The birth of public relations (PR) as a driving force in American culture can be dated to the 1929 Easter Parade in New York City. At the time, smoking by women was considered vulgar and uncouth. The tobacco industry saw half its market squelched by a social taboo. The American Tobacco Company--maker of Lucky Strikes, then a dominant brand--hired PR pioneer Edward Bernays to fix this problem. Sales tripled in a year with his advertising campaign to “reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet”--which played on the worries of some women about their weight. But Bernays’ grand coup came with the Easter Parade.
         Bernays arranged for glamorous society women to march on Fifth Avenue in the Easter Parade, boldly puffing away on cigarettes while posing for lots of photographs--photos that Bernays then made sure were prominently featured in publications worldwide. In one stroke, Bernays dealt a death blow to the taboo against women smoking, while simultaneously identifying cigarettes as veritable “torches of freedom” for women. Smoking by women skyrocketed in subsequent years.
         From these beginnings, the PR industry grew dramatically and became incredibly sophisticated. Many of us are well aware of PR and are accustomed to taking media “hype” with “a grain of salt,” saying, “That’s just a bunch of PR.” But few know the true reach of public relations companies, which often work “behind the scenes” on behalf of major corporations. The most effective PR is never recognized as being PR, but is taken for “reality.” Consider “the news,” upon which many of us depend for our picture of the world:
         As media giants like Time Warner and America Online (AOL) merge, control of “the news” is vested in fewer and fewer hands. These companies are themselves products of previous mergers: Remember Time-Life? Warner Brothers? And AOL swallowed Netscape Communications in 1999. Anyway, now it’s all AOL Time Warner, Incorporated. The news features with which AOL presents its Internet users aren’t likely now to be too incompatible with what you read in Time magazine or see on Cable News Network (CNN--a Time Warner company).
         Over 400 CNN people got canned in January (2001) after the $106 billion merger was consummated. A week later, 2000 more jobs were cut throughout AOL Time Warner, including layoffs at Time magazine.
         Even setting aside directives from on high for reporters to “cool it” on sensitive stories or the subtle self-censorship that occurs because reporters know which side their bread is buttered on, “downsizing” and the layoffs that often accompany mergers leave reporters much less time for the luxury of true investigative journalism. But the pages and the minutes still must be filled--so many “news” stories are little more than slightly reworked versions of press releases, radio news scripts, or “video news releases” spoon-fed to media outlets by public relations firms employed by giant corporations. Most of us aren’t familiar with the names of PR firms like Hill & Knowlton or Burson-Marsteller, whose business requires them to remain as invisible as possible. For a thorough and carefully documented exposé of the PR industry, see Toxic Sludge Is Good for You! by crack investigative journalists John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton. You might not see this book prominently displayed at the mall, but it’s available.
         As Al Pacino’s character in the movie The Insider says: “We have a free press in this country--for anyone that can afford one.” We’re fortunate to have a locally-owned newspaper in McKinleyville--a paper that’s not beholden to outside corporate interests, a paper that doesn’t doctor letters to the editor, and a paper that doesn’t censor columnists. Thanks.
 
 
 

            More about the work of Stauber and Rampton can be found at the website of PR Watch and the Center for Media and Democracy.