Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry [Paperback]

 

 

Create your own review

This is the sort of book that should be essential reading for everyone. Even if you are aware to some extent that our media (and government) plays to the tune of the corporations with the most financial power, and is anything but a source of actual unbiased news, this book is an enlightening and fascinating read.

This book explains that 40% of all news flows virtually unedited from PR companies, that there are more people working in PR than in journalism, and that most of what you see on the news is not news. It explains that those making US health care reform so difficult are lobbyists for the insurance and drug industries (obviously!). It also explains that there is no limit to how low corporations will go to protect their bottom line, subvert genuine activism and the state of knowledge in the general population on a topic.

There are also interesting parts in this book which discuss the way in which polluters and other groups organise campaigns against genuine advocacy efforts, such the book 'Silent Spring' and others. Negative articles and reviews may often even be written before the books are released. Nothing is left to chance. The books are systematically rubbished and denigrated and so are their authors.

It also writes brilliantly about the worrying rise of pretend 'grassroots' activist groups, AstroTurf groups, and how they are manipulating and subverting genuine advocacy attempts. It also discusses some of the shocking ways in which groups have planted fake members into real groups, with sometimes devastating personal effects for the individuals involved and also worked to co-opt genuine members of groups to completely turn against what they stand for. It tells these people that they aren't selling out, but just being 'realists' and persuades them to see the non-sellouts who want real change and refuse to compromise away the truth as being 'extreme.'

This book explains so much about so many truly terrible 'activism' groups out there!

This book talked about something I had long suspected, which is that the big 'advocacy' groups have in many cases been bought out or subverted by the vested interest groups they were created to bring to account. They are not even remotely working to push for real change. So groups which started with the aim to promote real change become a main reason why change does NOT occur, by doing nothing useful themselves and sucking up all the money and attention there is on a topic - leaving genuine small groups that are actually after real change with none.

Again, this explains so much.

Why we don't know about all this is because the media doesn't really report on itself or on PR. So the myth of a crusading media which holds groups and individuals harming the public to account, and whose work leads to government action, remains.

As someone says in the book, this book 'explains exactly how the magic of modern PR transforms the favoured policies or the rich and the powerful into incontrovertible common sense.'

And 'This is a war of the powerful against society.'

Understanding the concepts in this book is central to having a true understanding of our time and so books like this one are really important.

I wish more people knew to really question the really big health, environmental and other advocacy groups and the bogus information they support.

I also hope that people come away from reading this book prepared to look twice at all the issues that our modern media have told us are 'just obvious common sense' but where we are being hugely played and lied to.

The area of health is particularly surrounded by misinformation. Even worse, people are far more accepting of the health related news propaganda as being truthful. But science reporting is anything but black and white. Every news story on health is on the news because someone has paid for it to be there! It is not because it is genuine news, or because their 'breakthrough' really is so very important or because it really has been proven that non-drug therapy 'x' is completely useless in treating anything.

On a practical note, however, I do have to note that this book was VERY hard to read due to its being printed in light type that was very small and perhaps 9.5 point. The title and content are excellent. If only it had been better typeset! It gave me eyestrain!

The book could also have been improved by having some sort of a summary of the key points at the end, possibly.

I came away from reading this book grateful that the authors had written it, and also in absolute awe of all those amazing individuals that have stood up to these corrupt groups and corporations in various ways and have lost everything by doing so; their careers, their houses and all their money, and their reputations. Such sacrifice is awe inspiring, although the fact that it is necessary is maddening.

In a nutshell, be wary of big 'advocacy' groups whose bottom line is their own bottom line, and support small genuine advocacy groups that are working for real change.

Beware too of 'experts' and commonsense unquestionable 'facts' - look at the facts logically and follow the money!

Jodi Bassett, The Hummingbirds' Foundation for M.E.

The seller was very quick to mail my purchase. When I got the book it was the exact condition that they specified it was online. Very happy with the seller.

Where oh where do I begin? Toxic Sludge... takes a jaded look at the public relations industry, and exposes more than a few objectionable practices perpetrated on behalf of (mostly) corporate America's pursuit of the Almighty Buck.

I say 'mostly' because, however distressing it may be to informed and intelligent citizenship, even the United States Government and more than a few foreign regimes solicit the services of these most nefarious snake oil salesmen. Let's face it, you really do not consume the services of PR firms in order to foster good relations with your customers, you go to them when you have done something bad, and you want it covered up, or at least 'spinned' in the 'right' direction. You solicit the help of PR flacks and keep them on juicy retainers in order to look good, and not to be good. When the doo-doo hits the fan, whose a corporate ne'er do well gonna call? The PR company, that's who.

