Burson Marsteller (BM) is a large and powerful public relations company which is adept at creating a positive image for corporations involved in unethical business practices including human rights violations, environmental destruction and animal-testing. Many of these companies have faced public scrutiny and even convictions for their various activities.

'Crisis Management'

"When is a disaster not a disaster? When it turns into a business opportunity... With good crisis management, a company can even ride the bad publicity of multiple deaths and come out smelling of roses." - Pat Anderson, writing in the professional journal Marketing Week, 22/4/94.

Disasters do happen. The best we can hope for is to learn from experience. This necessitates a serious debate afterwards, and to be effective such a debate needs to be balanced. Corporations that spend vast amounts on post-disaster PR are disrupting that crucial debate and evading responsibility. BM prides itself on being the leading 'crisis management' PR company. It has done the PR for the following disasters:

In India in 1984, for US company Union Carbide when its pesticide plant in Bhopal leaked more than 40 tonnes toxic gas. 2000 people were killed instantly; up to 15,000 have died since as a result of the disaster, and hundreds of thousands are suffering lung, eye and gastric complaints. Tuberculosis incidence in Bhopal is 3 times the Indian average. Following BMs work, the Indian Supreme Court dropped all charges of manslaughter against Union Carbide, although safety mechanisms at the plant were appallingly inadequate. The company has now left India, leaving most of the responsibility with the Indian government.

In 1979, when Babcock and Wilcox's nuclear reactor failed at Three Mile Island, the worst nuclear accident ever in the US. There are still over 2,000 lawsuits pending.4

For the Exxon Corporation, following the Exxon-Valdez disaster in Alaska, one of the most devastating oil spillages the world has ever seen.

In 1995, for Occidental Petroleum, Dow Chemicals and Shell in a legislation battle in California. These chemical corporations are trying to avoid new legislation that would force them to clean the local water supplies of DBCP, a soil fumigant pesticide that causes testicular cancer. 5

Working with Disreputable Companies.

Burson-Marsteller's corporate clients include :

BP Chemicals - In 1992, it was found that BP's Hull facility discharges twice the level of methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) - a chemical which can cause genetic damage, foetal damage or birth defects at unsafe levels of exposure - into the water than the total amount of MEK released in the United States.

Kerr McGee - owners of a uranium mine in the Navajo Nation, New Mexico. Accused of paying low wages and not informing the workers about the hazardous effects of uranium. Deaths are being recorded every month.

Malaysian Timber Industry Development Council - has felled vast areas of tropical rainforest, particularly in the states of Sarawak and Sabah, threatening the livelihoods of the indigenous peoples who lived there. BM has been hired to "repel falsehood and lies spread by evil-minded environmentalists." 7However, even the pro-business Malaysian Government has reported that 5 states have over-logged8; and although the International Tropical Timber Organisation warned the loggers in 1990 to cut their output to 9m m3/yr it has remained at 16-19m; and at the present rate the primary forest will be finished in 7-8 years9.

Monsanto and Eli Lilly - both companies produce the growth hormone BST to increase milk yields in cattle. It has been criticised for risk of infection in the cows, the fact that there is already a milk surplus, and unknown effects of this hormone on human beings. Acting on this concern, state legislators in Wisconsin, Minnesota, California and Vermont attempted to enforce labelling of milk produced with, and containing, this hormone. Their efforts were thwarted by Burson-Marsteller acting on behalf of these companies.10

Pfizer - a pharmaceutical company accused in 1990 by the US Generic Pharmaceutical Industry of fraudulent and deceptive practices for its failure to report severe side effects of its Feldene drug before it obtained US approval. Listed by the Multinational Monitor as one of the ten worst companies in 1988 for supplying faulty heart-valves. At least 394 of these valves ruptured killing 252 people by 1990. The company has also conducted extensive tests on animals, was listed by a US group as one of the top fifteen corporate contributors to global pollution based on 1987 figures and had one of its plants listed by Greenpeace as one of the ten worst polluters in the South East of England.

SmithKline Beecham - A pharmaceutical and research company which, in the year to March 1991, exceeded its toxic waste discharge quota into the rivers and sea more than 30 times. The company also owns its own animal testing facilities and has been accused of unnecessary cruelty in housing its animals.

