Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry [Paperback]

John Stauber (Author), Sheldon Rampton (Author), Mark Dowie (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2002

Common Courage’s number one seller blows the lid off of today's multi-billion-dollar propaganda-for-hire PR industry, revealing how public relations wizards concoct and spin the news, organize phony "grassroots" front groups, spy on citizens and conspire with lobbyists and politicians.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Sure, many of us in this modern world are cynical. The most cynical may even suspect that the news is manipulated and massaged by sponsors, that corporations act in their best interests, that political campaigns are determined not by votes, but by bucks, and that we don't get "all the news that's fit to print" but instead, "all the news that gets the ink". But even the most media-savvy amongst you will be awed by the behind-the-scenes descriptions of the Public Relations industry in action so masterfully described in this book. If you want your eyes to be opened, open them upon the pages of this book. (But remember: there are some very important people counting on you, and they really would prefer that you didn't ever hear about this book, much less buy it.)

From Publishers Weekly

Stauber and Rampton cite a classic example of image manipulation in this chilling analysis of the PR business. During the aftermath of the 1975 Three-Mile Island nuclear accident, a company spokesman said that a spark in the accumulated hydrogen bubble could result in a "spontaneous energetic disassembly"?otherwise known as an explosion. The authors trace certain specious practices of the $10 billion PR business to P.T. Barnum, who in 1836 wrote anonymous pro and con letters to editors about himself, generating heated interest. Modern public relations has evolved "crisis management" and "anti-" PR campaigns including sabotaging the tours of authors who challenge industry clients, for example, Jeremy Rifkin, author of Beyond Beef. The new euphemism for sewage sludge, "biosolids," is part of a campaign to convince the public that municipal sludge, replete with an astounding array of toxic substances, is good for farm soil. The authors point to Business for Social Responsibility, an organization that includes The Body Shop, Ben & Jerry's and others, as now containing "some of the most environmentally destructive corporations on the planet." Giant agencies extend their contracts to selling national policies, as Hill & Knowlton did in selling the Gulf war to the American public. Although most large news organizations at least rewrite PR materials, many smaller markets "rip and read" prepackaged video news releases. This is a cautionary reminder that much of the consumer and political world is created by for-hire mouthpieces in expensive neckties.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Common Courage Press; 1st Edition(PB) edition (July 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1567510604
• ISBN-13: 978-1567510607
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.7 x 7.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #260,124 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This book has changed my view of the world. August 19, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Must reading for everyone. I bought a bunch of copies and am giving them as gifts to my friends.

I used to wonder why I heard so much contradictary news in the major media pertaining to health and the environment. First, a news item quotes an authority saying a food is safe, the next year the same newspaper says it's dangerous, and the next year after that they claim it's good for you. After reading this book, I know why. There are thousands of environmental and health , and scientific organizations. According to this book, many (but not all) of these organizations are not much more than clever PR fronts, funded mainly by industry. For example, I have often seen and continue to see information provided by the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) in the major newspapers and magazines. The media usually takes this organization at its word as a credible scientific source.

According to this book: The ACSH is an industry front group that produces PR ammunition for the food processing and chemical industries. They praise the nutritional values of fast food and receive money from the fast food industry. They claim pesticides are very safe and take money from a host of pesticide manufacturers. The list goes on and on.. Yet the journalists usually take the ACSH words almost verbatim as fact and print it in their newspaper. Most journalists don't check their sources, or they're puppets of industry. Then the public reads this stuff as if it were scientifically proven fact. Public policy and law often gets decided on the basis of this "knowledge." Of course, some readers of these "facts" are skeptical, but no one seriously challenges the ACSH's credibility. Thus the ACSH continues to operate as if it were an objective science institute. Thousands of front groups worldwide use many of the same techniques. It then becomes obvious why so many people have a mistrust for science and don't know what to believe.

I used to think this country was a democracy, but now I know who really pulls the strings on many key issues. It's not the PR firms, it's the companies who hire the PR firms. Don't miss this book. For related info on health and environmental issues, I recommend "Our Stolen Future" by Theo Colborn.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars These Guys Are Good, and Fighting the Good Fight! June 9, 2004

By Gregory McMahan VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Where oh where do I begin? Toxic Sludge... takes a jaded look at the public relations industry, and exposes more than a few objectionable practices perpetrated on behalf of (mostly) corporate America's pursuit of the Almighty Buck.