Toxic Sludge... contains twelve chapters of absorbing reading. From countermeasures directed at censoring information thoroughly in the public domain, keeping books off the bookshelves and dissenting voices from being heard, to infiltrating shoe-string activist organizations, fomenting criminal insurgency and subverting (and ultimately perverting) any and all attempts to relay the facts, the authors provide example after example of very well-financed government and corporate interests actively frustrating (and quite often foiling) intelligent and inormed democratic participation in the political and economic process. As Mark Dowie, the author of the introduction says, in an environment rife with PR, facts can not survive, nor can the truth prevail.

Some of the strategies and tactics PR firms used with giddy abandon on often unsuspecting targets truly shocked me, for many tools and tricks from the PR Playbook share an eerie resemblance to CIA methods and operations. In fact, more than a few PR players and heavy hitters get their inspiration from millitary strategists such as von Clauswitz, and cross-fertilization between PR firms and the upper levels of government and corporate America impart a uniquely acidic aggressivity and practiced slickness to their campaigns against their opponents. Some of their more colorful operations reminded me of the FBI's use, via its infamous COINTELPRO initiative, of agent provocateurs against student groups, anti-Vietnam war protestors and civil rights activists during the late sixties and early-mid-seventies. This unholy alliance between government, corporations and PR firms, combined with their incestuous linkages to the ad industry, make for one formidable and thorougly intimidating opponent.

The book contains a veritable smorgasbord of eminently quotable quotes and delightful (and very distressing) anecdotes. In this vein, my personal favorite is the story of how PT Barnum, of circus fame, got his start. He put on display an old, black slavewoman, and billed her as 'George Washington's childhood nursemaid', and get this- he claimed that she was one hundred and sixty years old. Barnum made certain that he got the woman in the news as often as he could, and it did not matter what the papers said, as long as his name was spelled right. Of course, Barnum made a killing, the woman died, an autopsy was performed for the benefit of more than a few skeptics, and gee whiz, it turned out that she could not have been more than eighty.

Barnum, of course, handled the situation like the PR pro he was. When the truth was finally revealed, he went public, and said he was shocked, truly shocked, at the way the woman had deceived him!

And that anecdote, in essence, describes the modus operandi of the PR professional. PR pros turn the truth inside out. While they greatly prefer subtlety, they will stoop to other, more brutish tactics in service of their cause. PR groups can obtain favorable coverage of their worldview, much like Barnum did, and can readily obtain the willing cooperation of government agencies, as well as current and former high ranking government officials and politicians to do their questionable bidding.

The PR firm has proven itself to be at times a sinister, vicious octopus with many tentacles in some of the most unlikely places. As such, it behooves any concerned citizen to read this book and take notice of this beast as he or she participates in the marketplace of ideas.

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 41 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

 

4.0 out of 5 stars I have three words: beautiful, researched, moving.
See, long ago (how long? More than one hundred years...) advertising, and not circulation (that small fee you pay when you buy a magazine or daily newspaper) was already the... Read more

Published on Jan 14 2004 by Giancarlo Nicoli

4.0 out of 5 stars open up and say ahhhhh
an enlightening collection of articles that expose the PR scandals and ongoing campaigns of misinformation that cover our brains like so much toxic slime. Read more

Published on Aug 15 2003 by Author Brian Wallace (Mind Tra...

4.0 out of 5 stars Well researched but a little annoying
As a public relations major, I must say that I did not really appreciate the attack Stauber and Rampton have launched against PR. Read more

Published on Mar 20 2003 by Kcheval

5.0 out of 5 stars Eye opening
Definately worth a read.
I picked this up ...when I was seventeen. (Summer of '96) I couldn't put it down, and have gone back and read it again since. Read more

Published on Jan 24 2003 by Michael S. Anderson

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is an eye opener
After reading Toxic Sludge, I am much more aware of what is really being sold to us on the evening news. Read more

Published on Jan 14 2003 by Barbara Spring

2.0 out of 5 stars Toxic writing
This book is so one sided that it's nearly worthless. Stauber and Rampton accuse the PR industry of presenting cooked facts to convince the public. Read more

Published on Dec 15 2002 by J. Franco

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing
This book is abolustely amazing. It details the lengtsh to which the Public Relations (PR) industry has encroached itself into our lives, and the lengths to which they are willing... Read more

Published on July 29 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't Be Put Off By the Cover
Taken from PROPAGANDA by Edward Bernay, the father of modern public relations:

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses... Read more

Published on May 26 2002 by J.W.K

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the top 5 most important books in my lifetime.
I borrowed this book from a friend and one chapter into it, I had to purchase a copy for myself. It is one of my favorite books and I often refer back to it. Read more

Published on May 11 2002 by K. P. Stapp

5.0 out of 5 stars This Book Is GOOD FOR YOU
I think this should be required reading in High Schools across America. It exposes the complex machinations of unethical people in our country, who keep us from knowing the truth... Read more

Published on Dec 23 2001 by San Pan

Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

› See all 41 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

Search Listmania!