Unilever - food, chemical and household goods manufacturer. Implicated in pollution of rivers in the UK and convicted for water pollution offences between 1/9/89 and 31/8/91. Owner of Birds Eye Walls - a food manufacturer which admitted in 1991 to annually importing 30,000 tonnes of beef from Brazil (where much grazing land is felled rainforest). In June 1989, 87 workers at the plant in Sao Paulo, Brazil were fired for occupying the plant in an attempt to achieve better pay and conditions.

Other controversial companies which have recently retained BM include:

Boots, Nestle, British Nuclear Fuels, Philip Morris, Coca-Cola, Proctor & Gamble, Ford Motor Co.,Rhone-Poulenc, General Electric, Rorer, Glaxo-Wellcome, Scott Paper, Grand Metropolitan, Scottish Nuclear, J Sainsbury, Shell.

Also, BM was hired by the Argentinian military junta led by Gen. Jorge Videla, which seized power in a coup d'_tat in 1976, to improve the country's "international image, especially for fostering foreign investment ... through projecting an aura of stability for the nation, its government and its economy". During Videla's reign, 35,000 people 'disappeared' and thousands of political prisoners were tortured. Videla is now serving a life sentence for murder.-

In 1996, BM was hired by the Indonesian government, which has one of the worst human rights records in the world and has been widely condemned for committing genocide in East Timor.13

Forming Industry 'Front Groups'

Increasingly the companies in an industry are uniting to form front groups to influence public opinion and legislation. These groups often give themselves 'green' sounding names: while pretending to show their concern and thus make a serious contribution to the environmental debate, they are in fact simply furthering the interests of the companies funding them. Indeed the aim is usually to relax environmental standards in order to cut their costs.

In the early '90s, Burson-Marsteller was instrumental in setting up the Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD), whose members include Chevron, Volkswagen, Ciba-Geigy, Mitsubishi, Dow Chemicals, Du Pont and Shell.14 Their press release said: "In a major new initiative on the future development and use of the world's natural resources, over 40 top world business leaders have joined forces in the form of an international organisation to propose new policies and actions on the sustainable development of the earth's environment."15

The BCSD was headed by Stephen Schmidheiny, a Swiss billionaire industrialist; and also a close friend of the secretary-general of the UN council on environment and development (UNCED). Substantial representations were made by the BCSD to UNCED's 1992 Earth Summit in Rio; with the result that proposals drawn up by the UN's own centre for trans-national corporations - concerning the environmental impact of these large companies, and issues of corporate responsibility and accountability - were not discussed or even circulated to delegates.16

In Europe, BM set up the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment, in 'defence of the beverage carton against environmental and regulatory pressures'. Its purpose is to make disposable cartons look environmentally friendly, and is sponsored by packaging interests such as Tetra Pak, Elopak, Bowater (now called REXAM) and Weyerhauser.17

In the US, BM represents the Fur Information Council in its multi-million campaign to combat 'animal extremists'.18

In Canada, the timber industry paid BM $1million to set up the British Columbia Forest Alliance, which poses as a forest protection movement.

Burson-Marsteller's Methods

MEDIA: As a PR firm, Burson-Marsteller obviously has a lot of friends in the media. Anyone with enough money (eg. large corporations) thus gets easy access through BM to public opinion, while those who have concerns other than the pursuit of money (eg. victims of industrial disasters) find it much harder to get their view across.

BM is a joint partner with Independent Television News (ITN) in the ownership of Corporate Television Network, which produces video press releases for corporate clients. As ITN is actually a media news service, its venture with BM makes a mockery of the notion of independent media.21

LOBBYING: Described by the Observer as 'compromising the independence of all-party groups', BM has had a great deal of involvement in putting commercial interests inside the Palace of Westminster. When a group of businessmen recently decided to throw their weight behind a campaign to abolish British Summer Time, they naturally hired BM. Within weeks, BM had become the administrative secretariat of the supposedly 'independent' Daylight Extra All-Party Group, and were using its name to drum up support among MPs for a Private Member's Bill. They eventually failed.22

SUMMONING 'GRASSROOTS' SUPPORT: Through use of strategic contacts, BM creates the appearance of popular support for its campaigns. In blocking the BST legislation (Eli Lilly and Monsanto, above), BM formed a coalition of businessmen, lobbyists, farmers, vets, executives of biotechnology companies, and so on. Faced with a constant barrage of letters, petitions and media actions, the legislators had no choice but to back down. Burson-Marsteller's control of both the media and key decision-makers is worrying, particularly because it is not surprising.

