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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">edelman122</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">promoted to primary: walmart greenwash, Berman</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Krempasky (rather)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">attacked hodai</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">much bad code</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see also tag no e</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">evil pending</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">html arena --> coordinating efforts”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">amazonwatch</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://theamazonpost.com/post-trial-brief-pdfs/brief/10PX0528.pdf">https://theamazonpost.com/post-trial-brief-pdfs/brief/10PX0528.pdf</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div>
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</div><div>11 Civ. 0691 (LAK)</div><div>&nbsp;PLAINTIFF’S</div><div>EXHIBIT</div><div>528#</div><div><b>ChevronToxico I Chevron Using Six Public Relations Firms to Discredit Indigenous Groups</b></div><div>
</div><div>THE CAMPAIGNI FOR JUSTIn INI ECUADOR</div><div>ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN NEWS & MULTIMEDIA TAKE ACTION</div><div>HOME » News and Multimedia</div><div>Chevron Using Six Public Relations</div><div>Firms to Discredit Indigenous Groups In</div><div>$27.3 Billion Environmental Case In</div><div>Ecuador</div><div>
</div><div>Lobbyists - Mac McLarty,&nbsp;<b>John Breaux, Trent Lott,</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mickey Kantor,&nbsp;</span>Carla Hills and Others - Charged With</div><div>Misrepresenting Facts</div><div>FRlliTE DE IlERlNlIA</div><div>Amazon Defense Coalition</div><div>
</div><div><b>20 November 2009</b>&nbsp;- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE</div><div>Contact: Karen Hinton at 703-798-3109 or</div><div>... karen@hintoncommunications.com</div><div>Caroline Bennett at 510-520-9390 or caroline@amazonwatch.org</div><div>
</div><div>start:]</div><div>Washington, DC -&nbsp;<b>Chevron has retained at least twelve public relations firms and lobbyists to</b></div><div><b>discredit claims of Amazon indigenous groups on the eve of an expected multi-billion dollar</b></div><div><b>judgment against the oil giant in an environmental lawsuit in Ecuador, according to representatives</b></div><div><b>of the tribes in the U.S.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Although Chevron is near the top of the list of highest-spending lobbyists in Washington, the</div><div>campaign seems to be backfiring. Politico, one of the most influential publications on Capitol Hill,</div><div>reported this week that Chevron's lobbying was "drawing fire from environmentalists, media</div><div>ethicists, state pension funds, New York's attorney general, members of Congress, and even Barack</div><div>Obama when he was a Senator."</div><div>
</div><div>The article also quoted Rep. Linda Sanchez (D - CA) as calling Chevron's lobbying "clumsy" and</div><div>"very heavy handed". Sanchez - who on Tuesday characterized the Chevron lobbying as "extortion"</div><div>in testimony before Congress - said she plans to write three letters to Members of Congress,</div><div>blasting what she called the oil giant's "misguided approach" to dealing with the lawsuit from the</div><div>indigenous groups.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Separately, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is investigating the company to determine if</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">it is misleading its own shareholders about the financial risk from the Ecuador case, where damages</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">are assessed at up to $27.3 billion, Politico reported.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>An American legal advisor to the plaintiffs, Steven Donziger, criticized the public relations and</b></div><div><b>lobbying effort.&nbsp;</b>"Chevron is paying huge fees to lobby the U.S. government to inappropriately quash</div><div>a legal case brought by indigenous tribes in the country where Chevron asked for the trial to be</div><div>held," said Donziger, who has been working on the matter since it was filed in U.S. federal court in</div><div>1993.</div><div>
</div><div>The case, which alleges Texaco dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste in the Amazon from 1964</div><div>to 1990, was transferred from U.S. federal court to Ecuador in 2002 at Chevron's request. The oil</div><div>giant filed 14 expert affidavits in the U.S. court praising Ecuador's court system, but later began a</div><div>campaign to discredit those same courts once the evidence in the Ecuador trial pointed to its</div><div>culpability.</div><div>
</div><div><b>The public relations firms working for Chevron include Hill & Knowlton</b>, which represented the</div><div>tobacco industry and - as it did in the debate over tobacco and cancer - has tried to deny a link</div><div>between oil contamination and cancer;<b>&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Edelman Worldwide,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">&nbsp;</span>which is believed to be preparing a</div><div>Wal-Mart-style political campaign against the indigenous groups in anticipation of an adverse court</div><div>judgment;<b>&nbsp;Sard Verbinnem</b>, which handles financial press in an effort to stem a budding shareholder</div><div>revolt against Chevron management for its handling of the case; Robinson Lerer Montgomery, a</div><div>well-highly connected New York-based agency;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">&nbsp;Sam Singer and Associates, which handles the</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">matter in the San Francisco area, where Chevron is located</span>; and the Washington-based<b>&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">CRC</span></b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Public Relations</b>, which helped create a pro-Chevron video by former CNN correspondent Gene</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Randall to counteract a highly unflattering 60 Minutes segment on the legal case that broadcast</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">earlier in the year.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>The Randall video, which did not mention that it was paid for by Chevron, was blasted by the</b></div><div><b>Columbia Journalism Review&nbsp;</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">for "blurring the line between public relations and journalism." The</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">President of CRC, Greg Mueller, spearheaded the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry and is a</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">former senior aide to Pat Buchanan.</span></div><div>
</div><div>CVX-RICO-0502246</div><div>Plaintiff's Exhibit 528# p. 2 of 4</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">among Chevron's lobbyists is<b>&nbsp;Wayne Berman, former McCain campaign national finance chair who chairs the governmental relations practice at Ogilvy Worldwide</b>; former Senators John Breaux and Trent Lott; Mac McLarty, former chief of state to President Clinton who is lobbying the State Department; Mickey Kantor and Carla Hills, former U.S. trade ambassadors who are lobbying their former agency to cancel Ecuador's trade preferences;&nbsp;</span></div><div>
</div><div>Peter Romero, who served as U.S. ambassador to Ecuador in the early 1990s under the first Clinton Administration; Brian Pomper, the former staff director to<b>&nbsp;U.S. Sen. Max Baucus</b>; Scott Parvin, a career lobbyist who formerly worked with Kantor at the law firm Mayer Brown; and several members of Chevron's governmental relations office in Washington, headed by William Irwin. Lawyers for the Amazon communities have long said Chevron's public relations and lobbying firms are part of a broader effort by the company to undermine the rule of law in Ecuador in anticipation of an adverse judgment. The company has taken out advertisements in both Ecuadorian and American newspapers attacking lawyers for the communities and various judges who have presided over the case.&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div>The public relations firms and lobbyists also state incorrectly that Chevron was released from further clean-up responsibility in Ecuador by the government in exchange for a limited clean-up in the mid 1990s. But the terms of the release itself expressly exclude the private claims in the current lawsuit and the so-called remediation was a fraud that has led to the indictment of two Chevron lawyers and several former government officials, said Donziger.&nbsp;</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Evidence at trial against Chevron includes more than 50,000 chemical sampling results produced by the company itself, which prove that 100% of its former well sites are highly contaminated with cancer-causing toxins, according to an independent court-appointed Special Master who reviewed the evidence in the case and assessed damages.</span>&nbsp;A final decision on liability and damages is expected next year. For more information, become a follower of The Chevron Pit or follow @ChevronPit on Twitter</div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.desmog.com/s3ep3-psychological-warfare-astroturfing-and-another-tobacco-oil-connection/">https://www.desmog.com/s3ep3-psychological-warfare-astroturfing-and-another-tobacco-oil-connection/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Featuring: Bob Brulle, environmental sociology researcher at Brown University; Christine Arena, former Edelman&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PR</span>&nbsp;executive; and clips from Daniel Edelman, founder of Edelman&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PR</span>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">WWI</span>&nbsp;news clip about Nazi propaganda:&nbsp;</span>These German&nbsp;pictures, destined for certain&nbsp;neutral countries, were intended to spread Nazi propagada, but Dr. Goebbels tripped up badly, very&nbsp;badly…</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Amy Westervelt:&nbsp;</span>Just a few months after their meetings with Ivy Ledbetter Lee, the Third Reich’s propaganda machine kicked into high gear. Within a year they were at war, and using techniques they’d learned from Lee and others to cover up atrocities and to sell the German public – not only on the war effort but also the superiority of the Aryan race. In the final months of World War&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">II</span>, that propaganda took a very Ivy Lee-style turn into completely made up news stories about German wins in battles that had never even happened.. In those months, a young Jewish American reporter was charged with analyzing and combatting those claims. That man’s name was Daniel Edelman. Here he is, remembering those&nbsp;days.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Daniel Edelman:</span>&nbsp;Doing the psychological warfare thing was fascinating because we were offsetting the claims made by the Germans. It was all lies…. And we had to disclaim&nbsp;them.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Amy Westervelt:&nbsp;</span>Edelman would ultimately spend four years working in psychological warfare. He became an expert on propaganda, and how to combat it. And he put that expertise to work for American industries, from beauty products and Sarah Lee to cigarettes and Big Oil. He added several new tactics to Big Oil’s propaganda machine, including a unique blend of lobbying and media relations, that he called “marketing public relations, and a fun new thing called “astroturfing” that involves creating fake “grassroots” groups. That’s the story we’re going to get into today. I’m Amy Westervelt and this is Drilled, Season 3: The Mad Men of Climate&nbsp;Denial.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Daniel Edelman was born in 1920 in Brooklyn. He was a diligent student and something of a boy genius, so by 16 he was already at university. He ultimately went to Columbia Journalism School, and spent the first year or so of his professional life as a journalist, mostly covering sports and human interest&nbsp;stories.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">U.S.</span>&nbsp;joined World War&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">II</span>, Edelman wanted to enlist but his poor eyesight got in the way. Within a year, so many infantrymen had died the military no longer cared about things like eyesight, it needed bodies. Edelman was drafted. But his vision still made him ineligible for combat. And his background in journalism made him a perfect fit for counter-intelligence. He was sent for training, and then on to join the Fifth Mobile Radio Broadcasting Company in&nbsp;London.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">WWII</span>&nbsp;mobile radio tape:&nbsp;</span>“This is your American expeditionary station, in the field with the fifth&nbsp;army.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Amy Westervelt:&nbsp;</span>After learning for a time in London, Edelman was tapped by a former Columbia classmate to join him in France, helping to prepare a nightly analysis of German propaganda. Edelman was soon in charge of the entire&nbsp;operation.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Daniel Edelman:</span>&nbsp;He says it’s a good job. You work in a truck and in psychological warfare and I said&nbsp;fine.