Awareness | Debate | Action
The Public Relations Industry & The Decline of Trust
CorporateWatch.org - August 2010
1. Introduction
Commercial messages have colonised every part of our environment. Advertising is everywhere, in all of our media, TV and radio, newspapers and magazines; in films and all over the internet; on bill boards and bus stops; on our clothing and cars; in museums and public parks; at community events and political party conferences; salesmen and market researchers call us at home on the telephone and kilograms of direct mail advertising fall through our letter boxes every year. Some of it is subtle, but most of it is strident, attention-grabbing, aiming to extract the maximum impact from each square inch of space or second of air time. There is another kind of corporate messaging, however. Stealthy and covert, public relations material disguises its true nature. Commercial PR is presented to us as news and comment, as journalism, as science and scholarship, as expert advice and public opinion, readers’ letters, opinion polls and consumer surveys; it blends seamlessly into the media. The public images of corporations, governments and individuals are repaired, protected and enhanced, products are sold and political messages advanced, without the true nature of the communication being clear to its audience.
According to PR insider Julia Hobsbawm (formerly of Hobsbawm Macauley, which she founded with Sarah
Macauley, Gordon Brown’s spouse,) somewhere between 50 and 80 per cent of the stories in the news
media are sourced from or are directly influenced by public relations practitioners.1 Nearly 50,000 people
are now employed in the PR industry, with total revenues of £6.5 billion each year.2 This money is spent on
influencing perceptions of products, companies, people and political issues, and improving or defending
the reputations of organisations. The budgets of civil society groups for press work and outreach account
for only a tiny fraction of the country’s overall PR spend. Central and local government accounts for a much
larger chunk but the vast majority of it is spent by corporations.3
Whilst some PR work is quite overt and obvious, much of it is entirely covert in nature. Stories are placed in
the mainstream media to deliver messages apparently quite independently of the companies that are pushing
them. As PR insiders say: the best PR is never recognised as such. Often even journalists are unaware
of the true purposes of the stories they reproduce.
It is not just public opinion, or sections of the public, that are targeted by PR, however. The closely related
business of lobbying is aimed at influencing government; financial PR, at the financial markets; internal
communications seeks to influence a company’s employees; and business-to-business PR targets other
companies. PR has become integral to the business model of the modern corporation. All the major corporations in Britain have in-house PR staff and most also retain external agencies.
PR agencies like to portray themselves publicly as communications experts. In their view, every organisation
engages in public relations. All organisations wish to project as good an image as they can, and wish to
communicate particular messages to their public(s). This applies as much to a small cooperative like Corporate
Watch as it does to a large multinational like Dow Chemical. It is, by a broad definition, an ubiquitous
and inescapable practice. Some in the industry claim that their role is not only to facilitate this process, but
that their work is the very essence of democracy itself. Dr Dejan Vercic describes public relations as “the
essence of a free society, market economy and political democracy... an essential component of contemporary
free society.”4 PR agencies rarely discuss the specifics of how they assist communications, however,
as many of their methods are highly controversial.
This report examines the UK’s public relations industry; its structure, its methods and its role in modern society. It reveals a secretive and ambitious multi-billion pound industry which profits by selling access and influence. It demonstrates a clear link between the rise of public relations and the increasing alienation of the
public from mainstream politics. It further demonstrates how modern PR, in fact, subverts the fundamentals
of democracy in order to further the interests of its corporate masters. Whilst much of PR is quite straightforward and uncontroversial, and a great deal is entirely innocuous, even worthy,5 some elements within PR are extremely morally dubious, with a deeply ambivalent attitude to the truth. Honesty is always subordinate
to the need to control information and to protect the client’s reputation. No statement from a corporation that
might have an impact on its reputation can be trusted as a balanced or accurate representation of reality.
all the rest is advertising - 2 Controlling media coverage is a reflexive activity, sympathetic journalists are given privileged access and critical journalists are excluded. The astonishing extent of PR influence which reaches into every mainstream publication means that no media outlet nor its stories can any more be accepted uncritically.
Modern public relations practices are having a significant impact on the democratic process because of both
the nature of the practice and its extraordinary extent. PRs often engage in deliberate deception on their clients’
behalf and have developed a deeply unhealthy relationship with most of the media. Furthermore, by giving
those who can afford it the opportunity to deliberately obfuscate, deceive and derail public debate on key issues,
the public relations industry reduces society’s capacity to respond effectively to key social, environmental
and political challenges.