HIRING THIRD PARTIES: BM has also been accused of paying academics to write articles supporting its campaigns, without of course declaring their interests.

Specialisation in Environmental Issues

To quote BM's own literature: "When you need help on environmental issues, you need environmental professionals... Burson-Marsteller offers a worldwide environmental team. Issue experts. Lobbyists. Community relations counsellors. Technical advisors and media specialists." At $18m per year, BM has a larger income from dealing with environmental issues than any other PR firm.2

References

1: O'Dwyer's Directory of PR Firms, Spring 1993
2: ibid, May 1992
3: See reference 3.
4: A Dictionary of the Environment, S Elsworth, 1990
5: Los Angeles Times, 17/10/95
6: Company info from ECRA, Multinational Monitor
7: "Defending the Earth", Human Rights Watch & Natural Resource Defence Council, 1992
8: AFP, Kuala Lumpur, 3/10/94
9: "Sarawak: the Struggle Continues", Rainforest Information Centre, 25/4/95
10: PR Watch, vol.1, no.2, 1st quarter 1994
11: Public Relations Consultancy Yearbook, 1994 and 1996
12: Sultans of Sleaze, J Nelson, 1989
13: Observer, 8/12/96
14: "Changing Course", BCSD, 1992
15: New Catalyst, Summer 1993
16: Ecologist, vol.22, no.4, 1992
17: "No Need to Worry", ACE, 7/8/90
18: 7 Days, 4/10/89
19: Pulp & Propaganda, Canadian Forum, Jul/Aug 1994
20: Tribune Business News, 23/2/96
21: Observer, 10/9/95
22: Observer, 17/9/95
Many references originally found in Green Backlash by Andrew Rowell

Senior members of the United Kingdom's environmental community courted some of the world's most ecologically controversial companies at a seminar in late June 2001 held at the London Chamber of Commerce.

Companies such as Balfour Beatty, Cargill, Du Pont, Monsanto, Nirex and Syngenta attended the conference about "Getting Engaged" to the environmental movement. They heard talks from Peter Melchett, the former head of Greenpeace UK and now policy advisor to the pro-organic Soil Association, as well as top representatives from green groups including Friends of the Earth (FoE) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

The event was facilitated by the Environment Council, which has been at the forefront of promoting partnerships between the business community and UK environmental organizations. "We are looking to bring people together in constructive dialogue to implement long-term environment solutions," said the Environment Council's James Hanaway.

Melchett told the gathering that environmentalists have moved on since their early campaigning days in the 1970s and 1980s, when their primary mission was to "raise the issue" of environmental problems. Now, he argued, they had to look more at solutions and focus more on business than politics because of "a shift in power from politics to business."

"Working with business is as important to us as munching bamboo is for a panda," said a representative from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), which now receives about £1 million a year in the UK from corporate sources.

The "Getting Engaged" conference was not the first conference of its kind in the UK and certainly will not be the last. The Environment Council has pioneered several previous "stakeholder dialogues" in the UK between nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the likes of Shell, Monsanto and British Nuclear Fuels. It plans a September 2001 meeting titled "Environmental Reputation in Business Strategy," to feature Shell, BP, BNFL, Burson-Marsteller, and Nestlé discussing issues of "reputation management" with the likes of Greenpeace and SustainAbility. The same month, a UK-based church group plans to hold a two-day "stakeholder dialogue" with British American Tobacco, in hopes of creating a "responsible tobacco industry."

At the same time that environmental groups are dialoguing with corporations, some of their top staff people are literally going to work for them. One of the advisors for the Environment Council's magazine, for example, is Jonathan Wootliff, who is also Managing Director of Edelman Public Relations Global Stakeholder Practice. Before Edelman, he worked for Greenpeace; before that, the Hill & Knowlton PR firm. In his current job at Edelman, he "provides support to corporations in building productive relationships with non-governmental organizations, pressure groups and activists so as to minimize vulnerability." Edelman's clients include Home Depot, Ocean Spray, Taco Bell, Boeing, Nissan, Manpower, Dairy.com, Roche's, Nissan, Pharmacia, Microsoft, Apple, Kraft, Kimberly-Clark and AHP.