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Amy Westervelt:&nbsp;</span>When the fighting ended, Edelman was transferred to Berlin to help shut down the German propaganda effort and state-owned media. He actually helped start the popular magazine Der Spiegel which he and a few other Americans ran for a few months before turning over to German ownership. For a while, Edelman thought he might stay in Germany and take a job as a reporter there. Eventually his family dissuaded him and he returned home. And then, Like Ivy Lee before him, and plenty of journalists since, Edelman struggled with whether he wanted to report the news or make the news, live the modest life of a journalist or take advantage of the burgeoning post-war economy in America and get into the business side of&nbsp;communications.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By this point he had worked in psychological warfare for years and he knew that expertise would be valuable in the public relations business. So he went for it, and took a job for his brother-in-law’s music label. Through that job he met the folks behind the Toni hair company, who eventually hired him to run their&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PR</span>&nbsp;department, which brough Edelman to&nbsp;Chicago.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PR</span>&nbsp;guy at Toni, he took the company’s ad campaign – which twin has the Toni? – on the road, with six sets of twins. The campaign featured side-by-side twins, both with perms, and dared customers to guess which had a salon perm and which had the Toni home&nbsp;perm.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Toni ad:&nbsp;</span>Which twin had the Toni? You can’t tell? Nobody can. Not yet, anyway. But wait. Only Toni gives you this twin&nbsp;guarantee.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Amy Westervelt:&nbsp;</span>Media tours had been part of political campaigns forever, but product companies had never bothered with them. Edelman saw that as a missed opportunity to score hundreds of local press hits and move product in communities across the country. And he was right. In addition to getting coverage in local newspapers, radio and&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">TV</span>, at one point during the tour the twins were arrested, in Oklahoma, for “performing salon services without a license.” Edelman turned it into a national news story that made Toni a household&nbsp;name.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It also paved the way for another new approach to P.R., one that included a bit of lobbying on the side. The Oklahoma arrests happened because salon owners were pissed about these home perm kits taking their business. Salon owners in states across the country were mobilizing to push for laws that would ban kits like the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">TO</span>ni kit. So Edelman got busy meeting with state legislators and applying some of those psy-opps moves, mocking the salon owners and their proposals until they were literally laughed out of state building after state building. A couple years later, he started his own firm, calling it Daniel J. Edelman and Associates, with Toni as his first client. But within a few years, he had signed several huge clients, including Mobil Oil, Sarah Lee, Heinz, and several tobacco companies and tobacco trade groups. His hunch was proving correct: What he’d learned about psychological warfare was extremely valuable to American&nbsp;industry.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If that sounds like an exaggeration, you don’t have to take my word for it. Edelman’s son Richard bragged about this history in a tribute to his father on the Edelman&nbsp;website.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Richard Edelman clip:&nbsp;</span>My dad was a real New York City kid. Born in Brooklyn, went on to highschool, Columbia College, and Columbia Journalism School. He went on to work in Europe in the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">U.S.</span>&nbsp;army for four years in psychological warfare, and when he got out, somehow the cumulation of all these experiences led him to become the father marketing&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">P.R.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Amy Westervelt:&nbsp;</span>“Marketing public relations” was the term Edelman came up with to describe his 360-degree approach to&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PR</span>&nbsp;– it wasn’t just media relations, it was also legislator relations, and true public relations where you were creating a direct relationship between the company and the public. One way to do that was to pretend to be part of the public&nbsp;yourself.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Christine Arena:&nbsp;</span>I’m a 20-year communications industry professional. I’ve worked in corporate&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PR</span>&nbsp;for a long time, on lots of different kinds of accounts. Including fossil fuel accounts, which I&nbsp;hated.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Amy Westervelt:&nbsp;</span>That’s Christine Arena. She was an executive vice president at Edelman’s firm, by that time just called Edelman. Arena headed up the firm’s sustainability division right at the same time that it was representing the American Petroleum Institute. She and a few other executives at the Firm made the news when they quit en masse over the companies dealings with fossil fuel clients. She can’t share any specific inside information about her time there, so she’s speaking here generally about the firm’s reputation and about the techniques deployed by the fossil fuel&nbsp;industry.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Christine Arena:&nbsp;</span>That creation of fake, grassroots support which came to be known as astroturfing. Edelman was genius at doing&nbsp;that.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Amy Westervelt:&nbsp;</span>Edelman and his firm worked with multiple tobacco and oil clients, all big fans of&nbsp;“astroturfing.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Christine Arena:&nbsp;</span>So fossil fuel industry organizations fund these fake front groups and they give these fake front groups, these names that sound there, like perfectly innocuous names like the California Drivers Alliance or the Washington Consumers for Sound Fuel Policy. And these groups there are hundreds of them are usually secretly run by lobbying organizations like those two I just mentioned are actually run by the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmog.com/western-states-petroleum-association" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Western States Petroleum Association</a>, which is a top lobbyist for the oil industry. And that group, the Western States Material Petroleum Association, is in turn funded by members including&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">BP</span>, Shell,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmog.com/exxonmobil-funding-climate-science-denial" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Exxon Mobil</a>, Chevron and Occidental, among others. So it’s fake activism, it’s corporate money posing as activism. And and it’s designed to undo all of the progress that real activism&nbsp;makes.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Amy Westervelt:&nbsp;</span>Working for both tobacco and fossil fuel clients, Edelman also invented litigation&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PR</span>. Basically making his clients’ cases in the media. A key part of this was what Arena calls the “attack the messenger”&nbsp;strategy.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Christine Arena:&nbsp;</span>Rhey are relentless at the attack the messenger strategy. This has been ongoing for like 30 years. So the most effective attack the messenger strategy to me is like the use of labeling. So, for example, if climate scientists refer to facts and data rather than ideology, then they’re labeled liberal elites. If climate scientists or activists are alarmed by the data, then they’re labeled alarmists. If climate scientists apply for grant dollars to fund their research, then they are accused of being in it for the&nbsp;money.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Tom DeLay:&nbsp;</span>The report is made by scientists that get paid to further the politics of global&nbsp;warming.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Rick Santorum:&nbsp;</span>If there was no climate change, we’d have a lot of scientists looking for work. The reality is a lot scientists are driveb by the&nbsp;money.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">President Donald Trump:&nbsp;</span>All of this with the global warming, and da da da, a lot of it’s a hoax. It’s a hoax. I mean, it’s a money making industry,&nbsp;ok?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Amy Westervelt:&nbsp;</span>Arena says that while tobacco used the same strategy, the fossil fuel guys were just better at it. Big Tobacco would attack the whistleblowers personally, Big Oil – they attacked the whole idea of fossil fuels being any sort of problem. Because they’d spent decades crafting the narrative that fossil fuel is an essential part of American life, it was easy to call anyone who thought otherwise un-American, effectively politicizing the&nbsp;issue.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Of course we know that Big Oil learned new tactics from Big Tobacco, too, namely in the form of science denial. And Daniel Edelman was right there, too. In the 1970s Edelman proposed an aggressive campaign for the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">RJ</span>&nbsp;Reynolds tobacco company. It contained more than a few echoes of the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PR</span>&nbsp;giant’s time in the trenches of psychological&nbsp;warfare.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Salem tobacco ad:&nbsp;</span>Country soft, country fresh, that’s the taste you get wherever you light up a Salem, because Salem genty’ air-softens every puff, for the smoothest, most refreshing taste of any filter&nbsp;cigarette.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Amy Westervelt:&nbsp;</span>The proposal begins by suggesting, for example that, “The non-smoker must be made to feel that the smoker cares about him. It is our sense that the non-smoker is divided into two general groups – those who don’t really care if others smoke; and those who are growing more hostile to anyone who does smoke. We need to woo the former group to our side; we need to soften the opposition of the latter. Step 2 is pure science denial. Edelman recommends “We need to pierce the solidly-assumed notion that no additional research is necessary on the subject of cigarette smoking, Imaginative and creative ways must be found to correct this Impression.” Of course one of those creative ways is to create doubt. Edelman proposes: “We need to counter public impressions based on oversimplification by dramatizing pinpointed areas of study that are mysteries to researchers and scientists on both sides of this&nbsp;issue.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That proposal won Edelman a contract, and the firm would go on to work for Big Tobacco for more than a decade. If the science approach they recommended for tobacco sounds an awful lot like the climate science denial that starts showing up a few years later, there’s a reason for it. Edelman also worked for several fossil fuel clients, and the American Petroleum Institute. That’s important because by the 1980s the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">API</span>, Ivy Lee’s brainchild, was pushing the industry away from researching climate change and toward denying it. Former Exxon scientist Richard Werthamer told us that in Season&nbsp;1.&nbsp;</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Richard Werthamer:&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The key is the&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.desmog.com/american-petroleum-institute" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">American Petroluem Institute</a>.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Exxon had a huge influence, rightly so, in the&nbsp;</span><span class="caps" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">API</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;and I think the&nbsp;</span><span class="caps" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">API</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;changed its tune, and probably other majors went along with&nbsp;that.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Amy Westervelt:&nbsp;</span>And you can hear exactly the same sort of strategy that Edelman suggested for&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">RJ</span>&nbsp;Reynolds in this speech from then-ExxonMobil&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">CEO</span>&nbsp;and American Petroleum Institute president Lee Raymond in&nbsp;1996:</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Lee Raymond:</span>&nbsp;Proponents of the global warming theory, say that higher levels of greenhouse gases, especially&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">CO2</span>, are causing world temperatures to rise and that burning fossil fuels is the reason. By scientific evidence remains inconclusive as to whether human activities affect the climate.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Amy Westervelt:&nbsp;</span>You heard that right? Raymond said the evidence that humans contribute to climate change is “inconclusive.” But this speech was in 1996, long past the point where Exxon’s own scientists had said climate change would cause catastrophic damage for some percentage of the planet in the not so distant future if emissions weren’t&nbsp;curbed.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the late 1990s, Daniel Edelman’s son Richard took over as&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">CEO</span>, but Dan remained involved for the rest of his life. In various interviews, and in Edelman’s biography, Richard said he talked to his dad daily about the business. They didn’t always agree, of course. When he took the reins, Richard almost immediately decided to drop tobacco clients, for example. The writing was on the wall about tobacco by that point, and what it cost the firm in tobacco billings it more than made up for in good&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PR</span>&nbsp;and new&nbsp;clients.