It should be obvious that this PR power, as with any corporate activity, is ultimately accountable only to the
interests of profit; of the PR agencies themselves and, by extension, their client corporations. The industry proclaims its ethical codes and guidelines and the integrity of companies and employees. They also like to boast of the pro bono work they conduct for charities and other good causes. This report does not dispute that there are many within the industry that act with a certain amount of integrity. However, as case studies cited below demonstrate, there are many companies and individuals for whom these codes are dispensable when the pursuit of profit demands. And access to PR and lobbying expertise is far from equal. It is available primarily to those that can afford it: governments, rich individuals and big business. This inequality naturally works to entrench existing inequalities within modern Britain, and across the world, for the rise of neoliberal globalised economics is closely linked to the rise of the public relations industry.
This report identifies a need for far greater transparency. Transparency is essential to meaningful democracy
and the PR industry operates in a deeply opaque fashion.
Context
PR must be understood within the context of the modern media, particularly the news media. The relationship
between the media and the PR industry is increasingly symbiotic. With the exception of lobbying, PR has
always been dependent on the media as the central vehicle for its messages. As the PR industry has grown, so
the commercial pressures on the media have increased, and so has the media’s dependence on external (PR)
sources for content. PR is both a symptom and a cause of this trend. As the media commercialises, it seeks
to cut costs. Staff are cut and so are the resources available for investigation and evaluation of sources. This
has promoted a shift away from investigative towards source journalism. Journalists are reduced to “re-jigging
press releases,”6 relying on external content rather than their own research. PR has benefited from this - access to the media has become easier as the press’s appetite for free content has increased - and has also
facilitated the process: the more free content is offered, the easier it becomes for the media to cut costs, driving
competitive pressures further.
The media are increasingly outsourcing content supply to the PR industry (as well as to press agencies). This
makes perfect sense commercially but it is deeply problematic when you consider the media’s wider role in
society. PR in this way has helped move the news media ever closer to the American model of an utterly supine
press, almost incapable of questioning governmental and corporate interests.
It should also be born in mind that the media are quite imperfect. Whilst there is much to be admired in the British media, its failings are legendary. There is widespread dishonesty and some repulsively cynical standards. Whilst the PR industry undoubtedly compounds the evident failings of the media, it is by no means wholly responsible for those failings. The public complained of the unprincipled nature of the press for centuries before the term ‘public relations’ was coined and commercial pressures have undoubtedly corrupted much of it further.
Limitations of the study
This report focuses on the UK’s public relations and lobbying industry. A great deal of research has been conducted into the US PR industry. However, even though the UK is the second largest market for PR, comparatively little research has been undertaken on commercial PR here. The same multinational companies that work in the US also work in the UK and there is every reason to assume that they employ many of the same underhand techniques here as they do across the Atlantic. It is beyond Corporate Watch’s resources to investigate the European PR industry.
Information about PR campaigns is extremely limited. Whilst there is a reasonable amount of quantifiable
data on basic industry figures - company revenues, employment, etc. - available details of actual PR
campaigns are few and far between. The industry maintains a high level of commercial confidentiality and
case studies are released only on a voluntary basis. PR Week, the main industry journal, contains much
interesting information but its editorial line is deeply uncritical of industry practices and it does not conduct
critical investigations into PR controversies. Furthermore, very few stories about commercial (non-governmental)
PR appear in the mainstream press. Much of PR activity aims to keep stories out of the press and
the industry has been extremely successful at keeping its own activities out of the public domain. This study
cannot give a full overview of the industry’s activities. There is simply not enough evidence available.
The paucity of information should not be taken as reason for complacency however. The evidence outlined
in this report (case studies and anecdotal evidence gleaned from industry sources, primary research and
academic sources) provides a powerful case for action. Whilst patchy, the evidence available shows that
the PR industry has a powerful ability to influence and manipulate society, the media, public opinion and
legislation; even history can be manipulated. Whilst it is far from an irresistible force, the effect is proven by
numerous examples. The lack of comprehensive information and the consequent impossibility of divining
the true extent of industry influence can only add to the concern.
Activities clearly contrary to the public interest appear to be widespread, even systemic, within the industry,
and many companies are capable of malignant action. Until there is proper freedom of information about
PR companies’ activities, however, the precise extent will remain unclear.