At the "Getting Engaged" conference, business sustainability consultant Andrea Spencer-Cooke suggested that this sort of "cross-fertilization" was a "good idea." She pointed to other examples such as Paul Gilding, the former executive director of Greenpeace International who has set up his own corporate consultancy in Australia called ECOS. Des Wilson is another example. After decades of working for NGOs including Friends of the Earth UK, the Campaign for Lead Free Petrol, the Campaign for the Homeless and the Campaign for Freedom of Information, Wilson moved to Burson-Marsteller and then to the British Airports Authority to fight for a fifth runway at London's Heathrow terminal.

Engagement Jitters

What has all of this cross-fertilization accomplished? That question is open to interpretation. A previous round of Shell stakeholder dialogue sessions, held in Lima, London and Washington, was attacked as an ineffective attempt to undermine opposition to the company's controversial plans to drill for gas in Peru's ecologically and culturally sensitive Amazon rainforest. The Environment Council's "national stakeholder dialogue" over genetic engineering in the UK descended into farce when the majority of the environmental NGOs walked out. The anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) declined to attend the stakeholder dialogue with British American Tobacco, calling it "primarily a PR exercise, designed to co-opt critics into dialogue." All the other major health NGOs invited in the UK have declined for the same reason.

Tensions were also present at "Getting Engaged." Conference organizers admitted that several grassroots groups had declined invitations to speak at the event, including Reclaim the Streets and the UK-based Corporate Watch, which stated that the event "just seemed to be helping companies' PR departments."

Even among those who did attend, old hostilities were never far from the surface, as evident in an exchange between Melchett and a representative from Monsanto. The Monsanto representative was obviously taken aback by Greenpeace's unwavering opposition to biotechnology. "Is there complete opposition to biotech," he asked Melchett, "or where can we work together to look at the benefits of this technology?"

"I agree dialogue is important," Melchett replied, "but you have to do so before your views become intransigent. Monsanto only listened to its scientists, you never asked anyone else if they wanted biotech. There are still fundamental problems with the technology." On this issue at least, "engagement" seemed unlikely to lead to marriage.

Unease persists about how far NGOs should go in embracing their old adversaries. Speakers worried whether the relationship between the too sides was getting "too cozy." WWF Program Director Francis Sullivan, who chaired the Getting Engaged conference, admitted that there "could be a future where a number of NGOs get too close to business and could be seen to be out of touch with the public."

Simon McCrae from Friends of the Earth admitted that engaging with business was still a "contentious issue" at his organization. He said local FoE groups were extremely "sensitive" about a proposed partnership between FoE and a leading renewable energy company. "The conference seemed to consist of NGOs telling corporations how they work," said one person who declined to attend. "It was an exercise in NGOs telling business how to get around NGOs. It was just assisting their PR departments in helping them to know the enemy."

Let's Dance

Businesses seemed to feel unanimously that a closer working relationship between the two camps was the way forward. "A decade ago, the feeling within the insurance industry to environmental problems was 'go away and leave me alone,'" said Anthony Sampson, the Director of Environmental Management at insurance giant CGNU. Issues such as climate change, he said, have changed that dynamic, creating awareness that businesses need to take action in defense of the environment because "we don't have another planet to go and do insurance on." As a result, he said, "engaging with NGOs is now the essential part of the corporate radar."

"Over the last ten years there has been a changing role between business and NGOs," said the WWF's Francis Sullivan. "It is like a dance taking place between the two groups where they are slowly getting closer and closer." No one quite knows, however, where the dance is leading. The backdrop to this tango is the worldwide debate over economic globalization and the increasing international power of corporations. Mainstream environmental groups find themselves caught between those who believe the future lies in working with industry and those who contend that institutions of corporate power, such as the World Trade Organisation, must be dismantled.

Most environmentalists believe the movement benefits from its ability to encompass a broad spectrum of views and strategies, ranging from moderates to hard-line direct action groups. This diversity, however, guarantees an ongoing debate between moderation and radicalism, as well as over the question of whether working with business is the best way to achieve environmental change. Is dialogue really the best way for business to change for the better, or could it actually be a tool for preventing change?

The hosts of "Getting Engaged" are adamant that dialogue is beneficial for all sides. "A fruitful and mutually rewarding dialogue with stakeholders is possible," argues the Environment Council's Chief Executive, Steve Robinson.
"That NGOs will have to interact with companies is not in doubt; how they will interact is the question," says Simon Heap of Intrac, the International NGO Training and Research Center.

Even Greenpeace now sees dialogue as an "essential" part of its work, although Stephen Tindale, Greenpeace's new Executive Director in the UK, admits that some people will always see engagement as a "sell-out."

