Public Relations

TIME Features Wendell Potter, Obama Quotes Him

by John Stauber — September 9, 2009 - 7:39am

"Wendell Potter may be the ideal whistle-blower. The former head of corporate communications for health-insurance giant Cigna, Potter turned against his old colleagues in June to testify before a congressional committee about what he viewed as the health-insurance industry's 'duplicitous' behavior in the current health-reform debate. ...

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TIME magazine, September 7, 2009

Burson-Marsteller's New PR Microtrend

by Bob Burton — August 28, 2009 - 5:24am

Mark Penn, the CEO of the PR firm Burson-Marsteller, is embroiled in controversy yet again.

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Gawker (U.S.), August 26, 2009

Thanks to the Plastics Industry, Big Tobacco's Lobbying Tactics Stay Fresher, Last Longer

by Anne Landman — August 27, 2009 - 1:14pm

The plastics industry has launched a $10 million PR blitz aimed at stopping the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from re-evaluating its declaration that a widely-used plastics additive called Bisphenol A (BPA) is safe.

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Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (Wisconsin), August 22, 2009

Another Day, Another Coal Industry Front Group

by Sheldon Rampton — August 26, 2009 - 9:32am

The Federation for American Coal, Energy and Security (FACES of Coal), is the latest "grassroots" organization to join the public conversation on behalf of the coal industry.

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Huffington Post, August 25, 2009

Republicans Criticize Big Pharma -- for Its Obama Ties

by Diane Farsetta — August 21, 2009 - 2:09pm

Senior Obama adviser David Axelrod's public relations and ad industry ties -- which received some scrutiny during the presidential campaign -- are again being questioned. Opponents of health care reform (mostly Republicans) are criticizing the "huge ad buys" that pro-reform groups are making through Axelrod's old firm. "Two separate $12 million ad campaigns advocating Obama's health care plan ...

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Politico.com, August 19, 2009

PR: War by Other Means

by Diane Farsetta — August 19, 2009 - 3:35pm

"The PR race is not that different from the arms race," writes John Feffer. "Russia, for instance, recently paid nearly $3 million to Ketchum for a six-month media blitz to promote the country's leaders and policies. Georgia has retained Public Strategies, Inc. at $50,000 a month.

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Foreign Policy in Focus, August 18, 2009

British Spinners Queuing Up for Parliament

by Bob Burton — August 13, 2009 - 5:09am

After a year in which numerous British politicians have resigned or been publicly embarrassed by revelations over expense claims, the major UK political parties are promising new faces for the next election. However, Marie Woolf notes that "more than 50 prospective candidates chosen by the main parties are already working as lobbyists and public relations executives and are deeply enmeshed in the world of spin and politics. ...

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The Times (UK), August 9, 2009

Honduras Tries for a PR Coup

by Diane Farsetta — July 15, 2009 - 4:37pm

The negotiating team representing Honduras' coup government "rarely made a move without consulting ... an American public relations specialist who has done work for former President Bill Clinton," reports the New York Times. Roberto Micheletti heads the "de facto" government of Honduras, which took power after the military coup against elected president Manuel Zelaya.

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New York Times, July 12, 2009

Tech Upstarts Avoid Scrutiny on the Web

by Diane Farsetta — July 15, 2009 - 12:29pm

The "new world of promoting start-ups in Silicon Valley," California, is "where the lines between journalists and everyone else are blurring and the number of followers a pundit has on Twitter is sometimes viewed as more important than old metrics like the circulation of a newspaper," observes the New York Times. Instead of angling for "mentions in print and on television," publicists for new tech companies "court influential voices on the social Web." This means that "P.R.

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New York Times, July 4, 2009

The Ultimate Irony: Health Care Industry Adopts Big Tobacco's PR Tactics

by Wendell Potter — July 9, 2009 - 4:31pm
  • Topics: Astroturf, Health, Public Relations

    • At first look, one might not think that the health insurance industry has much in common with the tobacco industry. After all, one sells a product that kills people and the other sells a product nominally aimed at putting people back together. But when it comes to deceitful public relations techniques, the health insurance industry has been learning well from Big Tobacco, which employed a panoply of shady but highly successful public relations tactics to fend off changes to its business for generations.

    One of the things I said in my testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee on June 24 is that the health insurance industry engages in duplicitous public relations campaigns to influence public opinion and the debate on health care reform. By that I mean there are campaigns they want you to you know about, and those they don't.

    When you hear insurance company executives talk about how much they support health care reform and can be counted on by the President and Congress to be there for them, that's the campaign they want you to be aware of. I call it their PR charm offensive.

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