeze each year, and it is the leading cause of
accidental animal poisoning affecting both pets and wild animals.(2)  

European antifreeze makers poison-proof their products by adding the
"bitterant" denatonium benzoate. Two cents worth makes a gallon of
antifreeze taste so vile that kids spit it out the instant it touches
their mouth.
 
Tylczak launched a one-woman crusade, the "Poison Proof Project" to
persuade antifreeze makers to add bitterant. Her storymade the New
York Times and Oprah Winfrey, prompting a swiftbacklash from
antifreeze makers.
She remembers one company's PR representative threatening that he
could pay someone $2,000 to have her shot if she didn't back off.

When Tylczak began pushing for legislation to require bitterant,
another PR firm was sent into the breach: National Grassroots and
Communications, which specializes in "passing and defeating
legislation at the federal and state level."  Tylczak had never even
heard of the firm until its CEO, Pamela Whitney, made the mistake of
bragging about her exploits at a PR trade seminar. "The key to winning
anything is opposition research," she said."We set up an operation
where we posed as representatives of the estate of an older lady who
had died and wanted to leave quite a bit of money to an organization
that helped both children and animals. We went in and met with
[Tylczak] and said, 'We want to bequeath $100,000 to an organization;
you're one of three that we are targeting to look at. Give us all of
your financial records..., all of your game plan for the following
year, and the states you want to target and how you expect to win.
We'll get back to you."' (3)

Whitney claimed that the records she received contained two
bombshells:  ThePoison Proof Project's tax-exempt status had lapsed,
and it had taken funding from bitterant manufacturers. "Without
leaving any fingerprints or any traces," Whitney boasted, "we then got
word through the local media and killed the bill in all the states."
(4)

1. isolate the radicals; 2."cultivate" the idealists and "educate"
them into becoming realists; then 3. co-opt the realists


When the story got back to Tylczak, she noted that only $100 of the
$50,000 in family savings spent on the campaign came from bitterant
makers. "She's got a very foolish client," Tylczak said. "Her story
has got more bullshit than a cattle ranch."  In fact,she noted, her
bill requiring bitterant did pass in Oregon.
What did the PR industry accomplish in its battle against Lynn
Tylczak? Were news stories or legislation killed because ofWhitney's
intervention? In this and other cases, the degree of success PR firms
have in manipulating public opinion and policy is almost imposssible
to determine. By design, the PR industry carefully conceals many of
its activities. "Persuasion, by its definition, is subtle," says one
PR executive. "The best PR ends up looking like news.You never know
when a PR agency is being effective; you'll just find your views
slowly shifting." (5)

Using money provided by its special interest clients -- usually large
corporations, business associations and governments -- the PR industry
has vast power to direct and control thought and policy. It can
mobilize private detectives, lawyers, and spies; influence editorial
and news decisions; broadcast faxes; generate letters; launch phony
"grassroots"campaigns; and use high-tech information systems such as
satellite feeds and internet sites.  
Activist groups and concerned individuals often fail to recognize the
techniques and assess the impact of PR campaigns. And indeed, with its
$10 billion-a-year bankroll and its array of complex, sophisticated
persuasive weaponry, the PR industry can often out maneuver,
overpower, and outlast true citizen reformers. Identifying the
techniques of the industry and understanding how they work are the
first steps in fighting back.
 

Spies for Hire
In 1990, David Steinman's book Diet for a Poisoned Planet, was
scheduled for publication. Based on five years of research, it
detailed evidence that hundreds of carcinogens, pesticides, and other
toxins contaminate the US food chain. It documented, for example, that
"raisins had 110 industrial chemical and pesticide residues in 16
samples," and recommended buying only organically grown varieties. (6)

Diet for a Poisoned Planet enabled readers to make safer food choices.
But before they could use the information, they had to know about the
book so that they could buy and read it. In the weeks after it came
out, Steinman's publisher scheduled the usual round of media reviews
and interviews, not suspecting that the California Raisin Advisory
Board (CALRAB) had already launched a campaign to ensure that
Steinman's book would be dead on arrival.

