Canuckflack

1. Tobacco PR and Lawyers: Deceitful Birds of a Feather?

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   August 18, 2006 by Colin

   Hey folks! If the Federal Court of Appeals feels this strongly about members of the bar acting unethically in pursuit of billable hours from the tobacco companies, what in the world must they think of the behaviour of advertising, marketing and public relations firms?

   ” … Finally, a word must be said about the role of lawyers in this fifty-year history of deceiving smokers, potential smokers, and the American public about the hazards of smoking and second hand smoke, and the addictiveness of nicotine. At every stage, lawyers played an absolutely central role in the creation and perpetuation of the Enterprise and the implementation of its fraudulent schemes.

   They devised and coordinated both national and international strategy; they directed scientists as to what research they should and should not undertake; they vetted scientific research papers and reports as well as public relations materials to ensure that the interests of the Enterprise would be protected; they identified “friendly” scientific witnesses, subsidized them with grants from the Center for Tobacco Research and the Center for Indoor Air Research, paid them enormous fees, and often hid the relationship between those witnesses and the industry; and they devised and carried out document destruction policies and took shelter behind baseless assertions of the attorney client privilege.

   What a sad and disquieting chapter in the history of an honorable and often courageous profession. …” (Judgement, Page 4 (pg 34 of .pdf))

   The judgement discusses initial efforts in 1953 and 1954 to launch a public relations campaign in support of tobacco (around pg. 51 of the .pdf) and just builds speed and volume as it approaches the closing pages.

   There is a danger in quoting historical documents out of context: still, they serve to shed light on the environment, the culture and the perceptions of the time:

   ” … According to a Hill & Knowlton memo dated December 22, 1953, the public relations firm was asked to:

   develop suggestions for dealing with the public relations problem confronting the industry as a result of widely publicized assertions by a few medical research men regarding the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.

   11. In an internal planning memoranda, Hill & Knowlton assessed their tobacco clients’ problems in the following manner:

   There is only one problem — confidence, and how to establish it; public assurance, and how to create it — in a perhaps long interim when scientific doubts must remain. And, most important, how to free millions of Americans from the guilty fear that is going to arise deep in their biological depths — regardless of any pooh-poohing logic — every time they light a cigarette. No resort to mere logic ever cured panic yet, whether on Madison Avenue, Main Street, or in a psychologist’s office. And no mere recitation of arguments pro, or ignoring of arguments con, or careful balancing of the two together, is going to deal with such fear now. That, gentlemen, is the nature of the unexampled challenge to this office.”

   There are a further 192 mentions of the term “public relations” in the 1742 page judgement, and none of them are favourable. Our colleagues in marketing and advertising have their weaknesses and failures cited in greater detail.

   Our colleagues at H&K, it is plainly documented, pushed their new clients about the legitimacy of their claims and encouraged independent research to support any health or benefit claims. Still, they took on the work. It was a different time, businessmen embodied different values and accepted different social behaviours.
   The question for every public relations counsellor and practitioner today, it seems, falls to a fundamental and introspective examination of personal values. How will your work be interpreted through the lens of history?

   No matter if you hide behind a fig leaf of a code of ethics or point to a package of professional standards, does your work feel uncomfortable?

   (BTW – my apologies to the blogger who originally pointed to the judgement’s remarks about lawyers. I’ve lost my notes, and can’t link back)

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2. Andrew Young and Wal-Mart

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   August 18, 2006 by Colin

   Ouch. Andrew Young’s comments about� his own experiences with ethnically-owned neighbourhood retail and grocery stores may end up hurting his� erstwhile employers rather than helping them.

   You see, Young was hired to head what seems, at first glance,� to be� a Wal-Mart astroturf operation: Working Families for Wal-Mart.

   Yesterday, he resigned after comments made to the Los Angeles Sentinel provoked reaction from a range of community and ethnic representatives.

   ” … Explaining his comments about Koreans, Jews and Arabs, Mr. Young said he was referring to the history of retail ownership in the neighborhood where he lives in southwestern Atlanta.

   “Almost everyone who has come into my community has moved in, made money and moved out and moved up,” he said. “That process is still continuing.”

   … “The only thing I can do,” Mr. Young said last night before he resigned, “is to ask that people judge me about a life of working together with people who are different and bringing people together without violence and without rancor. I would hope that would count for something.” …” (NYT)

   � (BTW – The Sentinel’s website sucks)

   � [tag]Wal-Mart, Astroturf[/tag]

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3. Interviewing techniques, the decline of modern media and TonyK

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   August 18, 2006 by Colin

   NPR profiles John Sawatsky, a former investigative journalist and university professor, now on staff at ESPN� and charged with� teaching sports reporters how to ask difficult questions and produce better interviews.

   (But who’s going to teach ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser how to react to criticism?)

   ESPN’s interest in Sawatsky was piqued by a piece in AJR, “The Question Man“:

   “Savvy sources are on to all of us, spinning back, all heat and no light, precisely because “we’re asking the wrong questions,” he says. Under attack, journalists are conceding defeat to well-oiled propaganda machines without really understanding why they’re losing. In the last decade, media trainers have become such a growth industry, “you can even find them among businessmen in Newfoundland,” Sawatsky says, teaching politicians and executives “how to run circles around journalists.”

   “It’s a sophisticated battle for control,” he says. … Sawatsky contends the “message trackers are winning,” thanks to journalists who too often rely on outdated, conventional approaches to interviewing. Sawatsky denounces standard interviewing techniques as “the old methodology,” often characterized as a power struggle between interviewer and subject, as a battle of wills, a game to be won or lost.” (AJR, October 2000)

   More observations about the inherent lethargy and lack of imagination exhibited by most interviewers can be found in a 2004 piece from the Ryerson Review of Journalism:

   ” … The easy question is anathema to Nardwuar the Human Serviette, who interviews bands for MuchMusic’s Going Coastal and has his own radio show in Vancouver. He spends hours preparing for an interview, surfing the Internet, reading music magazines and listening to music. “I’m lucky enough that I have the time, whereas other people could probably create the time but they’re too lazy or too busy doing other things,” Nardwuar says. “I won’t take on an interview unless I think I can do enough research for it.” … “

   For an example of Narduar’s outrageous technique, I point you to Narduar� vs. Henry Rollins, originally shot in 1998.

   Many more observations about� interview techniques and outcomes can be found at The Media Interview blog.

   For corporate types, Donna Papacosta’s Trafcom� podcast covered interviewing� secrets� during two broadcasts (1, 2) back in July.

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