Spin takes it on the chin: Stauber shines light on public relations industry propaganda

News article about John Stauber, founder of the Center for Media and Democracy,
which publishes www.prwatch.org and www.sourcewatch.org

http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/index.php?ntid=227253

Spin takes it on the chin: Stauber shines light on public relations industry propaganda

Rob Zaleski — 9/08/2007 8:42 am

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Actually, there was one other incentive, says Stauber, whose center is funded by about 30 nonprofit foundations. In 1990, while he was active in the campaign against Monsanto Corp.'s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone, he found out he'd been spied on by a public relations firm working for Monsanto.

Naturally, he was shocked and outraged, Stauber says.

"And I had this total epiphany -- so this is why social change in the United States is so difficult, because there's all this manipulation of the media and the message," he says. "And I realized as an activist that what I needed to do was make my next mission investigating and exposing this hidden business of propaganda. And that's always been the seminal mission of the center."

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But while the center's main target in recent years has been the Iraq war and the Bush administration's exploitation of the media, anyone who has visited its Web site knows Stauber and his cohorts have gone after a vast array of public relations spinners, from producers of fake news stories to promoters of safe nuclear power plants to the state Department of Natural Resources for downplaying potential human health risks from chronic wasting disease in deer.

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http://www.21stcenturyradio.com/NP-11-25-99.html Although somewhat dated now, I recommend the book Monsanto tried to squelch. http://www.commoncouragepress.com/index.cfm?action=book&bookid=150