I say 'mostly' because, however distressing it may be to informed and intelligent citizenship, even the United States Government and more than a few foreign regimes solicit the services of these most nefarious snake oil salesmen. Let's face it, you really do not consume the services of PR firms in order to foster good relations with your customers, you go to them when you have done something bad, and you want it covered up, or at least 'spinned' in the 'right' direction. You solicit the help of PR flacks and keep them on juicy retainers in order to look good, and not to be good. When the doo-doo hits the fan, whose a corporate ne'er do well gonna call? The PR company, that's who.

Toxic Sludge... contains twelve chapters of absorbing reading. From countermeasures directed at censoring information thoroughly in the public domain, keeping books off the bookshelves and dissenting voices from being heard, to infiltrating shoe-string activist organizations, fomenting criminal insurgency and subverting (and ultimately perverting) any and all attempts to relay the facts, the authors provide example after example of very well-financed government and corporate interests actively frustrating (and quite often foiling) intelligent and inormed democratic participation in the political and economic process. As Mark Dowie, the author of the introduction says, in an environment rife with PR, facts can not survive, nor can the truth prevail.

Some of the strategies and tactics PR firms used with giddy abandon on often unsuspecting targets truly shocked me, for many tools and tricks from the PR Playbook share an eerie resemblance to CIA methods and operations. In fact, more than a few PR players and heavy hitters get their inspiration from millitary strategists such as von Clauswitz, and cross-fertilization between PR firms and the upper levels of government and corporate America impart a uniquely acidic aggressivity and practiced slickness to their campaigns against their opponents. Some of their more colorful operations reminded me of the FBI's use, via its infamous COINTELPRO initiative, of agent provocateurs against student groups, anti-Vietnam war protestors and civil rights activists during the late sixties and early-mid-seventies. This unholy alliance between government, corporations and PR firms, combined with their incestuous linkages to the ad industry, make for one formidable and thorougly intimidating opponent.

The book contains a veritable smorgasbord of eminently quotable quotes and delightful (and very distressing) anecdotes. In this vein, my personal favorite is the story of how PT Barnum, of circus fame, got his start. He put on display an old, black slavewoman, and billed her as 'George Washington's childhood nursemaid', and get this- he claimed that she was one hundred and sixty years old. Barnum made certain that he got the woman in the news as often as he could, and it did not matter what the papers said, as long as his name was spelled right. Of course, Barnum made a killing, the woman died, an autopsy was performed for the benefit of more than a few skeptics, and gee whiz, it turned out that she could not have been more than eighty.

Barnum, of course, handled the situation like the PR pro he was. When the truth was finally revealed, he went public, and said he was shocked, truly shocked, at the way the woman had deceived him!

And that anecdote, in essence, describes the modus operandi of the PR professional. PR pros turn the truth inside out. While they greatly prefer subtlety, they will stoop to other, more brutish tactics in service of their cause. PR groups can obtain favorable coverage of their worldview, much like Barnum did, and can readily obtain the willing cooperation of government agencies, as well as current and former high ranking government officials and politicians to do their questionable bidding.

The PR firm has proven itself to be at times a sinister, vicious octopus with many tentacles in some of the most unlikely places. As such, it behooves any concerned citizen to read this book and take notice of this beast as he or she participates in the marketplace of ideas.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars If only this book were standard curriculum in the schools! September 12, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

This book is one of the most eye-opening things I have ever read, and given how much I read that is saying a lot! As a person who has worked in PR as a lobbyist (in my case for a state university), I was already somewhat acquainted with, and disgusted by, the general processes used by the industry. This book, however, put a whole new spin on things. The concrete examples of some of the PR fiascos that have been used on the American people were depressingly explicit. Yes, this book is one-sided. It never pretends not to be. It is also a must-read for anyone who views the media. If you read this book, you'll never read a newspaper the same way again. Does the book add to one's cynicism? Yes, but sometimes cynicism is a preservational force. This is one of those times.