Can't We All Just Get Along?

But just as an increasing number of NGOs are now dialoguing with corporations, many do not understand the mechanics of the process they have entered, let alone know where it will lead.

Many grassroots activists wonder why leading environmental NGOs are sitting down with businesses at all. What, for example, is Greenpeace really accomplishing by discussing its campaign goals with Burson-Marsteller, one of the world's largest PR companies whose clients include some of the biggest, baddest, most polluting companies on the planet? Are groups like Greenpeace and the Environment Council accomplishing something substantial, or are they naively playing into the hands of corporations in an end game that could leave the environmental movement on the defensive while corporations come out on top?

Some groups have already concluded that it would have been wise to ask more questions before entering into dialogue with their adversaries. In 1998, Oxfam held an Interagency "Seminar on Corporate Campaigning" to evaluate its ongoing dialogue with BP/Amoco, which was being criticized for collusion with paramilitary groups and appalling human rights abuses in connection with its activities in Colombia. Eighteen months after beginning the dialogue, Oxfam leaders realized that they really did not know what they were doing and wondered if they were being taken for a ride by the oil company. The Oxfam Seminar was held to see if a consensus existed between NGOs as to whether they should sit down and dialogue with corporations. As one of the speakers at the seminar, I talked about the PR strategies that companies use against activists. "Dialogue," I explained, "is the most important PR tactic that companies are using to overcome objections to their operations."

This statement did not go down well with certain sections of the audience. Sir Geoffrey Chandler, an ex-senior Shell executive and head of the Amnesty Business Unit, accused me of "peddling conspiratorial nonsense." Slightly taken aback by this rebuttal, I asked the audience how many people there had heard of Burson-Marsteller. Fewer than half the hands went up.

Most of the people in the room, which included more than 100 of the UK's leading environmental, development and human rights activists, had never heard of BP/Amoco's PR firm, and of course they had no idea what it was up to. Even today, the majority of NGOs and activists do not understand how public relations firms are helping corporations manipulate them. This is a fundamental strategic mistake.

Managing the Activist Threat

For insights into the real reasons why corporations favor dialogue, activists might read Managing Activism, a book which was published recently in the UK by the Institute of Public Relations. Written by Denise Deegan, Managing Activism offers advice to help companies deal with activists and pressure groups who "represent a growing threat to organizations around the globe."

Deegan describes her strategy as "two-way symmetrical communications"--PR jargon for "learning as much as possible about activists and seeking to initiate two-way dialogue with them with a view to working together on an on-going basis to reach a situation that benefits both parties. Central to the two-way communications process is relationship building and an acceptance that compromise on both sides may be necessary."

Ironically, Deegan's thoughts on "compromise" parallel those of Mark Dowie, a former editor of Mother Jones magazine. In his book, Losing Ground, Dowie criticized so-called "third-wave environmentalism," whose essence "is the shift of the battle for the environment from the courtroom to the boardroom. In fact," he wrote, "third-wave environmentalism represents nothing so much as the institutionalization of compromise."

But does "compromise" mean that corporations will change their behavior? Apparently not. "Two-way symmetrical communications offer a way forward where the company does not have to give in to activists or persuade them to give in," Deegan writes.

Wearing More Suits, Raising Less Hell

The hidden risk to NGOs in all of this cozy collaboration is that they are coming to resemble corporations themselves, adopting not only their language but their attitudes. "NGOs are ripe for an injection of business thinking," commented one delegate at Getting Engaged. Another said, "Well, we all wear suits now."

From the point of view of many activists, however, this is exactly the problem. As Francis Sullivan admitted at the conference, environmental groups risk losing "their identity." If environmentalism loses its identity as a movement whose values are above commerce, it will have lost something that no amount of money or "win-win solutions" can ever buy back. This identity, after all, is the sole basis of public support, and as Melchett observed, "NGOs will only ever run a successful campaign when they are backed by public opinion and also more importantly public values."

The PR firms that broker marriages between corporations and environmentalists understand very well that the real purpose of the wedding is to get in good with the in-laws--namely, the concerned citizens and activists who look to environmental groups for leadership and inspiration. The Edelman website offers the following advice to corporations with image trouble: "You've got an environmental disaster on your hands. Have you consulted with Greenpeace in developing your crisis response plan? ... Co-opting your would-be attackers may seem counterintuitive, but it makes sense when you consider that NGOs are trusted by the public nearly two-to-one to 'do what's right' compared with government bodies, media organizations and corporations."