CLICK HERE to download complete CorporateWatch.org PR Report PDF
1. Introduction
Commercial messages have colonised every part of our environment. Advertising is everywhere, in all of our media, TV and radio, newspapers and magazines; in films and all over the internet; on bill boards and bus stops; on our clothing and cars; in museums and public parks; at community events and political party conferences; salesmen and market researchers call us at home on the telephone and kilograms of direct mail advertising fall through our letter boxes every year. Some of it is subtle, but most of it is strident, attention-grabbing, aiming to extract the maximum impact from each square inch of space or second of air time. There is another kind of corporate messaging, however. Stealthy and covert, public relations material disguises its true nature. Commercial PR is presented to us as news and comment, as journalism, as science and scholarship, as expert advice and public opinion, readers’ letters, opinion polls and consumer surveys; it blends seamlessly into the media. The public images of corporations, governments and individuals are repaired, protected and enhanced, products are sold and political messages advanced, without the true nature of the communication being clear to its audience.
According to PR insider Julia Hobsbawm (formerly of Hobsbawm Macauley, which she founded with Sarah
Macauley, Gordon Brown’s spouse,) somewhere between 50 and 80 per cent of the stories in the news
media are sourced from or are directly influenced by public relations practitioners.1 Nearly 50,000 people
are now employed in the PR industry, with total revenues of £6.5 billion each year.2 This money is spent on
influencing perceptions of products, companies, people and political issues, and improving or defending
the reputations of organisations. The budgets of civil society groups for press work and outreach account
for only a tiny fraction of the country’s overall PR spend. Central and local government accounts for a much
larger chunk but the vast majority of it is spent by corporations.3
Whilst some PR work is quite overt and obvious, much of it is entirely covert in nature. Stories are placed in
the mainstream media to deliver messages apparently quite independently of the companies that are pushing
them. As PR insiders say: the best PR is never recognised as such. Often even journalists are unaware
of the true purposes of the stories they reproduce.
It is not just public opinion, or sections of the public, that are targeted by PR, however. The closely related
business of lobbying is aimed at influencing government; financial PR, at the financial markets; internal
communications seeks to influence a company’s employees; and business-to-business PR targets other
companies. PR has become integral to the business model of the modern corporation. All the major corporations in Britain have in-house PR staff and most also retain external agencies.
PR agencies like to portray themselves publicly as communications experts. In their view, every organisation
engages in public relations. All organisations wish to project as good an image as they can, and wish to
communicate particular messages to their public(s). This applies as much to a small cooperative like Corporate
Watch as it does to a large multinational like Dow Chemical. It is, by a broad definition, an ubiquitous
and inescapable practice. Some in the industry claim that their role is not only to facilitate this process, but
that their work is the very essence of democracy itself. Dr Dejan Vercic describes public relations as “the
essence of a free society, market economy and political democracy... an essential component of contemporary
free society.”4 PR agencies rarely discuss the specifics of how they assist communications, however,
as many of their methods are highly controversial.
This report examines the UK’s public relations industry; its structure, its methods and its role in modern society. It reveals a secretive and ambitious multi-billion pound industry which profits by selling access and influence. It demonstrates a clear link between the rise of public relations and the increasing alienation of the
public from mainstream politics. It further demonstrates how modern PR, in fact, subverts the fundamentals
of democracy in order to further the interests of its corporate masters. Whilst much of PR is quite straightforward and uncontroversial, and a great deal is entirely innocuous, even worthy,5 some elements within PR are extremely morally dubious, with a deeply ambivalent attitude to the truth. Honesty is always subordinate
to the need to control information and to protect the client’s reputation. No statement from a corporation that
might have an impact on its reputation can be trusted as a balanced or accurate representation of reality.
all the rest is advertising - 2 Controlling media coverage is a reflexive activity, sympathetic journalists are given privileged access and critical journalists are excluded. The astonishing extent of PR influence which reaches into every mainstream publication means that no media outlet nor its stories can any more be accepted uncritically.
Modern public relations practices are having a significant impact on the democratic process because of both
the nature of the practice and its extraordinary extent. PRs often engage in deliberate deception on their clients’
behalf and have developed a deeply unhealthy relationship with most of the media. Furthermore, by giving
those who can afford it the opportunity to deliberately obfuscate, deceive and derail public debate on key issues,
the public relations industry reduces society’s capacity to respond effectively to key social, environmental
and political challenges.