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The firm did continue to apply the same strategies for Big Oil for several more years though, including, as Daniel Edelman’s biography puts it, “putting a human face on Big Oil for the American Petroleum&nbsp;Institute.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">American Petroleum Institute ad:</span>&nbsp;Leading the world in oil and gas production. I vote to keep it going. With the right policies we can produce, refine and supply, more oil and natural&nbsp;gas.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Amy Westervelt:&nbsp;</span>Edelman picked up where Ivy Lee had left off, continuing to tie the extraction of oil, coal, and gas to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, And again, it’s hard not to see the roots of Edelman’s World War&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">II</span>&nbsp;work in the approach the firm crafted for Big Oil. Suddenly anyone who wasn’t pro-oil was&nbsp;anti-American.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Daniel Edelman died in 2013, but the firm that bares his name continued to apply the same tactics that he’d been using effectively for decades. In 2014, Greenpeace leaked several documents that showed an aggressive campaign that Edelman had come up with for TransCanada to push the Keystone pipeline. It includes all the same tactics we’ve talked about here: aggressive opposition research, fake grassroots groups, attacking the messenger, and a big nationalistic messaging push. In 2015, the firm announced that it would no longer be working with coal companies or any company that denied climate science. By that point, they’d already lost not only executives but also clients, and the reputational risk was just too great. However, that same year, Edelman spun off its internal advertising group, Blue, which continued to work for the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">API</span>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">American Petroleum Institute ad:&nbsp;</span>More secure American jobs opportunity and economic growth for our children and grandchildren, that’s why this election I’m voting for American&nbsp;energy.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Amy Westervelt:&nbsp;</span>For all the rah rah America stuff the oil industry pushes, these campaigns often work to subvert democracy. In his most recent research, environmental sociologist Bob Brulle found that the biggest indicator of fossil fuel&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PR</span>&nbsp;spend was the likelihood of any sort of climate legislation&nbsp;passing.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Bob Brulle:</span>&nbsp;When you look at their public relations spending, the more the more Congress starts to have hearings and write bills dealing with climate change, the more they start spending on public relations the next year. In other words, you start having hearings this year. Next year, you’re going to have a public relations onslaught from the oil companies, telling you how good they are, how they’re so responsible and good corporate citizens, and that whatever problem it is that you’re talking about, they’re right on top of it and handling it. And the hidden messages is: so therefore, there’s no need to regulate us at&nbsp;all.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Amy Westervelt:&nbsp;</span>In some cases they move even faster. As the Washington Post just reported, the oil guys just dropped a $1million targeted ad buy the day after a couple of current Democratic candidates said they might ban fracking. And in 2008, when Demcrats won control of all branches of the government heading into the global climate negotiations in Copenhagen, they were spending preemptively. The&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">API</span>&nbsp;alone spent a whopping $75 million with&nbsp;Edelman.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Bob Brulle:&nbsp;</span>I don’t think there’s any other way to call it other than propaganda, which is a one sided message designed to create a certain impression, that’s exactly what it was. And it’s very focused, targeted, extremely well done and apparently pretty&nbsp;effective.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Amy Westervelt:&nbsp;</span>So we went from Ivy Lee working with Standard Oil to World War I propaganda to Lee advising Hitler and Goebbels to Daniel Edelman learning the tools of the trade by studying and countering the Third Reich’s propaganda in World War&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">II</span>, and bringing those tactics right back to Big&nbsp;Oil.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Next time we’ll meet another key architect of the propaganda apparatus, Herb Schmertz, the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PR</span>&nbsp;legend who took on Mobil Oil after Edelman. And guess what? Schmertz also started out in military intelligence. He wound up adding so many new bells and whistles to the propaganda machine that we’re gonna spend two episodes delving into his story. See you then.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For more, visit the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.drillednews.com/podcasts" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">DrilledNews podcast website here</a>.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see heated podcast</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">substack: Edelman, the largest PR firm on earth, has faced increased scrutiny for helping fossil fuel clients — including Exxon, Shell, the American Petroleum Institute, and others — mislead the public about climate change.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s a dangerous game that the company has played for years. As documented in investigative journalist Amy Westervelt’s podcasts, Drilled and Rigged, Edelman’s work for tobacco clients in the 1970s pioneered dangerously deceptive marketing practices — from creating fake grassroots groups that refute environmental and public health concerns to helping companies manufacture the illusion of scientific doubt. Its work for Exxon has even been cited in Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey’s lawsuit against the oil giant over its “tobacco industry-style campaign to sow doubt and confusion among the public.”&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2015, Edelman announced that it would no longer “accept client assignments that aim to deny climate change.” But the PR giant’s current list of clients includes some of the same fossil fuel polluters and interest groups subpoenaed as part of an ongoing Congressional investigation into climate disinformation.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now Edelman is the target of mounting activist pressure to drop its polluting clients, led by Clean Creatives, a group of communications professionals who want the industry to rethink what its work means for the climate.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Friday, Edelman concluded a piece of its response to that pressure: a 60-day internal climate review of its client roster. Instead of dropping its “emissions intensive” clientele, the company is now promising to evaluate those relationships and “formalize clear criteria for climate communications.” As of yet, the company hasn’t provided any specifics.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I spoke with Christine Arena, a founding member of Clean Creatives and a former executive vice president at Edelman, who was one of several employees to leave the company in 2015 over its stance on climate change. Our conversation about Edelman’s latest statements, and the PR industry’s predicament as a whole, edited for length and clarity, is below.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EK: You have a great thread on Twitter explaining the difference between climate disinformation and greenwashing. How do you distinguish these practices from just exaggerating in order to sell a product?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CA: The key thing is that you're giving the audience a false indication of what's going on in reality, and that gap between what’s communicated and reality is actually potentially harmful. Fossil fuel products are some of the most dangerous products in the world. Nine million people die just from pollution each year. Climate change causes 150,000 or more deaths per year, according to the World Health Organization. Those products are more dangerous than tobacco and opioids combined, but fossil fuel marketers face none of the same restrictions that tobacco and opioid marketers do. They don't have to put a warning label on their products. They can do massive media buys so that you can't avoid their messages if you log on to Twitter or Facebook. And then a majority of the industry’s messaging that's environmentally focused contains, according to peer reviewed research, factual omissions, distortions, or greenwashing, creating a false impression of what the industry is really doing.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These ads minimize risks that consumers face, and play up efforts that are de minimis compared to where the majority of the industry's investments are really going. There's that famous IEA statistic that shows that less than 1% of the industry's investments are actually funneled to green or low carbon activities. A majority are invested in fossil fuel exploitation. When most of the industry's messaging sends an opposite message, that's an egregious gap.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And that is the argument, by the way, behind the state attorney general lawsuits that are all filed on the basis of false and deceptive advertising and messaging. These state AGs feel that they have enough evidence to suggest that this is fraudulent, potentially, and dangerous to people. I think that's really important for everyone to understand — that it's not just some activists that are saying this. There's really substance behind this argument and it's why there's a congressional investigation into this whole situation as well.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How does it work when a fossil fuel client hires a PR company? Who is coming up with the concepts and language to greenwash the industry’s operations?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I can tell you that generally, the client comes to an agency with a request for proposal, which will say, here are the challenges we face, here are the objectives, and here's what we want to do. So, say it’s Exxon and blue-green algae — they'll want to create impressions that are positive for Exxon and let the world know of their green investments. In the RFP, the client will often not willingly reveal what's really going on underneath the hood. The agency's job is to take that RFP and say, okay, well, let's create a campaign that shows that biofuels are the future — that ExxonMobil is all about biofuels. There is not a culture within agencies that encourages questioning the client.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But when we see Exxon spending more money promoting algae than actually investing in it, that's a factual omission, but it's a potentially egregious omission that gives the world a false impression, which allows Exxon to continue doing what it does without regulatory intervention or interference.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And that's really the game here. They’re trying to drive public opinion and maintain their social license to operate. Their job is to achieve the client's objective. But we've really reached the point where we have to look at this through a different lens. I feel for agencies because that hasn't been part of our culture. But at this point we need more self policing from within the industry itself. And currently the industry actually seems to be unwilling to do that.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite all of the activity now, none of the big CEOs have come forward to say, yes, we acknowledge this problem of greenwashing and climate disinformation, or yes, we believe we played a role in perpetuating that problem. We need leadership inside agencies to step forward, acknowledge it, and then implement strategies to contain it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Speaking of which, what’s your take on Edelman’s 60-day review process and the statements they put out about its conclusion last week?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I am less concerned about whether or not Edelman develops criteria to decide which clients it works and doesn't work with. What I'm more concerned with is how they're servicing these clients. Richard Edelman is on record. He did a Financial Times interview, and he said, “we found zero examples of us erring on facts.” But that is of course a dismissive comment — the entire point of climate disinformation and greenwashing really is that no sentence is 100 percent false, but together it creates this misleading impression of a company or an industry and its climate efforts.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is an opportunity for Edelman and for all agencies representing these clients to really look at this issue. I know that they've hired sustainability experts, but that's not the issue. We need people that are seasoned at evaluating environmental messaging, figuring out, you know, has this claim failed to disclose negative information? It might be truthful, but does it distract consumers from the organization's greater environmental impact as a whole? Is the overall marketing budget larger than the investment in the environmental initiative? Those sorts of questions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As someone who worked on the inside, what can be done to put real pressure on Edelman and other PR firms to stop promoting the oil industry’s spin? What is most motivating to them?