Corporatewatch: PR Industry Profits From WAR...
corporatewatch | 17.10.2002 00:00
CAUTION!: MEDIA WAR IN PROGRESS
CAUTION!: MEDIA WAR IN PROGRESS
CAUTION!: MEDIA WAR IN PROGRESS
Corporatewatch on how the PR industry has been quick to exploit business opportunities arising from the war.
CAUTION!: MEDIA WAR IN PROGRESS
CAUTION!: MEDIA WAR IN PROGRESS
Corporatewatch on how the PR industry has been quick to exploit business opportunities arising from the war.
PR Without End
The Public Relations industry was born out of war. The early pioneers of the practice, such as Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays who set up the first civilian practices after World War One, had learnt their skills conducting wartime propaganda. So as the prospect of war without end looms on the political horizon, the PR industry has been quick to exploit business opportunities arising from the war. They have picked up contracts buffing up the image of countries nervous of US aggression. With a new kind of war in the offing, PR and lobbying outfits have been facilitating a new kind of diplomacy.
Saudi Arabia, home of most of the 9/11 hijackers, has been on the PR offensive in America, desperate to portray itself as a loyal ally of the United States in its fight against terrorism. Within a few days of the World Trade Centre attacks it had hired Burson-Marsteller for $2.7 million in order to improve its image. Then in mid-November it hired Qorvis Communications to produce television and radio pro-Saudi advertisements to be shown across the US, and enlisted Patton Boggs “for educating Congress and staff on issues that are important to the Saudis”, according to O’Dwyer’s PR Daily. Qorvis, which by May had billed the Saudis $3.8 million, has had great difficulty in finding channels that will accept the ads however, due to anti-Saudi sentiment in the US. As it plans to re-launch the campaign this month it may also end up competing for advertising space with a multi-million dollar pro-Israel ad campaign being prepared by Laszlo & Associates.
Meanwhile Libya, once America’s favourite punch bag, has been the beneficiary of a quiet lobbying campaign to get it removed from the US State Department’s list of states that support terrorism. Oil companies Conoco, Amerada Hess and Marathon, which all have interests in Libya, have provided cash to hire lobbyist Ken Duberstein to try to get the sanctions imposed on Libya in 1986 lifted. Colonel Gaddafi took the PR opportunity of September 11th to publicly renounce terrorism and has offered assistance in combating Al-Qaeda.
In May the Philippines hired Weber Shandwick, the world’s largest PR outfit. The Philippines, where US forces have been slow in conducting their part of ‘The War Against Terror’ against the Abu Sayyaf Islamist rebels, wants Weber Shandwick to maintain contact with the Pentagon, White House and Congress on their behalf, perhaps fearing closer attention from the US if Bush backs off his plans to attack Iraq.
The Pentagon has also felt the need of PR expertise in ‘The War Against Terror’. In November it hired the Rendon Group to assist the sinister Office of Strategic Influence in planting pro-American stories in the press worldwide. The New York Times’ report of February this year that the OSI is “developing plans to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations” in an effort “to influence public sentiment and policy makers in both friendly and unfriendly countries,” was met with hostility in the press worldwide and surprisingly also in the PR industry. Kathy Cripps, president of the Council of PR Firms, managed to keep a straight face whilst commenting that “the suggestion that responsible PR firms would intentionally mislead and misinform is disturbing.”
The OSI may (or may not, reports are ambiguous) have been dismantled, but The Rendon Group is continuing to work with the Pentagon. John Rendon probably has more experience of anti-Iraqi propaganda than anyone else in the PR industry. His company was a part of the Hill & Knowlton-led propaganda campaign on behalf of Kuwaiti government front group, Citizens for a Free Kuwait, that brought American public opinion behind the 1991 Gulf War. He was subsequently hired by the CIA to organise and propagandise for the Iraqi National Congress, a coalition of Iraqi dissidents, spending $100m before the contract ran out in 1996.
True to its business roots the Bush administration seems to be running its entire foreign policy as a PR campaign. Its arguments are shaped by symbolic and emotive language rather than by logic, and they take advice from “strategic communicators” such as Sheila Tate of PR firm Powell Tate on how best to communicate policy on Iraq. Indeed the White House seems to regard the fundamental cause of the World Trade Centre bombing as a PR problem; to be solved by the appointment of ex- J Walter Thomson advertising executive Charlotte Beers as head of Public Diplomacy, charged with promoting ‘Brand USA’ to the Middle Eastern market.
The desire to conduct such a campaign perhaps betrays sinister motives. To quote Naomi Klein: “It’s no coincidence that the political leaders most preoccupied with branding themselves and their parties were also allergic to democracy and diversity. Think Mao… think Hitler”.