It should be obvious that this PR power, as with any corporate activity, is ultimately accountable only to the
interests of profit; of the PR agencies themselves and, by extension, their client corporations. The industry proclaims its ethical codes and guidelines and the integrity of companies and employees. They also like to boast of the pro bono work they conduct for charities and other good causes. This report does not dispute that there are many within the industry that act with a certain amount of integrity. However, as case studies cited below demonstrate, there are many companies and individuals for whom these codes are dispensable when the pursuit of profit demands. And access to PR and lobbying expertise is far from equal. It is available primarily to those that can afford it: governments, rich individuals and big business. This inequality naturally works to entrench existing inequalities within modern Britain, and across the world, for the rise of neoliberal globalised economics is closely linked to the rise of the public relations industry.
This report identifies a need for far greater transparency. Transparency is essential to meaningful democracy
and the PR industry operates in a deeply opaque fashion.
Context
PR must be understood within the context of the modern media, particularly the news media. The relationship
between the media and the PR industry is increasingly symbiotic. With the exception of lobbying, PR has
always been dependent on the media as the central vehicle for its messages. As the PR industry has grown, so
the commercial pressures on the media have increased, and so has the media’s dependence on external (PR)
sources for content. PR is both a symptom and a cause of this trend. As the media commercialises, it seeks
to cut costs. Staff are cut and so are the resources available for investigation and evaluation of sources. This
has promoted a shift away from investigative towards source journalism. Journalists are reduced to “re-jigging
press releases,”6 relying on external content rather than their own research. PR has benefited from this - access to the media has become easier as the press’s appetite for free content has increased - and has also
facilitated the process: the more free content is offered, the easier it becomes for the media to cut costs, driving
competitive pressures further.
The media are increasingly outsourcing content supply to the PR industry (as well as to press agencies). This
makes perfect sense commercially but it is deeply problematic when you consider the media’s wider role in
society. PR in this way has helped move the news media ever closer to the American model of an utterly supine
press, almost incapable of questioning governmental and corporate interests.
It should also be born in mind that the media are quite imperfect. Whilst there is much to be admired in the British media, its failings are legendary. There is widespread dishonesty and some repulsively cynical standards. Whilst the PR industry undoubtedly compounds the evident failings of the media, it is by no means wholly responsible for those failings. The public complained of the unprincipled nature of the press for centuries before the term ‘public relations’ was coined and commercial pressures have undoubtedly corrupted much of it further.
Limitations of the study
This report focuses on the UK’s public relations and lobbying industry. A great deal of research has been conducted into the US PR industry. However, even though the UK is the second largest market for PR, comparatively little research has been undertaken on commercial PR here. The same multinational companies that work in the US also work in the UK and there is every reason to assume that they employ many of the same underhand techniques here as they do across the Atlantic. It is beyond Corporate Watch’s resources to investigate the European PR industry.
Information about PR campaigns is extremely limited. Whilst there is a reasonable amount of quantifiable
data on basic industry figures - company revenues, employment, etc. - available details of actual PR
campaigns are few and far between. The industry maintains a high level of commercial confidentiality and
case studies are released only on a voluntary basis. PR Week, the main industry journal, contains much
interesting information but its editorial line is deeply uncritical of industry practices and it does not conduct
critical investigations into PR controversies. Furthermore, very few stories about commercial (non-governmental)
PR appear in the mainstream press. Much of PR activity aims to keep stories out of the press and
the industry has been extremely successful at keeping its own activities out of the public domain. This study
cannot give a full overview of the industry’s activities. There is simply not enough evidence available.
The paucity of information should not be taken as reason for complacency however. The evidence outlined
in this report (case studies and anecdotal evidence gleaned from industry sources, primary research and
academic sources) provides a powerful case for action. Whilst patchy, the evidence available shows that
the PR industry has a powerful ability to influence and manipulate society, the media, public opinion and
legislation; even history can be manipulated. Whilst it is far from an irresistible force, the effect is proven by
numerous examples. The lack of comprehensive information and the consequent impossibility of divining
the true extent of industry influence can only add to the concern.
Activities clearly contrary to the public interest appear to be widespread, even systemic, within the industry,
and many companies are capable of malignant action. Until there is proper freedom of information about
PR companies’ activities, however, the precise extent will remain unclear.
CLICK HERE to download complete CorporateWatch.org PR Report PDF
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