&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I think a higher level, industry-wide conversation might be really motivating. Like folks, what do we stand for? What standards are we going to uphold? What does climate leadership mean? The industry is greenwashing itself, and becoming very comfortable using sustainability rhetoric and language, which they think connotes some sort of expertise. But again, looking at the data, looking at all of the campaigns, looking at all the peer reviewed research that shows that many of these environmental messages contain some sort of distorted perspective. Climate disinformation is considered such a problem that we have all of this legal activity and lawmaker intervention around it. What does it say about us that we haven't come together as an industry to acknowledge this crisis?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This sort of change needs to start at the top. I think already for so many employees, especially younger employees, climate is a paramount concern, but their management is old guard. I think just continuing to question leadership and ask good questions is the next step.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The action that agencies can take now is to include the fine print and proactively correct those factual omissions, distortions and greenwash before lawmakers force you to do so. There's a lot that agencies can do today to make headway on this issue. I think it's just a matter of them being motivated enough to do so.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.desmog.com/2021/11/30/pr-industry-major-overlooked-influence-climate-politics-brulle/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">from coining “clean coal” to “carbon footprint,” public relations firms have been instrumental in shaping the public discourse around climate and energy policy, and as a new study underlines, their powerful efforts have flown under the radar for too long.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PR firms have played a key role in obstructing action on climate change over the past 30 years, engaging in PR campaigns on behalf of the fossil fuel industry to not only downplay the seriousness of climate change, but also to position industry-favored solutions as the preferred course of action.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A new peer-reviewed study, published in Climatic Change on November 30 by Robert J. Brulle and Carter Werthman of Brown University, analyzes the role that PR firms have played in the climate misinformation ecosystem between 1988 and 2020. The study looked at 214 organizations across five major sectors — coal/steel/rail, oil & gas, utilities, renewable energy, and the environmental movement — and found that electric utilities hired and used PR firms the most out of any other sector analyzed, followed by oil and gas.&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the same time, those organizations used a very small number of big names in the PR world, including Edelman, Glover Park Group, Cerrell, and Ogilvy. Of more than 600 PR firms analyzed, the top 25 accounted for nearly a third of the engagement on climate work with companies and nonprofits.&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The fossil fuel industry’s obstruction of climate action goes beyond misinformation and climate denial. A major part of the effort to obstruct climate action involves enhancing the positive public reputation for the fossil fuel companies and emphasizing the benefits of continued fossil fuel use,” said Robert Brulle, visiting professor at Brown University and co-author on the article. “From the severity of climate impacts to policies to address the problem, PR firms are a big part of the corporate propaganda machinery that guides the way Americans think about the issue.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The authors wrote that while much has been written about the role of right-wing think tanks, dark money, and corporate power in misleading the public on climate change, very little is understood about how PR firms fit into the story. They are often viewed as passive players in climate obfuscation, rather than active agents, which ignores the influential role they play in “conceptualization, design, and execution of communications and political campaigns,” the study said. PR firms intentionally try to remain invisible.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The study aims to shine a light on some of the most prominent companies, the role of which the authors say is “on par with conservative think tanks or environmental groups” in terms of influence over public climate discussions. The PR firms “remain unexamined, and not held to account for their activities.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This study adds a new cast of characters to our understanding of the key actors in climate change politics,” the study states. “Along with ExxonMobil, Koch Enterprises, Greenpeace, the Heartland Institute, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, we need to add in PR firms such as Edelman, Glover Park, Cerrell, and Ogilvy.”&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman stood out with the most PR “engagements,” and also accounted for most of the PR work from the oil and gas industry. The researchers found that Edelman was the only PR firm that worked across all five sectors identified in the study. It is relatively rare for PR companies to do work for both the oil industry and an environmental group, for example. Edelman could not be reached for comment in time for publication....While most sectors that encompass the fossil fuel industry and its affiliates long-ago eschewed outright climate denial as an overarching strategy to derail climate action, corporate entities have deployed a range of...other strategies to slow or block threatening policies. The most common PR tactic is “corporate image promotion,” or greenwashing, while explicit climate denial itself was rarely used, according to the analysis.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This study finds that PR firms are responsible for phrases that have become commonplace, such as “clean coal,” “renewable natural gas,” “coal country,” and “carbon footprint.” These concepts have become “taken-for-granted discourse regarding climate change, and subsequently shaped the public debate about the issue,” the authors note....Once such phrases catch on, they become a conventional way of framing the topic. For instance, U.S. Presidents from others in climate journalism have long been working to expose how corporate interests employ these PR industry techniques to manipulate public opinion on climate and energy, from Edelman’s 2014 work on behalf of a TransCanada tar sands pipeline to FTI Consulting’s recent efforts to sell hydrogen and natural gas as climate solutions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In particular, the use of PR by the oil and gas industry spiked a few times over the last three decades, the study found, most notably in 1989 and 1996. Those years coincide with two notable events: the Congressional testimony of climate scientist James Hansen in 1989 about the threat of climate change and the mid- to late-1990s push for the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions. However, the authors cautioned that they cannot empirically draw a causal link between those events and the use of PR on climate change.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brulle and Werthman noted that the study is not comprehensive; they only looked at national PR campaigns, not state or local engagement on climate and energy. The research also does not...https://www.desmog.com/2021/07/02/footage-of-exxonmobil-lobbyists-sparks-calls-for-action-by-congress/... include in-house PR created by companies themselves, only those done by external PR firms. And, importantly, many relationships between corporate entities and PR firms are private and not publicly disclosed, so this study likely underestimates the role of the PR industry....The advocacy group Clean Creatives, https://cleancreatives.org/news/clean-creatives-campaign-calls-on-pr-and-ad-agencies-to-stop-working-with-fossil-fuel-clients" ...launched last year, has been pushing for the PR and advertising industries to break ties with fossil fuel companies. Duncan Meisel, director of Clean Creatives, welcomed this study’s efforts to highlight those ties.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Agencies like Edelman, Ogilvy, and WeberShandwick named in this report need to recognize that work for fossil fuel companies is doing significant damage to their reputation and legacy. The hard truth is that advertising and public relations agencies are essential to the fossil fuel industry’s propaganda machine, and work for fossil clients has stopped the world from adequately responding to the climate emergency,” Meisel told DeSmog in an email. “The best time to stop working for fossil fuel clients was 20 years ago, when we had much more time to stop the climate emergency, the second best time is now.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://link-springer-com.oca.ucsc.edu/content/pdf/10.1007/s10584-021-03244-4.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Table 5 PR frm engagements by sector, 1989–2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sectors: Oil/Gas Coal/Steel...=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2017/03/russia-hired-edelman/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FLYNN former national security adviser was paid more than $500,000 last fall by a group linked with the Turkish government to discredit exiled preacher Fethullah Gülen, an enemy of the Turkish president. An Egyptian intelligence agency hired public relations firms Weber Shandwick and Cassidy & Associates to improve its image. Iraq sent letters to top Trump officials such as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis requesting meetings in the wake of the new president’s first travel ban, which included Iraq. The second iteration of the ban took Iraq off the list.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These stories could not have been told without the help of filings required by FARA, or the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Passed in 1938 in response to secret Nazi propaganda efforts in the U.S., the law requires anyone representing a foreign government or quasi-governmental agency (as well as individual citizens of other countries and sometimes foreign companies) to file extensive reports with the Justice Department. The filings must disclose who they’re representing, how much they’re being paid, what they’ve been hired to do, the meetings and other contacts they’re having, the content of materials they’re distributing and more. But the data is normally locked in PDFs with limited search functions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the spirit of Sunshine Week, the Center for Responsive Politics today releases a tool that makes looking through FARA filings a whole lot easier: Foreign Lobby Watch. We standardized registrants, foreign principals and locations, and parsed the PDF text to allow for full-text searching. (We inherited this project from the Sunlight Foundation, which previously hosted a tool called Foreign Influence Explorer.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For example, a quick search of “Russia” in our database found 77 firms represented 170 governmental or pseudo-governmental entities, pulling up 274 records since 1950. The last Russian lobbying registration shows that a group created by the Russian Federation hired the PR firm Edelman last year to help influence U.S. opinion on a massive court verdict involving the oil giant Yukos.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That ruling was the latest twist in a complicated set of events that started in the early 2000s, when the Russian government dismantled and sold off Yukos, Russia’s largest fully privatized oil company after the fall of the Soviet Union. The Kremlin jailed two high-ranking Yukos executives, including its head, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an act that was seen as retribution for Khodorkovsky’s political opposition to Vladimir Putin. (Khodorkovsky was freed and pardoned in 2013 and lives in exile.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yukos went bankrupt after the Russian government charged it with tax evasion, embezzlement and money laundering. Its former stakeholders sued the government, winning a $50 million verdict in 2014 at The Hague, the largest arbitration penalty ever. But a higher court overturned the award two years later.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yukos stakeholders are appealing the ruling and have pending enforcement lawsuits in a half-dozen countries, including the U.S., in efforts to collect Russian assets. The D.C. case in the district court of appeals has been put on pause until 2019, as the Netherlands case will impact what happens in the U.S. proceedings.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Amid the wrangling, the Russian Federation created a task force, the International Centre for Legal Protection, headed by a former director in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Andrey Kondakov, to help coordinate the various ministries involved in the case. And the task force hired Edelman to help turn the tide of public opinion — often suspicious of anything Russia — in their favor. Kondakov did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Signing the contract on Edelman’s side was Randall Corley, the firm’s global compliance officer.