The stakes were high. In 1986, CAL RAB had scored big with a series of
clever TV commercials using the "California Dancing Raisins" that
pushed up raisin sales by 17 percent. Steinman's book threatened to
trip up the careful PR choreography.

To kill the Steinman book, CALRAB hired Ketchum PR Worldwide, whose
$50 million a year in net fees made it the country's sixth largest
public relations company.  Months before the publication of Diet for a
Poisoned Planet, Ketchum sought to "obtain [a] copy of [the] book
galleys or manuscript and publisher's tour schedule," wrote senior
vice-president Betsy Gullickson in a secret September 7, 1990 memo
outlining the PR firm's plan to "manage the crisis." All
documents...are confidential. Make sure that everything -- even notes
to yourself -- are so stamped. ...Remember that we have a shredder;
give documents to Lynette for shredding. All conversations are
confidential, too. Please be careful talking in the halls, in
elevators, in restaurants, etc. All suppliers must sign
confidentiality agreements. If you are faxing documents to the client,
another office or to anyone else, call them to let them know that a
fax is coming. If you are expecting a fax, you or your Account
Coordinator should stand by the machine and wait for it. (7)  
Gullickson's memo outlined a plan to assign "broad areas of
responsibility," such as "intelligence/information gathering," to
specific Ketchum employees and to Gary Obenauf of CALRAB.  She
recommended that spokespeople "conduct one-on-one briefings/interviews
with the trade and general consumer media in the markets most acutely
interested in the issue .... [Ketchum] is currently attempting to get
a tour schedule so that we can 'shadow' Steinman's appearances; best
scenario: we will have our spokesman in town prior to or in
conjunction with Steinman's appearances." (8)

After an informant involved with the book's marketing campaign passed
Ketchum a list of Steinman's talk show bookings, Ketchum employees
called each show.  The PR firm then made a list of key media to
receive low-key phone inquiries. They tried to depict Steinman as an
off-the-wall extremist without credibility, or argued that it was only
fair that the other side be presented. A number of programs canceled
or failed to air interviews.  In the end, an important contribution to
the public debate over health, the environment, and food safety fell
victim to a PR campaign designed to prevent it from ever reaching the
marketplace of ideas. (9)

Divide and Conquer
Ronald Duchin, senior vice president of another PR spy firm --
Mongoven, Biscoe,and Duchin -- would probably have labeled Steinman
and Tylczak radicals. A graduate of the US Army War College, Duchin
worked as a special assistant to the secretary of defense and director
of public affairs for the Veterans of Foreign Wars before becoming a
flack. Activists, he explained, fall into four categories: radicals,
opportunists, idealists, and realists.  He follows a three-step
strategy to neutralize them: 1) isolate the radicals; 2) "cultivate"
the idealists and "educate" them into becoming realists; then 3)
co-opt the realists into agreeing with industry.
According to Duchin, radical activists:

want to change the system; have underlying socio/political motives
[and] see multinational corporationsas inherently evil....These
organizations do not trust the...federal, state and local governments
to protect them and to safeguard the environment. They believe,
rather,that individuals and local groups should have direct power over
industry.... I would categorize their justice and political
empowerment.
Idealists are also "hard to deal with."  They "want a perfect world
and find it easy to brand any product or practice which can be shown
to mar that perfection as evil.  Because of their intrinsic altruism,
however, and because they have nothing perceptible to be gained by
holding their position, they are easily believed by both the media and
the public, and sometimes even politicians."  However, idealists "have
a vulnerable point.  If they can be shown that their position in
opposition to an industry or its products causes harm to others and
cannot be ethically justified, they are forced to change their
position.... Thus, while a realist must be negotiated with, an
idealist must be educated.  Generally this education process requires
great sensitivity and understanding on the part of the educator."
Opportunists and realists, says Duchin, are easier to manipulate.
Opportunists engage in activism seeking "visibility, power, followers
and, perhaps, even employment....The key to dealing with [them] is to
provide them with at least the perception of a partial victory."  And
realists are able to "live withtrade-offs; willing to work within the
system; not interested in radical change; pragmatic. [They] should
always receive the highest priority in any strategy dealing with a
public policy issue.... If your industry can successfully bring about
these relationships, the credibility of the radicals will be lost and
opportunists can be counted on to share in the final policy
solution.'' (10)

