Fourth Quarter 2003
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Public Interest Reporting on the PR/Public Affairs Industry Volume 10, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2003 A PROJECT OF THE PR WATCH CENTER FOR MEDIA & DEMOCRACY WWW.PRWATCH.ORG ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: WHATISTHE“DISINFOPEDIA”? Frequently Asked Questions by Laura Miller page 3 In the spring of 2002, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices Getting Started became a sponsor of National Public Radio. While ABEC acknowl- page 5 edge on their website that “America’s coal-based electricity industry Water Environment Federation (producers, transporters, and electricity generators) have provided the page 6 primary initial funding for this worthwhile project,” their on-air spot Collaborators Wanted! did not mention this support, leading listeners to email the Center for page 6 Media & Democracy (CMD), PR Watch’s publisher. Industry-funded Oranizations “Do y’all know anything about Americans for Balanced Energy page 7 Choices?” inquired a Texan. And from Maine, we read, “So I happened Citizens for Better Medicare to hear an underwriting announcement on ‘All Things Considered’ a page 7 few days ago for a non-profit group with the somewhat Orwellian title How to Research Front Groups ‘Americans for Balanced Energy Choices’ that promotes coal as Amer- page 8 ica’s energy choice for the future. Needless to say, I almost jumped out Pharmaceutical Research and of my seat. It’s very clearly a front group for the fossil fuel indus- Manufacturers of America try (can’t imagine why some civic-minded citizens concerned about page 9 energy consumption would decide to form an organization touting the Think Tanks amazing qualities of that stuff Santa leaves us when we’re bad), but does page 10 anyone have any further information about it?” American Enterprise Institute CMD staff investigated and found that ABEC’s website is registered page 10 to the Center for Economic and Environmental Development, a coal Help Peel the Banana Republicans industry trade group and an active opponent of the UN Global Cli- page 12 mate Treaty (the Kyoto Protocol). We also found that ABEC’s PR firm, Denver-based MGA Communications, specializes in public-private enced to keep track of the web of affiliations between Flack Attack think tanks, industry, and PR firms. Attacks on the public interest—whether they be We’re showcasing a number of collaborative Disin- environmental, human rights, public health or other fopedia articles in this issue of PR Watch. It has, how- issues—operate under the cover of disinformation cam- ever, been challenging to represent what is essentially paigns conceived of and executed by public relations a non-linear, web-based reference tool in print! What experts at PR firms and industry-funded organizations. you read here is a flatlander representation of a three- PR Watch has spent ten years exposing these kinds of dimensional library. What you don’t see in these pages campaigns. Needless to say, we have never found our- are all the text-embedded hyperlinks to other articles selves short on material. both in Disinfopedia and off site. To understand the We initiated our collaborative Disinfopedia project real potential of Disinfopedia, please visit the website because there are simply too many disinformation (www.disinfopedia.org). Also, compare the web ver- campaigns for any one organization to cover. Our sions of Disinfopedia articles with the versions printed online Disinfopedia is designed to have hundreds of here in this issue of PR Watch. Over time, articles are organizations and individuals contributing to it. It is will evolve, incorporating new information. Disinfo- easy to update to accommodate the latest crop of front pedia is a bold experiment in citizen journalism. We groups and industry-friendly experts, and cross-refer- hope you participate. partnerships, “green” product marketing, and crisis journalist Bob Burton as Disinfopedia’s online editor, communications (among other things). Rocky Mountain ensuring an even higher degree of accuracy. Arsenal and Shell Oil were other MGA clients. Wikipedia was launched in January 2001 and already We often expose, “Who’s behind this front group?”, contains more than 180,000 articles, some of which are but we’ve been frustrated at not having a way to make comparable in detail and accuracy to the Encyclopedia this research available in an organized fashion to the Britannica. Disinfopedia launched March 2003 with 200 public. How many other NPR listeners had wondered, articles seeded by CMD staff. It now contains more than “Who is ABEC?” And how many activists, journalists 2,500. This is just the beginning. and others have unmasked corporate and PR created front groups? There clearly needs to be a place for this The truly unique thing about information to be researched, updated, archived and Disinfopedia.org is its emphasis on shared. But where? And how? collaborative, “open document” We think we’ve found the solution: Disinfopedia. Disinfopedia (www.disinfopedia.org) is a powerful, writing and