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Filings can fall short</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FARA filings are only as good as the filer, of course. We see Edelman was hired for public relations work, including drafting press releases, media outreach, helping build a website and “strategic counsel.” However, it’s not clear from the reports alone how much Edelman did. According to the FARA file, ICLP issued just one press release, on Aug. 8, which also appeared on PR Newswire: “Key Yukos Insider Reveals Billion-Dollar Bribery Scheme.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ICLPThe release describes a filing in the D.C. case from a Yukos insider, Dmitry Gololobov, who “learned firsthand how the Oligarchs rigged the Russian government’s ‘loans-for-shares’ auctions in 1995 and 1996 to illegally acquire ownership of Yukos.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Mr. Gololobov’s testimony represents another step forward,” said Kondakov in the press release. “It confirms the corruption, fraud and bribery perpetrated by the Oligarchs at the expense of the Russian people and it validates the position that the Russian Federation has maintained throughout the Yukos case – that the Oligarchs’ arguments are just lies about lies.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As for media outreach, Kondakov is quoted in a New York Times piece reporting the overturning of the arbitration fine, but that was published before ICLP hired Edelman in June 2016. Filings and the press release show at least nine people at Edelman were affiliated with the project, and the agreement was terminated on September 30, 2016.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An Edelman representative said that they do not comment on clients, and that they filed all the necessary paperwork with FARA.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The original filing said “Work for client has begun and the contract is still being negotiated. This filing will be amended to included the contract once a signed copy is executed.” Yet OpenSecrets Blog found no amendment or contract in the filings that followed. And an August filing that lists receipts and disbursements for other clients showed no line items for ICLP from Feb. 1 through July 31, 2016. It’s unclear, without the inclusion of the required contract, how much Edelman was paid.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If you comply with FARA, the information is very extensive and does tell the public and the press most of what they would want to know,” said Joseph Sandler, Democratic attorney and FARA expert. “But there could be holes with what they actually include, or could include filings from nonprofit front groups and think tanks that are hard to immediately understand who is backing them.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A history of Russian lobbying</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There are plenty of other Russia-related nuggets in the FARA files. For instance, billionaire Oleg V. Deripaska paid Endeavor Group a $40,000 monthly retainer in 2009 and 2010 to provide “general legal advice involving his U.S. visa, as well as commercial transactions.” The State Department had revoked Deripaska’s visa in 2006 due to concerns about his possible links to organized crime ties, which Deripaska has denied.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Endeavor Group expects to engage with the U.S. government regarding the status of the foreign principal’s visa application; interact with the United States Trade Representative office to encourage U.S. participation in the intra-governmental global aluminum discussions; and engage with the Department of Treasury’s Auto Task Force regarding the prospective acquisition of General Motor’s European operations,” the FARA filing says.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, also wrote a letter to Adam Waldman, the founder of Endeavor Group, asking for updates on the case and saying he appreciates the work the firm is doing.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“[O]ver the past several years, there has been certain ambiguity upon his visa status in the United States,” Lavrov wrote. “A persistent state of limbo regarding Mr. Deripaska’s ability to travel freely between our two countries has become an impediment to the promotion of mutually advantageous contacts between the business communities of the two countries.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">State-owned banks also hired up in an effort to ease sanctions levied in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea. One of them, VTB Group, a financial services firm owned by the Russian government, brought on board Emaunuel Manatos (a lobbyist who bundled almost $40,000 for Hillary Clinton this election) in May 2016 for $17,500 a month to “lobby Congress and Executive that affect imposition of US sanctions on Russian-affiliated banks.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And the name that crops up again and again is that of the PR firm Ketchum Inc., which has earned more than $60 million working for Russia over the past decade or so, according to a POLITICO analysis of FARA filings.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Russians first enlisted Ketchum’s help for “communications support” when it hosted the G8 summit in St. Petersburg in 2006, paying the company $2 million. (The country was in need of a media revamp after Russia’s energy company Gazprom cut off natural gas to Ukraine.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ketchum also works with subcontractors such as Alston & Bird to monitor foreign policy legislation, and Clark & Weinstock and Venable LLP to lobby on behalf of Gazprom and keep an eye on energy policy.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ProPublica reported in 2012 that the Huffington Post and CNBC published pro-Russia op-eds linked to Ketchum without noting the connection to the Russian government in the pieces. A year later, Ketchum placed an op-ed by Putin in the New York Times.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Categories: Influence & Lobbying</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">innoc/ speculation on trump education?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.edelman.com/post/trump-and-education-in-america/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.desmog.uk/2015/07/31/edelman-pr-s-ties-fracking-and-climate-denial-still-cause-concern-new-petitions-show</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">UK frack task force bs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tobacco Tactics</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Talk Fracking fears that “with Edelman behind the Task Force on Shale Gas, PR tactics developed in the sixties to dismiss smoking health concerns are now being used in relation to fracking.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The PR firm has a long history of working with the tobacco industry. In the 1970s, it proposed an “aggressive” public relations campaign to help tobacco company RJ Reynolds undermine perceptions of smoking’s health hazards.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Edelman now refuses to represent tobacco companies, it continues to work with fossil fuel companies and apply the same PR tactics.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Broken Promises</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In August 2014, some of the world’s biggest PR firms issued a declaration stating that they would not represent clients who deny manmade climate change or take campaigns seeking to block regulations limiting carbon pollution. Edelman eventually responded, confirming that “we do not accept client assignments that aim to deny climate change.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">However, in November last year, Greenpeace Canada obtained details of an aggressive plan to recruit 35,000 online ‘activists’ to sway public opinion in favour of the TransCanada tar sands pipeline.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In February this year, it was thought that Edelman was making progress. It was unveiled in February that Edelman hadgradually cut its ties with America’s powerful oil lobbyist, the API, after it was reported that the subsidiary company (Blue Advertising) that handled the bulk of its advertising contracts with API – worth $327.4 million – is, eventually, to cut itself off from Edelman’s central operations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But, fresh doubts have been cast on the credibility of its supposed change in attitude after four high-level executives have resigned from Edelman in the last two months because of the company’s refusal to stop working for the fossil fuel industry....</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.desmog.uk/2015/07/31/edelman-pr-s-ties-fracking-and-climate-denial-still-cause-concern-new-petitions-show</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In light of this news, campaigners have launched a separate petition to tell Edelman to stop “promoting” climate change. The petition was launched on CREDO Action – a social change organisation funded by CREDO Mobile – which has over 27,000 signatories. It says: “The fact is, in the face of the overwhelming evidence on climate change, any attempt to continue promoting fossil fuels and fossil fuel expansion is outright denial.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In contemporary reports on the 2010 Ukrainian election, Manafort declined to discuss the specifics of his work for Yanukovych. Consultants who worked with him on the race described him as a “hands-on” manager with a sharp sense of how to communicate the Yanukovych message. He brought on other American politicos, including Democratic ad man Tad Devine and the public relations giant Edelman, to bolster his efforts both in Ukraine and internationally.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A 2008 disclosure form filed by Edelman under the Foreign Agents Registration Act described the Yanukovych team’s determination to “share [Yanukovych’s] vision for Ukraine, his reform slated for 2008, his accomplishments in economic development as well as Ukraine’s business development.” The PR firm earned $35,000 a month for its services.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Greenpeace yes man'd them</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman’s Make-Or-Break Moment</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fast forward to last fall, 2014: Edelman suffered a months-long PR crisis—the last thing a PR firm wants—over its representation of API and other climate science denial organizations. Edelman’s chairman, Richard Edelman, hastily put out a statement affirming his company’s commitment to climate change.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Edelman was personally urging the press that he cared about the issue, and fired a top executive who was uncooperative with the Climate Investigations Center, which was surveying PR firms on their climate change policies. It was awkward.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The mess was intensified by another round of documents showing Edelman was helping TransCanada—the operator of the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline—with campaign planning to subvert local activism in Canada against TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline. After the plan was leaked, TransCanada dumped Edelman.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last month, Mike Stark from FossilAgenda.com attended Platt's 36th Annual Coal Marketing Days and caught an interesting glimpse into the minds of coal industry operatives pushing to build coal export terminals in the Northwest.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Audio recordings released by Fossil Agenda show Lauri Hennessey, a Vice President atEdelman and the spokeswoman for Alliance for Northwest Jobs & Exports (ANJE), laughing with coal company executives on a number of topics including climate change and international development in the "far east."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The transcript of the conversation exemplifies the extent to which some in the public relations industry will go to push additional fossil fuel development. Edelman is one of many companies working to distort the facts and spin the energy debate on behalf of their fossil fuel industry clients.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stark writes "[Hennessey] told me that the Alliance for Northwest Jobs & Exports is making the case that thermal coal from the Powder River Basin will displace coal with lower thermal content from Asia, thus reducing GHG emissions." But, ANJE is also "countering the decision to evaluate the ultimate emissions footprint of the coal that would move through the proposed export terminals" in an attempt to undermine the environmental review of the proposed export terminals.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Instead of upholding the free flow of accurate and truthful information about coal exports, Edelman and the ANJE are spinning the facts and claiming that exporting U.S. coal would "reduce emissions." David Roberts at Grist made it very clear -- "digging up and burning that Powder River Basin coal will put enough carbon in the atmosphere toundo all of Obama's other climate work."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This distortion goes against the Public Relations Society of America's (PRSA) Code of Ethics, which asserts "ethical practice is the most important obligation of a PRSA member" and "professionals should be honest and accurate in all communications." PRSA's Board of Ethics goes on to say [PDF] that "protecting and advancing the free flow of accurate and truthful information is essential to serving the public interest and contributing to informed decision making in a democratic society."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ALEC n May 2012, PRWeek reported that ALEC had hired the notorious global PR firm Edelman. Edelman is the firm of choice for big tobacco, big oil, and big pharma, all key sponsors of ALEC. ALEC also held a special meeting asking right-wing bloggers, such as the Breitbart operation,for help in "a very aggressive campaign to really spread the word about what we actually do," as CMD has reported.