Correspondence
Derrick Jensen’s interview with John Stauber [“War on Truth,” March 1999] shed light for me on the power that public-relations firms hold over all the information coming down to us through the media, most disturbingly through the news. I try to pay close attention to what I watch on TV and read in newspapers and magazines, but I never considered the source of all that information. I was raised to believe that our country didn’t control news and information the way Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union did. This interview helped me to be more aware of the gears that are turning the wheels of the media.
Thomas Frank’s essay in the same issue, “Liberation Marketing and the Culture Trust,” was the most insightful commentary I have read yet on that disturbing marketing phenomenon in which products promise to make us more authentic, and to keep us in touch with who we really are, our true selves. This incorporation of all that is radical and individual into a fleeting style that can be bought is silencing the unique voices of a generation of kids who came of age in the 1990s. Most of us are still reeling from waking up one day and realizing that we lost our voices. Being able to identify the mechanism behind our collective manipulation is the first step in trying to find ways to fight against it.
Nicole Nurenberg
Redcrest, California
John Stauber responds:
I, too, respect many of the stands C. Everett Koop has taken. At the same time, I’m disgusted by his willingness to flack for pesticides and genetically engineered foods, and to issue misleading statements discounting the risks of mad-cow disease. Apparently, Koop doesn’t see these as contradictions that compromise his principles, but I would encourage anyone who does to share their thoughts with him directly; maybe he will be swayed.
It is precisely because Koop is a hero to many that businesses crave his endorsement. On food-related issues, he has had a long relationship with the PR firm Hill & Knowlton, the propagandists who perpetrated the “baby-killing” scam during the Gulf War and who regularly represent brutal dictatorships, tobacco giants, chemical manufacturers, and genetic-engineering firms such as Monsanto. One might hope that the distinguished doctor would at least find better company to keep.
When I subscribed, I had hoped your magazine would provide an interesting source of ideas and issues to discuss with my thirteen-year-old daughter, who is always looking for ways to solve the world’s problems. And indeed, Derrick Jensen’s interview with John Stauber [“War on Truth”] and Dan Barker’s “Payday” in the March 1999 issue provoked thought and hope.
Then, in the Readers Write on “Stage Fright,” we were treated to Name Withheld’s narcissistic account of his sexual escapades. I was so offended by the inclusion of such trash in an otherwise fine magazine that I have not even opened the April issue.
Are any of you parents? Do you have any idea how hard it is to show a thirteen-year-old that beauty can exist between men and women? Teens today are already bombarded with an overdose of sexual crassness and innuendo. It’s incredibly difficult for a young person to develop an understanding of her sexual identity when all she sees is the worst side of sex.
Please cancel my subscription.
Cammie Doty
Hillsboro, Oregon
John Stauber responds:
I’ve given dozens of print, radio, and TV interviews, but none has elicited as many thoughtful responses as I’ve personally received from Sun subscribers. I’m grateful for the opportunity to reach such remarkable readers.
In response to Stephanie Carroll: I stated that firms such as hers and Carma International “specialize in monitoring news stories and journalists.” She herself describes how Video Monitoring Services tapes TV and radio news segments and sells the information to PR firms. While VMS does not conduct public-relations campaigns itself, it is a critical provider of the information that PR firms utilize to manage news coverage.
Regarding the monitoring of individual journalists, I was referring not to Carroll’s firm but to Carma International and others that couple media monitoring with sophisticated computer analyses of issues, reporters, and people in the news. Carma International, for instance, evaluates news coverage on behalf of corporate and government clients ranging from biotechnology and food conglomerates (on the issue of bovine-growth hormone) to the U.S. Department of Energy (on the proposed Nevada nuclear dump). Such firms help their clients to develop “issue management” strategies that reward “good” reporting and isolate or change “bad” reporting. Sheldon Rampton and I describe this process in detail on pages 186–188 of our book Toxic Sludge Is Good for You (Common Courage Press), available free through your favorite library.
I am a new subscriber to The Sun and enjoy the magazine very much, but I object to a comment John Stauber made in his interview “War on Truth.” While I am aware of the less-than-ethical methods some public-relations firms use to serve their clients, I take offense at his including my company among them. For one thing, Video Monitoring Services is not and never has been a “public-relations company.” Neither are we the sinister provider of special information that Stauber claims. VMS is a retrieval service that tapes television and radio news segments and provides copies to PR firms and media companies. We don’t evaluate stories to determine what is “favorable to corporate interests,” nor do we know the names of reporters’ bosses. This last bit is as ridiculous as it sounds. Stauber may be rightfully concerned about the manipulation of public opinion by PR firms, but Video Monitoring Services is not one of them.
Stephanie Carroll
Video Monitoring Services of America
I read with great interest your March 1999 interview “War on Truth: The Secret Battle for the American Mind,” but I was dismayed by the news that former surgeon general C. Everett Koop opposed the Big Green referendum. Was there a reason for this that was not mentioned in the article? I ask because Koop has been one of my very few heroes. Though personally opposed to abortion and under pressure from pro-lifers to stretch the truth, he refused to proclaim that women who’d had abortions were more subject to depression and anxiety than women who had carried to term. And when asked whether one could contract AIDS at the Communion rail, Koop said, “Well, I suppose they could, but I can’t imagine why a person would want to make such a spectacle of himself!” I’m a bit devastated to learn that he compromised his principles in the case of the Big Green referendum. Isn’t there any more to this story?
Pam Hanna
Nashville, Tennessee
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