editing. interactive web-based encyclopedia of propaganda. The This means anyone can create truly unique thing about Disinfopedia.org is its empha- and edit any article on Disinfopedia. sis on collaborative, “open document” writing and edit- ing. This means anyone can create and edit any article Using a similar “open document” strategy, Disinfo- on Disinfopedia. (Yes, that sounds scary, but it works.) pedia enables activists, journalists and other researchers Disinfopedia runs on the same software as Wikipedia to collectively maintain it as a directory of propaganda (www.wikipedia.org), a “collaborative project to produce and disinformation campaigns that seek to influence a free and complete encyclopedia in every language.” public opinion and public policy on behalf of corpora- Wikipedia operates under the “GNU open document tions, governments and other special interests. Others license,” which is similar to the “open source” license have previously attempted to develop such a directory, used to develop free software such as the Linux computer but failed. There are thousands of industry-funded think operating system. It’s an increasingly popular model of tanks and front groups, with new ones forming all the collaborative scholarship that operates according to sur- time and constant shuffling of personnel. Developing a prisingly simple principles. The high standards of thor- comprehensive directory of these groups, and keeping it oughness and accuracy to which Wikipedia aspires are current, requires more time and attention than any exist- realized by allowing everyone to be a contributor and a ing group or individual can bring to bear on the effort. peer reviewer. However, an open document approach can enable a You might think this would lead to anarchy and gib- community of volunteers and activists to work collabo- berish, but the quality of the articles on Wikipedia is gen- ratively and develop a resource that becomes greater than erally quite good. For every person who makes a the sum of its parts. malicious or erroneous contribution, numerous others Beyond the immediate goal of developing a resource correct errors and make improvements—exactly like the on propaganda, we’re hopeful that this global, open- process by which open source software keeps evolving. source information project can contribute to the devel- Furthermore, we’ve recently hired Australian author and opment of an alternative model to conventional, mass-media journalism. Traditional media lend them- selves readily to a “propaganda” style of communication, Disinfopedia Quiz in which a small number of individuals produce messages 1. For which industry did White House Chief of Staff that are broadcast to thousands or millions of informa- Andrew Card work before joining the Bush admin- tion consumers. The Internet has contributed somewhat istration? to breaking down this dichotomy between “broad- caster” and “audience,” but we think it is possible to take 2. From which industries has the Center for Con- this further. Within the PR and journalism professions, sumer Freedom received money? you hear quite a bit of concern about the Internet on 3. Spiked online is the descendent of what UK pub- grounds that it eliminates the “filter” of professionalism lication? and thereby enables garbage to circulate freely. In real- organ of the pro-biotech Institute of Ideas. of Institute pro-biotech the of organ ity, the traditional filters don’t do a very good job of elim- is the online the is Spiked . Marxism Living drink, and agribusiness. 3. 3. agribusiness. and drink, inating garbage. By breaking down the distinction Association (1993-1998). 2. Tobacco, restaurant, livestock, soft livestock, restaurant, Tobacco, 2. (1993-1998). Association dent and CEO American Automobile Manufacturers Automobile American CEO and dent between audience and journalist, we think it should be ernment affairs at General Motors (1999-2000) and as presi- as and (1999-2000) Motors General at affairs ernment possible to demonstrate that “the masses” can do as good : 1. The auto industry. Card served as director of gov- of director as served Card industry. auto The 1. : Answers a job of “filtering” as the so-called pros. ■ 2 PR Watch / Fourth Quarter, 2003 Frequently Asked Questions From Disinfopedia: http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Disinfopedia:Overview_FAQ WHAT IS “DISINFORMATION”? usually be considered disinformation by definition, at Like many good questions, this is hard to answer. It least by opponents, until proven otherwise. may be easier to answer questions like “At what point does opinion or advocacy become disinformation?” or WHAT IS THE DISINFOPEDIA’S ROLE IN “Can history or ideology remain simplified without being INCREASING PUBLIC SCRUTINY? disinforming?” Such distinctions are studied in the fields Because of its global scope and experience with prior of conceptual metaphor, information warfare, psycho- projects like Wikipedia and others by PR Watch, a pro- logical operations, scientific method, historical method ject like Disinfopedia may be able to support the public and the sociology of knowledge.