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An "aggressive campaign" is clearly underway.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ALEC's note to legislators claims that CMD's "top investigative reporter" has a "lengthy criminal background." It links to a attack-piece published by a newly created entity called The Washington Free Beacon (WFB), the online publication of the self-proclaimed "conservative advocacy group" the Center for American Freedom.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In that piece, recent college grad CJ Ciaramella focuses on Beau Hodai, a freelance reporter who has written for the Center for Media and Democracy, In These Times, Prison Legal News, Extra! (a publication of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), and the investigative news publication he founded, DBA Press.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Beau has been researching and reporting on ALEC since late 2009. His reporting has detailed the relationship between ALEC and private prison contractors in the dissemination of bills based on Arizona's SB 1070, and has identified ALEC as one of the key forces behind attempts to destroy public employee unions and privatize public services.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Notably, the WFB attack job does not find any material errors in any of Beau's extensively documented reports on ALEC, but focuses on misdemeanor court records. It dwells on the fact that his legal first name is Mohamad. Beau has been nicknamed "Beau" since birth. (It is worth noting that "CJ" is not Ciaramella's legal first name but the nickname he uses instead of "Carl.")</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Beau recently stirred the pot with a special report detailing corruption in the Ohio General Assembly based on public records that raise questions as to whether the state's elected officials in ALEC are complying with Ohio's ethics laws regarding gifts.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Interestingly enough, Beau learned that exactly one week following the publication of the Ohio ALEC corruption story, a private investigation firm requested court records concerning a past arrest. Allegations from those same court records emerged as the centerpiece of the WFB attack article.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.prwatch.org/node/11717</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Center for Am Freedom</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">n May 2012, PRWeek reported that ALEC had hired the notorious global PR firm Edelman. Edelman is the firm of choice for big tobacco, big oil, and big pharma, all key sponsors of ALEC. ALEC also held a special meeting asking right-wing bloggers, such as the Breitbart operation,for help in "a very aggressive campaign to really spread the word about what we actually do," as CMD has reported.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An "aggressive campaign" is clearly underway.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ALEC's note to legislators claims that CMD's "top investigative reporter" has a "lengthy criminal background." It links to a attack-piece published by a newly created entity called The Washington Free Beacon (WFB), the online publication of the self-proclaimed "conservative advocacy group" the Center for American Freedom.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NB crisis mgmt</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wilhelm Meierling&nbsp; Senior Director, Public Affairs at American Legislative Exchange Council</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Washington D.C. Metro Area</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Public Relations and Communications</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a LinkedIn member, you'll join 200 million other professionals who are sharing connections, ideas, and opportunities.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">See who you and Wilhelm Meierling know in common</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Get introduced to Wilhelm Meierling</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contact Wilhelm Meierling directly</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">View Wilhelm's full profile&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wilhelm Meierling's Overview</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Current</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Senior Director, Public Affairs at American Legislative Exchange Council</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Director of Media and Public Relations at United Way Worldwide</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Adjunct Professor of Multicultural Marketing and Engagement at George Washington University</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Past</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Communications Director, International Network at United Way Worldwide</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Senior Account Supervisor at Edelman</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Partner at OpinionMakers International</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see all</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Education</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The George Washington University</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hampden-Sydney College</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Recommendations</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5 people have recommended Wilhelm</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Connections</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">500+ connections</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wilhelm Meierling's Experience</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Senior Director, Public Affairs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">American Legislative Exchange Council&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nonprofit; 11-50 employees; Construction industry</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">January 2013 – Present (4 months) Washnigton, DC</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Public affairs and communications lead for the American Legislative Exchange Council--the largest nonpartisan membership organization of state elected officials.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Director of Media and Public Relations</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">United Way Worldwide&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nonprofit; 201-500 employees; Nonprofit Organization Management industry</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">January 2012 – Present (1 year 4 months)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Adjunct Professor of Multicultural Marketing and Engagement</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">George Washington University&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Educational Institution; 5001-10,000 employees; Higher Education industry</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">March 2010 – Present (3 years 2 months) Washington D.C. Metro Area</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Adjunct professor of multicultural engagement focusing on Latino and African America political advocacy and public relations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Communications Director, International Network</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">United Way Worldwide&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nonprofit; 51-200 employees; Nonprofit Organization Management industry</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">August 2010 – January 2012 (1 year 6 months)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Plan, implement and oversee United Way's international communications strategy among 500+ member organizations in 40+ countries.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Senior Account Supervisor</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Privately Held; 1001-5000 employees; Public Relations and Communications industry</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">September 2008 – August 2010 (2 years)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Multicultural Practice Senior Account Supervisor; Direct outreach and provide communications counsel to clients seeking inroads with multicultural communities.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Partner</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">OpinionMakers International&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">January 2007 – January 2010 (3 years 1 month)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">OpinionMakers International is a public/government relations firm that specializes in foreign relations with the United States and European Union. Specific expertise on African development, Central and South America.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Advocacy Account Executive</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Washington Times&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Privately Held; 501-1000 employees; Newspapers industry</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">April 2006 – February 2007 (11 months)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While at the Washington Times, I assisted clients in delivering targeted, strategic messages to legislators and other opinion leaders.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Grassroots Coordinator</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Leadership Institute&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nonprofit; 51-200 employees; Political Organization industry</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">June 2005 – May 2006 (1 year)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a Grassroots Coordinator, I traveled the country to train state and federal candidates, campaign staffs, and volunteers on effective methods of voter turnout, coalition development, and outreach.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NW coal fronts:&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">edelman PR</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://daily.sightline.org/2012/12/13/look-whos-taking-coal-money/?utm_source=Sightline+Newsletters&utm_campaign=8434eb1aa7-SightlineWeekly&utm_medium=email&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Look Who’s Taking Coal Money</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The face of the coal industry in the Northwest.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Eric de Place and Nick Abraham on December 13, 2012 at 1:00 am</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This post is part of the research project: Northwest Coal Exports</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is great: the redoubtable Joel Connelly, over at the Seattle P-I, is on the case. Take a look at his story: Seattle PR firms are doing “coal’s dirty work.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If ever an industry needed good PR, it’s coal.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The industry can’t hope to promote its own coal export schemes in the Northwest so instead it buys support from local consulting and PR firms willing to do coal’s dirty work. By taking money from Big Coal, these firms—many of which have carefully groomed reputations for sustainability and public-interest work—have themselves become a part of the coal industry.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Most of these firms might rather not have the public know about the work they do, with the blinds pulled down, on behalf of out-of-state coal giants. After all, their livelihoods depend on appealing to green-minded governments, nonprofits, and businesses in the Northwest. So as an exercise in letting in the sunlight—and as a sort of caveat emptor for clients—here is a look at the Northwest’s homegrown coal industry.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The world’s largest independent PR firm, Edelman operates with a dizzying hypocrisy that is on bold display in its Seattle office. Although CEO Richard Edelman says publicly: “I do not subscribe to the use of front groups to cover up the true intent of a client,” the firm is in fact the shadowy force behind the newly constituted front group Alliance for Northwest Jobs & Exports (ANJE). The Seattlepi.com calls ANJE an “astroturf” group for its work supporting the proposal to ship 48 million tons of coal each year from Cherry Point.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman has a well-documented history of astroturf activities and although its name is mentioned nowhere on ANJE’s glossy website, multiple news agencies (here and here) report that the firm manages the group. In fact, Edelman vice-president Lauri Hennessey identifies herself in public—and is routinely cited in the media—as a spokesperson for ANJE (here, here, here, and here). (Hennessey also runs her own PR firm—Hennessey Communications—where she touts her environmental values.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Berk Consulting</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seattle-based Berk Consulting takes coal money. The firm produced a economic analysis for Millennium Bulk Terminals, the company that wants to ship 44 million tons of coal annually from a site on the Columbia River. Opponents have disputed the Berk study, arguing that it fails to consider traffic impacts and economic costs, both public and private.