Best Friends Money Can Buy
Another crude but effective way to derail potentially meddlesome
activists is simply to hire them. In early 1993, Carol Tucker Foreman,
former executive director of the Consumer Federation of America, took
a job for what is rumored to be an exceptionally large fee as a
personal lobbyist for bovine growth hormone (rBGH), the controversial
milk hormone produced by chemical giant Monsanto. With Foreman's help,
Monsanto has successfully prevented Congress or the FDA from requiring
labeling of milk from cows injected with rBGH.  In fact, the company
used threats of lawsuits to intimidate dairy retailers and legislators
who wanted to label their milk "rBGH-free."

While she is helping Monsanto wage its all-out campaign for rBGH,
Foreman is also the coordinator and lobbyist for the Safe Food
Coalition, "an alliance of consumer advocacy, senior citizen, whistle
blower protection, and labor organizations."  Formed by Foreman in
1987, the Coalition's members include such public interest
heavyweights asMichael Jacobson's Center for Science in thePublic
Interest (CSPI), Ralph Nader's Public Citizen, and Public Voice for
Food and Health Policy. (11)

Foreman said she saw no conflict of interest in simultaneously
representing rBGH and the Safe Food Coalition.  "The FDA has said rBGH
is safe," she explained, adding "Why don't you call CSPI; they say
rBGH is safe too?"  Asked how much money she has received from
Monsanto to lobby for rBGH, she angrily retorted, "what in the world
business is that of yours?"  Her D.C.consulting firm, Foreman &
Heidepriem, refused to provide further information and referred
journalists to Monsanto's PR department. (12)

Both Sides of the Street
William Novelli, a founder of the New York-based Porter/Novelli PR
firm, cheerfully uses the term "cross-pollination" to describe his
company's technique of orchestrating collusion between clients with
seemingly conflicting interests.  By "donating" free work to
health-related charities, for example, Porter/Novelli gains leverage
to pressure the charities into supporting the interests of the firm's
paying corporate clients. In 1993, this strategy paid off when produce
growers and pesticide manufacturers represented by Porter/Novelli
learned that PBS was about to air a documentary by Bill Moyers on
pesticide-related cancer risks to children.  The PR firm turned to the
American Cancer Society (ACS), to which it had provided decades of
free services.  The national office of ACS dutifully issued a memo
charging that the Moyers program "makes unfounded suggestions...that
pesticide residues in food maybe at hazardous levels."  The industry
then cited the memo as "evidence" that Moyers' documentary overstated
dangers to children from pesticides. (13)

Hill & Knowlton executive Nina Oligino used a similar
"cross-pollination" technique in 1994 to line up national
environmental groups behind "Partners for Sun Protection Awareness," a
front group for Hill &Knowlton's client, Schering-Plough. Best known
for Coppertone sun lotion, the drug transnational uses the Partners to
"educate" the public to the dangers of skin cancer, cataracts, and
damaged immune systems caused by a thinning ozone layer and an
increase in ultraviolet radiation. (14)

In the past, Hill & Knowlton has also worked for corporate clients who
hired them to "disprove" or belittle the environmental warnings of
global climate change. (15)  Seamlessly shifting gears into
"environmentalist mode,"  Hill & Knowlton convinced leaders of the
Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club to add their
names to the "Partners for Sun Protection" letterhead.

