How the Public Relations industry manipulates public opinion

Why do you believe what you believe?

More and more of what we hear, see and read as "news" is actually PR content. On any given day much of what the media broadcasts or prints as news, is provided by the PR industry. The most effective way to create credibility for a product or idea is with "independent third-party" endorsement.

For example, if General Motors were to come out and say that "global warming" is a hoax invented by some liberal tree-huggers, the public would suspect GM's motives, since GM's fortune is made by selling cars.

If however some independent research institute with a very credible sounding name like the Global Climate Coalition comes out with a scientific report which says that global warming is really a fiction, the public begins to get confused and to have doubts about the issue.

So that's exactly what the PR industry does. They set up institutes and foundations to create third party credibility.

Scientific Studies Made to Order

Quietly financed by the industry giants whose products are being evaluated, these "independent" research agencies will now churn out "scientific" studies and press releases which will help to create any public image the handlers want. Such front groups are given important-sounding names like:

PATH - Positive Action for Teen Health

AFSP – American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

The names of corporate front groups are usually carefully chosen to mask the real interests behind them but they can usually be identified by their funding sources, membership and who controls them.

Press Releases Masquerading as News

The industry's front-groups promote their agenda in part by an endless stream of "press releases" announcing "breakthrough research" to every newspaper, radio and TV station in the country. Words in press releases are very carefully chosen for their emotional impact. Many of these press releases read like news, and indeed are purposely molded in the news format. This saves journalists the trouble of researching the subjects on their own, especially for topics about which they know very little. Entire sections of the press releases can be just lifted intact, without any editing, given the byline of the reporter or newspaper or TV station - and voila! Instant news, written by corporate PR firms.

These types of stories are mixed right in with legitimately researched news stories. Unless you have done the research yourself, you won't be able to tell the difference.

We hope this page will help you to start reading newspaper and magazine articles a little differently, and perhaps start watching TV news with a slightly different attitude. Always ask yourself, what are they selling here, and who is selling it? Real knowledge takes a little more effort, a little digging down at least one level below what "everybody knows."

PR Firms and Politics

Front groups aren’t the only tools that the PR companies use to portray their clients goals as coinciding with a greater public interest. Public relations firms are becoming proficient at helping their corporate clients convince key politicians that there is wide public support for their policy agendas. Using specially tailored mailing lists, field officers, telephone banks and the latest in information technology, these firms are able to generate hundreds of telephone calls and/or thousands of pieces of mail to key politicians, creating the impression that there is wide public support for their client’s position.

PR and TeenScreen's Workability

By reading over this page and elsewhere on this website, you will see clearly, these PR tactics coming into play. The below data, taken from the PR experts that TeenScreen has hired, show you how they have utilized PR tools to try and lend credibility to Columbia’s TeenScreen program. Keep in mind that just because mental health screening has been endorsed by others and is implemented in many states, does not mean it is scientifically validated nor proven to work. It just means that the PR firm is doing its job.

http://www.healingdaily.com/beliefs.htm

Rabin Strategic Partners
http://www.rabinpartners.com

The public relations industry often refers to front groups euphemistically as "partners". Steve Rabin, head of TeenScreen’s PR firm, is an expert on the art of forming advocacy partnerships. Rabin has been applying his skills in partnership formation with the giant PR conglomerate Nelson Communications Worldwide.

Drug Companies on Their Client List
Nelson’s client list includes Abbott Laboratories, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Glaxo Wellcombe, Hoffman-La Roche, Janssen-Cilag, Lundbeck, Novartis, Pfizer, SmithKline Beecham, Wyeth-Ayerst International, and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). (Nelson Communications Worldwide, 2001). Rabin seems to do a lot of PR and marketing in support of major drug companies. It therefore seems logical that it should support TeenScreen, since ultimately thousands of kids will be funneled into the mental health industry and will end up on the drugs made by these companies.

Rabin’s Services Include:
Global monitoring of governments, the media, the marketplace, the web, advocacy groups, and internal audiences to identify trends and seize opportunities.

They have provided strategic partner services for:

• Columbia University
• Janssen Pharmaceutica
• Johnson & Johnson
• Johnson & Johnson/Merck
• McNeil Consumer & Specialty Pharmaceuticals

TeenScreen Reacts to Criticism but Fails to Provide Evidence

It is very true that Rabin monitor’s the environment and reads the media daily. In fact, according to TeenScreen’s website, our web site and several others have been keeping their PR firm(s) very busy regarding the information we have placed on our sites about the TeenScreen program.

TeenScreen states: “TeenScreen has seen growing amounts of inaccurate, intentionally deceptive misinformation about mental health screening and the TeenScreen Program proliferating primarily through one or two individuals on the Internet.  Some of this inaccurate information has been posted on other websites.”

When we e-mailed TeenScreen and asked them to please provide one example, just one, of any inaccurate or deceptive piece of information on our web site, they failed to provide any information. Their reply was to refer to their FAQ page, so we read over their FAQ page and found IT contains deceptive misinformation that has been refuted many times through the documents that have been obtained. We will be creating a new page shortly with TeenScreen's assertions and the factual data that shows the deceptions involved. Serious researchers please stay tuned.

Widmeyer Communications
http://www.widmeyer.com/general/columbia_univer_1.asp
http://tinyurl.com/tb35w

The links above will take you to two pages, one on the Widmeyer site and the other is an archived page of what was once on their site - until the link to the original page was put on this website. Both pages provide information on Widmeyer's involvement with TeenScreen as developed by Columbia University's Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. On the second link the company states: "Marketing to young people has always been a sensitive topic. But as an audience of 40 million with annual buying power of $364 billion, teens and 'tweens' are important customers in the marketplace of products and ideas."

Anyone with doubts that this screening program involves BIG money or that this campaign hasn't been well planned in advance to tug on the heart strings, needs to read these pages.

Widmeyer Communications was hired to put together the PR campaign. By reading their website pages you see their "Strategy" and "Tactics" and how they "Convened a National Advisory Council to provide third party credibility" thereby creating self-supporting PR. It's a tactic of "I'm terrific—just ask me."

Tactics:

• Convened a National Advisory Council to provide third party credibility. Members included former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, former National Education Association President Bob Chase, actress Patty Duke, Nobel Laureate Dr. Eric Kandel, A Beautiful Mind author Sylvia Nasar, and Today Show medical reporter Ian Smith.”
  
  Without this hired "credibility" strategy just how far would this dubious screening program have gotten?

• Established partnerships with national education associations to secure the necessary support from the professional community.

• Implemented an aggressive media relations effort to publicize the Positive Action for Teen Health initiative and its goals, including separate press launches in New York City and Washington, DC.

According to Brandweek, April 11, 2005

"There are two new hires at Rabin Strategic Partners: Charles A. Borgognoni as partner and Rebecca S. Hoppy as communications associate. Borgognoni had been at Bristol-Myers Squibb. Hoppy served as assistant communications director at Columbia University's Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry."

"Can Health Be Marketed Like Toothpaste?" is a lecture that Steve Rabin, president of Rabin Strategic Partners gave on April 25, 2005.
http://www.sph.emory.edu/healthcomm/boardroom/

To hear Rabin's lecture using RealPlayer, go to:
http://www.sph.emory.edu/healthcomm/REAL/Rabin_0001.ram

Next: The Link Between Psychiatry, Drugs & Suicide