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nyhus Communications</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With offices in Seattle and Washington, DC, Nyhus Communications features a website with rotating photos of renewable energy projects and green hero Van Jones. Yet Nyhus also carries water for coal interests, working with Arch Coal (p73) to promote coal shipments from Longview. Nyhus is also actively involved with Move Forward Washington, a newly minted group that emphasizes coal among other exports. (One founding member of the group is Millennium Bulk Terminals.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gallatin Public Affairs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gallatin is a natural fit with the coal industry. The firm has a history of pushing through controversial projects, including Monsanto’s Blackfoot Bridge phosphate mine and Formation Metals’ Cobalt Mine proposal. So it’s no surprise that Gallatin has gone to work for Millenium Bulk Terminals’ coal project in Longview, Washington.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The most troubling dimension to Gallatin’s role may be partner Bruce Gryniewiski. He’s the former head of Washington Conservation Voters and a current board member of the Mountains to Sound Greenway. He says that he joined Gallatin to “win support for even the most controversial projects.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He’s trying to do just that. Gryniewiski is the prime mover in Gallatin’s efforts to put 44 million tons of coal on the Columbia River each year to be burned at power plants in Asia. He is listed as lobbyist and also as a spokesperson for the coal company.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ECONorthwest</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Portland-based economic consulting firm, ECONorthwest has a long history of work supporting conservation, so many were surprised to learn the firm took money from Ambre Energy to produce an economic impact analysis. ECONorthwest’s analysis has become a key piece of support for the Morrow Pacific Project, a complicated scheme to move as much as 8 million tons of coal annually in barges on the Columbia River for onward shipment to coal plants in Asia.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gard Communications</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Headquartered in Portland, Gard Communications is the public face for Ambre Energy’s Morrow Pacific Project. The firm produces a range of publicity materials and president Brian Gard himself appears to be acting as Ambre’s press flak for the project. Gard has the distinction of being the only Northwest consulting firm so far to attract attention for its coal work when several Portland groups protested it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Strategies 360</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Headquartered in Seattle, the Strategies 360 consulting group has done some worthy environmental work in the past, even sponsoring Ecotrust‘s annual leadership award in 2011. Less well known is the firm’s work in the coal industry. Matt Steuerwalt, former climate and energy adviser to Gov. Gregoire, was the lead lobbyist for RailAmerica’s plan to ship 5 million tons of coal from Gray’s Harbor to Asian power plants. After months of delay and confusion, the plan collapsed.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drawing a line in the sky.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Climate activist Bill McKibben makes a forceful case for divestment—removing fossil fuel companies from big institutional portfolios, helping to starve them of the cash they require to continue damaging the global climate.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet divestment need not be all about multinational fossil fuel corporations. It could take the form of withholding support from the consultants and publicists who act as the Northwest front for coal exports. What if Portland State University stopped working with Gard Communications? What if Forterra backed away from Nyhus? What if the Seattle Parks Department severed ties with Berk, and King County fired ECONorthwest?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Imagine a Northwest where local governments, nonprofits, and farsighted corporations drew a sort of line in the sky, refusing to do business with the coal industry—including its local agents. Losing even a client or two might be enough to induce more local firms to refuse coal money. Denied Northwest connections and credible local advocates, the hugely destructive export plans would have more difficulty gaining traction in a region that has long prided itself on its growing clean-energy economy. Perhaps this form of divestment could speed the day when all of Cascadia says “no” to a dirty, climate-wrecking fuel whose highest and best use is to hold up the ground in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Daniel J. Edelman Public Relations, also known as "Edelman," is the largest independently owned PR company, with 46 offices and 50 affiliates around the world.[1] It was founded by Daniel J. Edelman, current chairman, in 1952.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to a marketing executive, an Edelman executive providing media training to his firm said:[2]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Sometimes, you just have to stand up there and lie. Make the audience or the reporter believe that everything is ok. How many times have you heard a CEO stand up and say, 'No, I'm not leaving the company,' and then -- days later -- he's gone. Reporters understand that you 'had' to do it and they won't hold it against you in your next job when you deal with them again."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In May 2012, PRWeek reported that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) hired Edelman to "help it deal with recent corporate fallout and opposition to its legislative positions."[3]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">History</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The company was founded in 1952.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to O'Dwyer's PR Services listings, the largest contributors to Edelman's 2002 earnings were from its healthcare practice ($56.71 million), high technology ($44.1 million), financial and investor relations ($33.1 million) and food ($21.46 million).[4]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman tops O'Dwyer's rankings of all PR companies, earning $604.7 million in 2011.[5] (However, it is worth noting that a number of the largest PR companies do not participate O'Dwyer's rankings.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">UK climate activists target Edelman</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On July 16, 2008, activists with Oxford Climate Action blockaded Edelman's headquarters. Several protestors gained access to the firm's offices while others climbed onto the roof to unfurl a banner reading "Edelman: Spinning The Climate Out Of Control".[6] Edelman PR was hired by E.ON, the world’s largest investor-owned energy service provider.[7] E.ON is proposing to upgrade its coal-fired Kingsnorth power station to use supercritical coal technology. Kingsnorth is currently considered to be a conventional coal plant but under the European Union Large Combustion Plant Directive, the plant would eventually have to be closed without the upgrade.[8] According to activists, Edelman PR is engaging in a campaign to 'greenwash' E.ON's continued investment in burning coal.[9]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman extols the benefits of working with NGOs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman has been one of the leaders in the PR industry in advocating the benefits of corporations "engaging" with non-government organisations. "We recognized before anyone that NGOs, such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International, were influencing corporate social responsibility by highlighting environmental and labor practices," Edelman used to claim on its website. [10]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman PR tells clients that activists are winning because "they play offense all the time; they take their message to the consumer; they are ingenious at building coalitions; they always have a clear agenda; they move at Internet speed; they speak in the media's tone."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The solution, it argues, are partnerships between NGO's and business. "Our experience to date is positive," they say, citing examples such as "Chiquita-Rainforest Alliance" and "Home Depot-Forest Stewardship Council." [2] (Download a copy of the February 2001 Edelman presentation 347k pdf file).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A media release issued by Edelman touting for business described their advocacy of "partnerships" between business and environmental groups more bluntly. "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 counter-intuitive, but it makes sense when you consider that NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are trusted by the public nearly two-to-one to 'do what's right' compared with government bodies, media organizations and corporations." [3]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2001 they launched a short-lived series of "Edelman NGO Seminars" to "discuss the ramifications of the NGO phenomenon." [4]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">U.S. Government PR contracts</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform Minority Office, Edelman received the following amounts per year, for federal PR contracts: [5]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$50,200 in 2002</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$35,588 in 2004</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Campaigns</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman works for the Mormon Church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). While details of their work on the account are scarce, in 1997 Edelman did the PR for re-enactment of thousands of Mormons travelling from Illinois to Utah in covered wagons. [6]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Boosting PepsiCo's reputation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In July 2009, PepsiCo announced it was retaining Edelman, for a "multimillion-dollar corporate reputation campaign." According to Pepsi's vice-president of strategic communications, P.J. Sinopoli, the contract includes "rais[ing] awareness among PepsiCo stakeholders about the totality of the PepsiCo brand," along with "showcasing the company's healthier snacking options and its CSR (corporate social responsibility) work." Also working on the contract are the firm Luntz, Maslansky Strategic Research, on "message management," along with Edelman's research arm, StrategyOne. [11]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hustling for Microsoft</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In April 1998 the Los Angeles Times revealed that Edelman had drafted a campaign plan to ensure that a dozen state attorney-generals did not join anti-trust legal actions against Microsoft. Documents obtained by the LA Times revealed that the plan included generating supportive letters to the editor, opinion pieces and articles by freelance writers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the doucments a goal of the campaign was to counter “negative, reactive coverage that is driven by state attorneys general”. According to the documents the press clippings that would be generated were described as “leveragable tools for the company's state-based lobbyists" for use by state-based political consultants in their lobbying. The supportive clippings were intended to complement other materials – such as consumer surveys and economic studies – supporting Microsoft’s contributions to regional economies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the documents, Edelman – which boasts on its website that it was the PR company that pioneered litigation PR – planned to time one phase of stories to “will coincide with April 21 oral arguments before U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Microsoft motion to disqualify Lawrence Lessig as special master in Microsoft antitrust case.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The internal documents identified Rory Davenport, Edelman's director of "grass-roots and political programs" in Washington and Neal Flieger as having been involved in the preparation of the strategy and scheduled to appear at a meeting to co-ordinate the implementation of the plan. When contacted by the LA Times, Davenport stated only that “there is no agreement for a campaign like that” while Fleiger said “I'm not prepared to amplify on that at all.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Boosting the dot coms</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In May 2001, Richard Edelman, the President & Chief Executive Officer of Edelman, said that PR companies had to accept part of the blame for the over-hyping of the tech-sector that led to its eventual melt-down. “We willingly canonized CEOs, created buzz and relied on hype”, Edelman told the Reputation.com conference in London. According to O’Dwyers PR Services, Edelman said PR companies conducted "whoopee-cushion PR."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman said “We must have transparency, disclosing sources of information and revealing our presence in chat rooms. … We must also offer fact-based information, not hype or spin … We need to encourage dialog and inform all stakeholders simultaneously as information becomes available”. [7]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an on-line response to the article, Jim Monahan, from PR IMPACT in Illinois, challenged Edelman’s speech as blame-shifting. “Richard Edelman would like to put a blanket of guilt over the entire public relations industry because his agency and others over-hyped the dot.com businesses that are failing faster than physical flatulence. Keep the blame yourself, Richard. And, for all the guilt you feel and admission you took client money and then let them down --- hey, start up a foundation with the forum topic being How PR Practitioners Should Point Guilty Fingers at Themselves First and Foremost---and Return Fees to Clients Upon Admission of Major Failure”, he wrote.