A representative (who asked not to be named) of one of the
environmental groups said he was ignorant of the Schering-Plough
funding and its hidden agenda to sell sunlotion.  Had he examined the
Partners campaign, however, he might have noticed that it offered no
proposals for preventing further ozone depletion and failed to mention
that covering up completely was the best sunscreen of all.  Instead,
the primary action the drug company funded coalition recommended was
to "liberally apply a sunscreen...to all exposed parts of the body
before going out doors."  One of the campaign's clever "video news
releases" shows scores of  sexy, scantily-clad sun worshippers
overexposing themselves to UV rays, while slathering on suntan oil.
(16)

Synthetic Grassroots
PR firms often bypass activist organizations and custom design their
own "grassroots citizen movements" using rapidly evolving high-tech
data and communications systems.  Known in the trade as "astroturf,"
this tactic is defined by Campaigns & Elections magazine as a
"grassroots program that involves the instant manufacturing of public
support for a point of view in which either uninformed activists are
recruited or means of deception are used to recruit them.'' (17)

Astroturf is particularly useful in countering NIMBY or "Not in my
backyard" movements -- community groups organizing to stop their
neighborhood from hosting a toxic waste dump, porno bookstore, or
other unwanted invaders.

John Davies, who helps neutralize these groups on behalf of corporate
clients such as Mobil Oil, Hyatt Hotels, Exxon, and American Express,
describes himself as "one of America's premier grassroots
consultants." His ad in Campaigns & Elections (see image 1) is
designed to strike terror into the heart of even the bravest CEO. It
features a photo of the enemy: a "little old white-haired lady"
holding a hand-lettered sign, "Not In My Backyard!"  The caption
warns, "Don't leave your future in her hands.  Traditional lobbying is
no longer enough....To outnumber your opponents, call Davies
Communications.'' (18)

Davies promises to "make a strategically planned program look like a
spontaneous explosion of community support for needy corporate clients
by using mailing lists and computer databases to identify potential
supporters."  He claims his telemarketers will make passive supporters
appear to be concerned advacates. "We want to assist them with letter
writing. We get them on the phone [and say], 'Will you write a
letter?'' Sure. "Do you have time to write it?" Not really.' 'Could we
write it for you?... Just hold, we have a writer standing by."'

Another Davies employee then helps create what appears to be a
personal letter. If the appropriate public official is "close by, we
hand-deliver it. We hand-write it out on 'Little kitty cat stationery'
if it's a little old lady. If it's a business we take it over to be
photocopied on someone's letterhead.  [We] use different stamps,
different envelopes... Getting a pile of personalized letters that
have a different look to them is what you want to strive for.'' (19)

Blending In
"Grassroots" PR is the specialty of Pamela Whitney at National
Grassroots & Communications, the firm that spied on Lynn Tylczak.

"My company basically works for major corporations and we do new
market entries," she says. "Wal-Mart is one of our clients. We take on
the NIMBYs and environmentalists."  They also work for "companies who
want to do a better job of communicating to their employees because
they want to remain union-free. They aren't quite sure how to do it,
so we go in and set that up."

With its $10 billion-a-year bankroll and its weaponry of
persuasion,the PR industry can often outmaneuver, overpower, and
outlast citizen reformers.

One of National Grassroots' first tasks, after information
gathering/spying, is to setup its own local organizations by hiring
"local ambassadors who know the community inside and out to be our
advocates, and then we work with them," explains Whitney.  "They
report to us. They are on our payroll, but it's for a very small
amount of money.  [O]ur best community ambassadors are women who have
possibly been head of their local PTA; they are very active in their
local community -- or women who are retired and who have a lot of time
on their hands."  They are supervised by professionals with "field
organizing experience" on electoral campaigns who "can drop in the
middle of nowhere and in two weeks they have an organization set up
and ready to go."