In other words, companies have everything to gain and nothing to lose if environmental groups serve as their go-betweens in communicating with an increasingly restive public. But what do environmental groups themselves gain from this? If the public comes to perceive them as "just more guys in suits," environmentalists will find themselves under attack to justify their continuing existence and their status as public interest groups.

If NGOs are not careful, they could find that the public trust they currently enjoy is lost and passes from them to the business community. If that happens, it will be too late for them to understand why they fell into a very well-prepared trap designed by PR executives they have never heard of.

For the last three decades non-government advocacy organisations - such as environmental, human rights and overseas aid groups - have grown in number and influence.

These groups - commonly referred to by the acronym “NGO’s” - mostly view their role as being independent outspoken watchdogs on issues that governments, corporations and broader society ignore.

While most NGO’s have avoided formal relationships with corporations, this is beginning to change.

For some the temptation is the prospect of fatter budgets and greater ability to undertake worthy projects.

For others it is the perceived ability to influence corporate practice by working closely with previously wary corporate executives.

For others it is more a product of an unconvinced but pragmatic ‘suck it and see’ approach.

The buzzwords in the language surrounding corporate relationships are reassuring - “engagement”, “win-win solutions” and “partnerships”.

These new relationships vary from sitting on corporate advisory committees through to big budget corporate sponsorship deals.

One of the largest recent corporate sponsorships is the $1.2 million over four years to the World Wide Fund for Nature project on frog conservation, from one of the world’s biggest mining companies - Rio Tinto.

Most of the limited literature on the topic is of the cheer squad variety - enthusiastically celebrating collaborative relationships between business and advocacy groups.

Out with conflict, in with co-operation, the storyline goes.

But is there something else in the story we are missing?

When companies talk amongst themselves about ‘engagement’ it is commonly from a fear of effective independent public advocacy.

Newspaper headlines, they confide to each other, all too often drive citizens to demand legislation that damages corporate interests.

‘Engagement’ as the term is commonly used, is about shifting debate away from open public spaces to smaller, more private venues where social pressure can be subtly mobilised to moderate the views of NGOs.

While NGOs generally see ‘engagement’ as a supplement to regulation, companies commonly see it as a substitute for regulation.

If NGOs help define acceptable corporate behaviour with voluntary codes of conduct, ‘who needs stronger regulation?’ the companies ask.

While there are genuine “win-win solutions” the term is often also code for shifting debates away from conflict between fundamental values to discussing the ‘common ground’.

Instead of debating whether a company should mine Uranium, the debate is steered towards ‘tell us how can me mine Uranium with least damage”.

In reality, designing “win-win” solutions often requires ‘engaged’ NGO’s to lower their sights and quietly define mitigation as a win.

Behind the scenes, the growing level of “engagement” is crystallising debate about the values and practices of NGO’s.

How can NGOs that are involved in both policy advocacy work and a corporate sponsorship deal avoid conflicts of interest? If they exist, how should they be disclosed?

Is it possible for NGO’s to combine participation in often-secretive corporate advisory roles with transparency?

Can NGO’s reconcile feisty policy independence with financial dependence on a corporate sponsor?

While most NGOs have argued for more open and accountable processes for government and business, many of those ‘engaging” with corporations find themselves embracing secrecy.

Some enter into sponsorship contracts, the details of which are kept secret from their members and supporters. Some sponsorship contracts even contain confidentiality clauses. “Commercially confidential”, the refrain goes.

Does mixing corporate money with advocacy compromise previously vocal watchdogs? The greatest enthusiasts for engagement within NGO’s insist it doesn’t.

When I have put the same question to corporate executives the response is usually a knowing smile followed by an insistence that any comments are strictly off the record.

While these issues are posing problems for NGOs, it also affects the public.

Is greater engagement likely to change the character of NGOs from feisty agenda-setters arguing for the public interest to tame corporate consultants?

If watchdog groups opt for low profile secretive discussions, isn’t it more likely that important issues will sink from public view?

And if that happens, who exactly is going to bark to let the public know?

Guests on this program:
Bob Burton
Journalist and Writer

Mining MonitorMagazine
Sydney

PR WatchMagazine
Washington

Publications:

Secrets and Lies: The Anatomy of an Anti-Environmental Campaign
By Nicky Hager and Bob Burton
Craig Potton Publishing
Nelson New Zealand 1999