Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA07768 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 17 Apr 2001 14:54:27 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745DA2@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: The Flack Catchers Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 14:51:05 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
This is soon to be a set text for our PR Masters' degree (which is going
online in September- so spread the word!). I believe their previous book
was called 'Toxic Waste is Good For You', and is equally entertaining.
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Wade T.Smith
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Saturday, April 14, 2001 2:50 am
> To: Memetics Discussion List
> Subject: Fwd: The Flack Catchers
>
> The Flack Catchers
> by Chisun Lee
>
> http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0115/lee2.shtml
>
> Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber's Trust Us, We're Experts! How Industry
> Manipulates Science and Gambles With Your Future delivers both delight
> and dismay to the hypochondriacs and conspiracy theorists among us. "Ha!"
> we can crow. "We were right!" The Fortune 500 do employ a vast
> underground army of twisted manipulators and elite mercenaries to win
> greater profit at the expense of our minds and bodies!
>
> "How far will people in power go to manipulate and control our
> perceptions of reality?" the authors ask. The question is even more
> ominous than it sounds. To Rampton and Stauber, the struggle for consumer
> rights is no mere tussle over dollars and cents; at stake are the
> fundamental principles of liberty and justice.
>
> Not even the most venerable institution is sacred as the authors uncover
> how money trumps morals, and deception can be found even in the brightest
> corners of scientific America. Some of the usual suspects<PR firms Hill &
> Knowlton and Burson-Marsteller, Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds<are
> pulling the strings. But dancing on the other end are the American Cancer
> Society, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American
> Medical Association, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
> government agencies, network news media, university professors, and maybe
> even your next-door neighbor.
>
> As a simple history resource, Trust Us touches on many of the 20th
> century's most infamous industrial disasters and dilemmas: Hawk's Nest,
> leaded gasoline, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, global warming, genetically
> modified food, pesticides, and of course big tobacco. But with the aid of
> previously unreleased internal corporate documents, insider PR
> blueprints, other journalistic investigations, medical studies, and
> hindsight, Rampton and Stauber also reveal how our understanding of these
> crises has been shaped by the experts, and how these perceptions could be
> harmful to our health.
>
> Alarmingly relevant now that supermarket meat aisles seem more like
> minefields, a chapter on food biotechnology reveals just how far and wide
> an industry will go to obscure the potential harm of their products. In
> one example, biotech giant Monsanto<once a leader in saccharin, PCBs, and
> Agent Orange production<successfully blocked negative news coverage of
> the bovine growth hormone rBGH with the aid of a vast PR web and, of
> course, talented lawyers.
>
> With innocuous-sounding groups such as the American Dietetic Association
> and the International Food Information Council weighing in, Monsanto
> managed to pressure, cajole, and mislead editors and reporters at such
> prestigious outlets as USA Today, The New York Times, and The Wall Street
> Journal. When two Florida television news reporters nevertheless put
> together an exposé suggesting that rBGH had never been adequately tested
> for its cancer-causing potential, that cows were getting sick from it,
> and that supermarkets were not taking promised measures to screen
> rBGH-using suppliers, Monsanto sent in the lawyers. The investigation
> never aired, and both reporters were eventually fired.
>
> Trust Us, We're Experts! is an education in public relations from the
> folks at the nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy, which puts out the
> quarterly PR Watch. The authors drop morbidly fascinating tidbits of
> insider information. One of them: Companies can purchase software that
> helps them gauge the tolerance level of shareholders for unsavory
> business practices, like, say, environmental destruction or the ravaging
> of third-world populations.
>
> The further you read, the greater the risk of paranoid fatalism. With
> billions of dollars and some of the world's greatest minds working
> against us, aren't we doomed? How can we ever again read the newspaper,
> eat dinner, go for a swim, take a walk, swallow a pill, trust anyone, or
> be sure of anything? We begin to question the most minor
> assumptions<after all, the ones about oat bran as a cholesterol fighter,
> red wine as a weapon against heart disease, and zinc as a shortcut around
> the common cold apparently rest on shaky ground.
>
> The best defense, argue Rampton and Stauber, is active skepticism.
> Skepticism of the experts, people who come at you from a position of
> authority with a vast body of information and an agenda. And active
> seeking of the truth, preferably in concert with others who are dedicated
> to rooting out corporate evil.
>
> Of course, if you've really learned your lesson, your first question will
> be: How much of this book is a crock? The authors aren't taking any
> chances<they've provided extensive footnotes. If you're still skeptical,
> why not do as they say and investigate them? Call up the Center for Media
> and Democracy; demand a list of funders and their contributions.
>
> There isn't likely to be much corporate support there. These guys come
> from the far side of liberal. Saying so is not to detract from their
> exhaustively detailed reportage and calmly convincing tone; indeed, the
> book is generally light on rhetoric, and there's hardly a radical quoted.
> But the public stranglehold of corrupt experts is framed as a crisis of
> "democracy," which the authors see as not just freedom from having your
> mind messed with, but also a level of engagement that drives citizens to
> become their own experts. And in their conclusion, Rampton and Stauber
> reveal the depth of their colors: "Activism enriches our lives in
> multiple ways. It brings us into personal contact with other people who
> are informed, passionate, and altruistic. . . . It is a path to
> enlightenment."
>
> Corny, yes. But by that point, we need something warm and fuzzy to cling
> to.
>
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For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
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