These professional grassroots organizers dress carefully to avoid
looking like the high-priced, out-of-town hired guns they really are.
"When I go to a zoning board meeting," Whitney explained, "I wear
absolutely no make-up, I comb my hair straight back in a ponytail, and
I wear my kids' old clothes. You don't want to look like you're
someone from Washington, or someone from a corporation.... People hate
outsiders; it's just human nature." (20)

With enough money, the same techniques can be applied on a national
scale. As the health care debate heated up in the early days of the
Clinton administration, Blair G. Childs masterminded the Coalition for
Health Insurance Choices (CHIC).  An insurance industry front group,
CHIC received major funding from the National Federation of
Independent Businesses and the Health Insurance Association of America
(HIAA), a trade group of insurance companies.  According to Consumer
Reports, "The HIAA doesn't just support the coalition; it created it
from scratch." (21)

Health reform opponents used opinion polling to develop a
point-by-point list of vulnerabilities in the Clinton administration
proposal and organized over 20 separate coalitions to hammer away at
each point.  Each group chose a name with "a general positive
reaction....That's where focus group and survey work can be very
beneficial," explained Childs. " 'Fairness,''balance,' 'choice,'
'coalition,' and 'alliance' are all words that resonate very
positively." (22)  Childs, who has been organizing grassroots support
for the insurance industry for a decade, wasn't the only PR genius
behind the anti-health care campaign, but his coalition can honestly
claim the kill.

CHIC'S multi-coalition strategy assured numbers and cover, and took
advantage of different strengths. "Some have lobby strength, some have
grassroots strength, and some have good spokespersons,"  Childs said.
In its campaign against "mandatory health alliances," CHIC drew in
"everyone from the homeless Vietnam veterans....to some very
conservative groups." (23)  It also sponsored the legendary "Harry and
Louise" TV spot which, according to the New York Times, "'symbolized
everything that went wrong with the great health care struggle of
1994: A powerful advertising campaign, financed by the insurance
industry, that played on people's fears and helped derail the
process." (24)

CHIC and the other coalitions also used direct mail and phoning,
coordinated with daily doses of misinformation from radio blowtorch
Rush Limbaugh, to spread fears that government health care would
bankrupt the country, reduce the quality of care, and lead to jail
terms for people who wanted to stick with their family doctor.  Childs
explained how his coalition used paid ads on the Limbaugh show to
generate thousands of citizen phone calls from the show's 20 million
listeners.  First, Limbaugh would whip up his fans with a calculated
rant against the Clinton plan.  Then, during a commercial break,
listeners would hear an anti-health care ad and an 800 number to call
for more information.  The call would ring a telemarketer who would
ask a few questions, then "patch them through" electronically to their
congressmembers' office. Staffers fielding the resulting barrage of
phone calls typically had no idea that the constituents had been
primed, loaded, aimed, and fired at them by radio ads paid for by the
insurance industry, with the goal of orchestrating the appearance of
overwhelming grassroots opposition to health reform. (25)

When the health care debate began in1993, Childs said, popular demand
for change was so strong that the insurance industry was "looking down
the barrel of a gun."  By 1994, industry's hired PR guns had shot down
every proposal for reform.

Managing the Media
Many PR pros think that the media, both national and local, are easier
to handle than the public. To begin with, the med-ia itself is a huge,
profitable business, the domain of fewer and fewer giant transnational
corporations.  Not surprisingly, these transnationals often find that
their corporate agenda and interest are compatible with, or even
identical to, the goals of the PR industry's biggest clients. While
this environment may be demoralizing to responsible journalists, it
offers a veritable hog heaven to the public relations industry.

In their 1985 book, Jeff andMarie Blyskal write that PR people know
how the press thinks. Thus, they are able to tailor their publicity so
that journalists will listen and cover it.  As a result much of the
news you read in newspapers and magazines or watch on television and
hear on radio is heavily influenced and slanted by public relations
people. Whole sections of the news are virtually owned by
PR....Newspaper food pages are a PR man's paradise, as are the
entertainment, automotive, realestate, home improvement and living
sections... Unfortunately, 'news' hatched by a PR person and
journalist working together looks much like real news dug up by
enterprising journalists working independently.  The public thus does
not know which news stories and journalists playing servant to PR.
(26)

As a result, notes a senior vice-president with Gray & Company public
relations, "Most of what you see on TV is, in effect, a canned PR
product.  Most of what you read in the paper and see on television is
not news." (27)

The blurring of news and ads accelerated in the 1980s, when PR firms
discovered that they could film, edit, and produce their own news
segments -- even entire programs -- and that broadcasters would play
them as "news," often with no editing. Video newsreleases (VNRs),
typically come packaged with two versions: The first is fully edited,
with voiceovers prerecorded or scripted for a local anchor to read.
The second, a "B-roll," is raw footage that the station can edit and
combine with tape from other sources.