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/newsletter/issue10/newsletter2.htm
See also corporatewatch sections on PR Industry:
Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide (30.07.02)
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/profiles/o_and_m/o_and_m1.htm
Burson- Marstellar (01.07.02)
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/profiles/burson/burson1.htm
Hill & Knowlton (12.06.02)
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/profiles/hk/hk1.htm
The Public Relations industry was born out of war. The early pioneers of the practice, such as Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays who set up the first civilian practices after World War One, had learnt their skills conducting wartime propaganda. So as the prospect of war without end looms on the political horizon, the PR industry has been quick to exploit business opportunities arising from the war. They have picked up contracts buffing up the image of countries nervous of US aggression. With a new kind of war in the offing, PR and lobbying outfits have been facilitating a new kind of diplomacy.
Saudi Arabia, home of most of the 9/11 hijackers, has been on the PR offensive in America, desperate to portray itself as a loyal ally of the United States in its fight against terrorism. Within a few days of the World Trade Centre attacks it had hired Burson-Marsteller for $2.7 million in order to improve its image. Then in mid-November it hired Qorvis Communications to produce television and radio pro-Saudi advertisements to be shown across the US, and enlisted Patton Boggs “for educating Congress and staff on issues that are important to the Saudis”, according to O’Dwyer’s PR Daily. Qorvis, which by May had billed the Saudis $3.8 million, has had great difficulty in finding channels that will accept the ads however, due to anti-Saudi sentiment in the US. As it plans to re-launch the campaign this month it may also end up competing for advertising space with a multi-million dollar pro-Israel ad campaign being prepared by Laszlo & Associates.
Meanwhile Libya, once America’s favourite punch bag, has been the beneficiary of a quiet lobbying campaign to get it removed from the US State Department’s list of states that support terrorism. Oil companies Conoco, Amerada Hess and Marathon, which all have interests in Libya, have provided cash to hire lobbyist Ken Duberstein to try to get the sanctions imposed on Libya in 1986 lifted. Colonel Gaddafi took the PR opportunity of September 11th to publicly renounce terrorism and has offered assistance in combating Al-Qaeda.
In May the Philippines hired Weber Shandwick, the world’s largest PR outfit. The Philippines, where US forces have been slow in conducting their part of ‘The War Against Terror’ against the Abu Sayyaf Islamist rebels, wants Weber Shandwick to maintain contact with the Pentagon, White House and Congress on their behalf, perhaps fearing closer attention from the US if Bush backs off his plans to attack Iraq.
The Pentagon has also felt the need of PR expertise in ‘The War Against Terror’. In November it hired the Rendon Group to assist the sinister Office of Strategic Influence in planting pro-American stories in the press worldwide. The New York Times’ report of February this year that the OSI is “developing plans to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations” in an effort “to influence public sentiment and policy makers in both friendly and unfriendly countries,” was met with hostility in the press worldwide and surprisingly also in the PR industry. Kathy Cripps, president of the Council of PR Firms, managed to keep a straight face whilst commenting that “the suggestion that responsible PR firms would intentionally mislead and misinform is disturbing.”
The OSI may (or may not, reports are ambiguous) have been dismantled, but The Rendon Group is continuing to work with the Pentagon. John Rendon probably has more experience of anti-Iraqi propaganda than anyone else in the PR industry. His company was a part of the Hill & Knowlton-led propaganda campaign on behalf of Kuwaiti government front group, Citizens for a Free Kuwait, that brought American public opinion behind the 1991 Gulf War. He was subsequently hired by the CIA to organise and propagandise for the Iraqi National Congress, a coalition of Iraqi dissidents, spending $100m before the contract ran out in 1996.
True to its business roots the Bush administration seems to be running its entire foreign policy as a PR campaign. Its arguments are shaped by symbolic and emotive language rather than by logic, and they take advice from “strategic communicators” such as Sheila Tate of PR firm Powell Tate on how best to communicate policy on Iraq. Indeed the White House seems to regard the fundamental cause of the World Trade Centre bombing as a PR problem; to be solved by the appointment of ex- J Walter Thomson advertising executive Charlotte Beers as head of Public Diplomacy, charged with promoting ‘Brand USA’ to the Middle Eastern market.
The desire to conduct such a campaign perhaps betrays sinister motives. To quote Naomi Klein: “It’s no coincidence that the political leaders most preoccupied with branding themselves and their parties were also allergic to democracy and diversity. Think Mao… think Hitler”.
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/newsletter/issue10/newsletter2.htm See also corporatewatch sections on PR Industry:
Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide (30.07.02)
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/profiles/o_and_m/o_and_m1.htm Burson- Marstellar (01.07.02)
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/profiles/burson/burson1.htm Hill & Knowlton (12.06.02)
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/profiles/hk/hk1.htm
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