"There are two economics at work here on the television side,"
explains a Gray & Company executive. "The big stations don't want
prepackaged, pretaped.  They have the money, the budget, and the
manpower to put their own together. But the smaller stations across
the country lap up stuff like this." (28) With few exceptions,
broadcasters as agroup have refused to consider standards for VNRs, in
part because they rarely admit to airing them. But when MediaLink --
the PR firm that distributed about half of the 4,000 VNRs made
available to newscasters in 1991 -- surveyed 92 newsrooms, it found
that all had used VNRs supplied free by PR firms. CBS Evening News,
for example, ran a segment on the hazards of automatic safety belts
created by a lobby group largely supported by lawyers. (29)  

Cyberiunk Mail
The PR industry is innovating rapidly and expanding into cyberspace.
Hyped as the ultimate in "electronic democracy," the information
superhighway will supposedly offer "a global cornucopia of
programming" offering instant, inexpensive access to nearly infinite
libraries of data, educational material and entertainment. But as
computer technology brings a user-friendlier version of the internet
to a wider spectrum of users, it has attracted intense corporate
interest.

Given that a handful of corporations now control most media, media
historian Robert McChesney finds it is "no surprise that the private
sector, with its immense resources, has seized the initiative and is
commercializing cyberspace at a spectacular rate -- effectively
transforming it into a giant shopping mall." (30)  PR firms are
jumping on the online bandwagon, establishing "world wide web" sites
and using surveys and games to gather marketing and opinion
information about the users of cyberspace, and developing new
techniques to target and reach reporters and other online users.

"Today, with many more options available, PR professionals are much
less dependent upon mass media for publicity," writes industry pro
Kirk Hallahan in Public Relations Quarterly.  "In the decade ahead,
the largest American corporations could underwrite entire, sponsored
channels....[which] will be able to reach coveted super-heavy users
... with a highly tailored message over which [corporations could]
exert complete control.'' (3l)

Fighting Back at Flacks
The groups that most scare the PR industry are the local grassroots
groups they derisively label "NIMBYs." Unlike national environmental
groups and other "professional" reformers, the local groups are hard
to manipulate precisely because they aren't wired into the systems
that PR firms like to manipulate. Most "Not in My Backyard" activists
commit to a cause after some personal experience drives them to get
involved.  Typically, they act as individuals or with small groups of
citizens who come together to address a local, immediate threat to
their lives, cities and neighborhoods.  They are often treated with
contempt by the professional environmentalists, health advocates and
other public interest organizations headquartered in Washington, D.C.
Many times, they lack organizing expertise and money.  They don't have
budgets or polished grant proposals needed to obtain funding from
foundations and major donors.  But corporations andthe US government
are spending tens of millions of dollars on PR and lobbying to fight
these local community activists.

The most visible manifestations of NIMBYism, and its biggest success
stories, have been in stopping toxic waste sites and toxin-belching
incinerators from invading communities.  Author Mark Dowie sees this
new wave of grassroots democracy as the best hope for realizing the
public's well-documented desire for a clean and healthy environment in
sustainable balance with nature. "Today, grassroots anti-toxic
environmentalism is a far more serious threat to polluting industries
than the mainstream environmental movement,"  Dowie writes. "Not only
do local activists network, share tactics, and successfully block many
dump sites and industrial developments, they also stubbornly refuse to
surrender or compromise. They simply cannot afford to. Their
activities and success are gradually changing the acronym NIMBY to
NIABY -- Not In Anybody's Backyard." (32)

But before that can happen, local groups need to develop a strategy
for confronting the powers-that-be in their backyard, and that means
learning to recognize and fight the techniques of PR. Until they learn
this lesson, local activists may continue to win local battles, while
finding themselves outmaneuvered and outgunned at the national level.

John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton edit PR Watch, a quarterly
publication about the public relations industry, and are authors of
the new book, Toxic Sludge Is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the
Public Relations Industry published by Common Cour. age Press. The
book can be ordered by phone by calling 1-800-497-3207, or by mail for
$20/book (includes postage and handling) from the Center for Media &
Democracy, 3318 Gregory Street, Madison, WI 53711.

1 Taking the Risk out of Democracy (Sydney, Australia: University of
New South Wales Press, 1995), p.18.

2. Associated Press, Zoos Take Action on Antifreeze, New York Times,
Oct. 8, 1995.

3. Pamela Whitney, speech, "Shaping Public Opinion: If You Don't Do
It, Someone Else Will," Chicago, Dec. 9, 1994

4. Ibid.

5. Susan B. Trento, The Power House: Robert Keith Gray and the Selling
of Access and Influence in Washington (NewYork: St. Martin's Press,
1992) p. 62.

6. David Steinman, Diet for a Poisoned Planet How to Choose Safe Foods
for You and Your Family (NewYork:  Harmony Books, 1990).

7. Ketchum Public Relations Confidential Memo toCAL' RAB Food Safety
Team, Sept. 7, 1990.

8. Ibid

9. Jean Rainey, Memo for Roland Woerner RegardingDavid Steinman
Booking on Today Show," (no date).
principal aims right now as social

10. Ronald Duchin, "Take an Activist Apart and WhatDo You Have?'
CALFNews Cattle Feeder, June 1991,pp. 9,14.

11. News release, Safe Food Coalition, Nov. 4,1994.

12. Interview with Carol Tucker Foreman, Spring 1994.

13. Sheila Kaplan, Porter/Novelli Plays AII Sides, ~Legal limes, Nov.
22,1993, pp. 1, 21~23.

14. Press kit from Hill & Knowlton on behalf of Partnersfor Sun
Protection Awareness, 1995.

15. Profiles of Top Environmental PR Firms: Hill &Knowl- ton,"
O'Dwyer's PR Services Report, Feb. 1994,p. 40.

16.Video News Release, Press kit from Hill & Knowlton on behalf of
Partners for Sun Protection Awareness, 1994.

17. "Grassroots Lobbying Glossary, Campaigns & Elections, Dec./Jan.
1995, p. 22.

18. Advertisement, Campaigns & Elections, Dec./Jan.1995.

19. John Davies speaking at "Shaping Public ...," op. cit.

20. Pamela Whitney speaking at Shaping Public Opinion...,"op. cit.

21. "Public Interest Pretenders,' Consumer Reports May 1994, p. 317.

22. Blair Childs speaking at Shaping Public Opinion,'  op. cit

23. Ibid.

24. Robin Toner, Harry and Louise and a Guy NamedBen," New York Times,
Sept. 9, 1994.

25. Blair Childs, Shaping Public Opinion ... ,' op. cit.

26. Jeff and Marie Blyskal, PR: How the PublicRelations Industry
Writes the News (New York:William Morrow & Co., 1985), p. 28.

27. Trento, op. cit., p. 233.

28. Ibid., p. 245.

29. David Lieberman, "Fake News,' TV Guide, Feb.2228, 1992, p. 10.

30. Robert W. McChesney, Information SuperhighwayRobbery," In These
Times, July 10, 1995 p. 14.

31. Kirk Hallahan, Public Relations and Circumventionof the Press "
Public Relations Quarterly, Summer 1994,pp. 17-19.

32. Mark Dowie, Losing Ground:American Environmentalism at theClose of
the 20th Century (Cambridge:MIT Press, 1995), p. 133.