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman and the tobacco industry</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 1987, Daniel Edelman produced a plan for INFOTAB, the international tobacco industry group made up of the major worldwide tobacco companies and their associated trade organizations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Perceiving a major threat from the secondhand smoke issue, the global tobacco companies realized that they lacked coordination among themselves, and that they would need to coordinate to uniformly fight public health efforts which were increasing around the world. Thus they formed INFOTAB. According to industry documents, the goals of INFOTAB were to establish an "early warning" system for anti-smoking initiatives worldwide, to "track activities of pressure groups and international consumer unions" and "to take industry programs to the grass roots and municipal levels" to help the industry to prevail over public health. Edelman prepared a presentation for INFOTAB on how the tobacco industry could mount a coordinated, international campaign to fight the secondhand smoke issue around the world. The document is titled INFOTAB ETS Project: The Overall Plan</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A 1978 R.J. Reynolds document produced by Edelman Public Relations company, proposes Reynolds begin a comprehensive public relations effort to "slow or reverse the growing negative trends in public opinion regarding smoking." Edelman proposes a number of tactics including a "press event on the passive smoking issue," "a whimsical feature [publication] which seeks to bring out the humor of the smoker vs. non-smoker conflict," "excerpts from some leading civil libertarians and editorialists on the 'freedom' issue," a courteous-smoking appeal to smokers, a "Traveling Etiquette Spokesperson," production of a film on "Smoker and the Non-smoker" that would address "issues that divide them other than the primary health issue," and a Smokers' News Bureau based in New York that would "generate news stories...showing that smoking is not as annoying to the nonsmoker as is widely perceived." Edelman also proposes commissioning a survey by a "nationally famous research organization" that would poll people on the "degree of annoyance of a whole range of obnoxious habits--i.e., body odor, bad breath, whiskey breath, loud talkers, foul language, sneezing, uncurbed dogs, etc. " Edelman says, "The survey would include smoking, but our sense it that it will show that smoking is relatively insignificant as an annoyance compared with scores of other personal practices, against which there are no organized efforts."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman notes that surveys done by both companies (RJR and Edelman) showed that "the smoker himself has no pride, feels guilty, ashamed, is not willing to defend or describe the pleasure he gets from smoking." Edelman seeks to correct this by undertaking a campaign to associate smokers with "elegance, style, class, and intellectual responsibility -- personality traits that can give him pride."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This document, titled Taking the Initiative on Smoking: A Total Program shows how the tobacco industry sought to minimize the health dangers associated with primary and secondhand smoke exposure, and reinforce the social acceptability of smoking, even as public health efforts were ongoing to discourage smoking.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other campaigns</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In November 2001 Edelman was called on to advise the Red Cross is America after it decided to set aside $264 million of the $564 million it raised for its Liberty Fund in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks for victims of any future terrorist attacks. It was a decision that angered the families of victims and legislators. [8]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman was hired in February 2002 by financial services companies to organise Americans for Sensible Estate Tax Solutions, a front group to reduce estate tax. The campaign argued that the reduction of the tax would reduce the need for the rich to resort to tax shelters and increase donations to charities. [9]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman was called on to assist Wampler Foods after a US federal investigation into products from the poultry packing company were identified as likely to have caused a fatal outbreak of listeria. According to a report in O'Dwyer's PR Services Report, the Centers for Disease Control, the US Department of Agriculture and local authorities identified that precooked turkey deli meat was the likely suspect of the outbreak which infected 46 people, killing seven, since July. The agencies said one food product and 25 environmental samples taken at a Pilgrim's Pride plant in Pennsylvania tested positive for listeria.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wampler had claimed in a media release that "no illnesses associated with the listeria strain in the Northeastern U.S. outbreak have been linked to any Wampler products" and argued that listeria often occurs naturally in the environment. [10]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The American Council for Fitness and Nutrition (ACFN) -- a coalition of food and beverage companies -- in November 2002 selected Edelman and Dittus Communications to counter calls for regulatory action to deal with the obesity epidemic in the US. ACFN funders include American Frozen Food Institute, Kraft Foods, Chocolate Manufactuers Assn., Sugar Assn., Grocery Manufacturers of America, National Restaurant Assn., National Council of Chain Restaurants, and the Assn. of National Advertisers. [11]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In October 2002, Edelman signed a pledge that it would not work for tobacco companies when it won the account with the non-profit group, the National Dialogue on Cancer. However, the specialist publication, The Cancer Letter (TCL), revealed in July 2003 that Edelman had undertaken work for British American Tobacco’s Malaysian subsidiary in promoting its social reporting project. Edelman’s Vice Chairman, Leslie Dach, told TCL that the contract with BAT Malaysia had “slipped through the cracks” and had been cancelled when it was drawn to their attention. [12]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman was called on by the French-owned Sodexho Alliance to defeat proposals by a Republican congressman to strip the company of its $880 million food service contract with the Marines and award it to a US owned company. [13]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the leader in pharmaceutical PR, Edelman is a leader in managing crises for clients and development partnerships between drug companies and patient groups. “So what does PR stand for?” asked Nancy Turett, the president and global director of Edelman Health. “It stands for powerful relationships. The heart of PR is third-party credibility,” Turett wrote in Pharmaceutical Executive in September 2002. “Third-party messages are an essential means of communication for validating scientific credibility, for legitimizing products, for building brand and disease awareness, and for building defenses against crises,” Turett wrote. “As advocates develop louder voices, pharma companies must forge alliances and win allies.” [14]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In February 2004 the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Edelman's Chicago office had contributed $32,600 to Illinois Democratic Party Governor Rod Blagojevich. The story also reported that Edelman's contract with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Development (DCED) to promote tourism had been renewed despite competition from rival PR companies Ketchum and Ruder Finn. The three-year contract was reported to be worth $6.2 million with $12.2 million having been paid to the company since 2000.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Edelman was not the lowest bidder, the director of communications for the department, Laura Hunter, told PR week the contract renewal was "entirely based on their qualifications." [15]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman Chicago's general manager of consumer practice and tourism practice leader within the agency told PR Week defended making political contributions as a part of a strategy to win contracts. "It's really a part of doing business ... We have made contributions throughout the history of the company really because we're a part of the community," she said. [16]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In March 2004 the U.S. Department of Commerce hired Edelman and M&C Saatchi was hired by to manage a advertising and PR campaign to boost the numbers of visitors from Britain. According to PR Week, the campaign is aimed at overcoming America's 'brash' image and opposition to America's foreign policy. Edelman's UK joint chief executive Nigel Breakwell told PR Week that at least 10% of the $US6m would be for PR. [17]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In April 2005 the PR trade publication PR Week revealed that Andrew Merrill, the global managing director of Edelman's financial communications practice, was heading up a team campaigning on behalf of eight former Morgan Stanley executives to topple the chairman CEO Philip Purcell. According to the report Merrill and five other staff in Edelman's New York office were working on the campaign.[18]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In October 2005, Reuters reported that Edelman is to mount an aggressive campaign against Robert Greenwald's new documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of a Low Price. In what is reported to be a movie industry first, Edelman's representatives emailed reporters press kits containing a point-by-point rebuttal of the film's trailer, which Wal-Mart is demanding be altered or removed from the walmartmovie.com website. (The trailer is under fire because the documentary itself will not be released until November 1, 2005.) "The press kit includes snippets from negative reviews of Greenwald's earlier works - one dating as far back as 1980 - and three examples of what the retailer calls factual errors in the latest documentary." [19]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman "is working with the American Petroleum Institute (API), the oil industry's primary lobbying group, on a public issues campaign aimed at convincing Americans that the industry is facing severe challenges, even as its members pull in record quarterly profits," PR Week reported in November 2005. [20] Print ads designed by Edelman's advertising unit, Blue Worldwide, "have run in major daily newspapers across the nation, as well as in Roll Call and The Hill." The print ads urge "consumers to adopt conservation measures this winter" and push for the removal of "barriers on the production of natural gas on federal lands." Blue Worldwide also launched "a new TV campaign that will run during news and public affairs programming, which started with NBC Nightly News" on November 10.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Health and nutrition panel</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In June 2008, Edelman announced the formation of the "Edelman Food & Nutrition Advisory Panel," staffed by "globally known food and nutrition experts" who will "provide strategic counsel to the firm’s food and nutrition staff in the areas of obesity, food ethics, food policy, functional foods, health claims, and nutrition communications," according to the Holmes Report. Panel members include Arthur Caplan from the University of Pennsylvania, Johanna Dwyer from the New England Medical Center, Gary Foster from Temple University, and Jeanne Goldberg from Tufts University. [12]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman Studios</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In May 2008, Edelman launched "Edelman Studios," a "virtual studio designed to pair emerging talent and established storytellers with brands and companies looking to connect with consumers in new ways." The effort will develop "television shows, short and feature films, and 'webisodes' from screenwriters, producers, and directors who will have the opportunity to compete for assignments from marketers," according to the Holmes Report. Initial clients included Burger King, Butterball, Expedia, and Kraft's Philadelphia Cream Cheese. [13]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Blog watchers</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In April 2005, Edelman and the "marketing intelligence" firm Intelliseek released a directory of the most influential bloggers and a white paper detailing the importance of blogs to marketing and PR. The directory "profiles bloggers in business, consumer packaged goods, consumer technology, healthcare, and marketing and public relations," and also "gives advice on blogger behavior and jargon."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Clients are calling us with increasing regularity, asking what's going on [with blogs] and how is this affecting the business," said Edelman executive vice-president and GM of diversified services Rick Murray. Murray also warned that companies face risks when "attempting to communicate with the blogosphere -- you will do yourself harm." [21]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman's white paper on blogs [22], called "Trust MEdia?: How Real People Are Finally Being Heard," was a little less ominous. "For companies, bloggers represent an immediate source of information and feedback, but also an opportunity to engage a rapidly expanding global network of influential, credible, passionate and involved group of real people who communicate constantly," said Pam Talbot, the head of Edelman U.S. The paper also notes that Edelman was the first major PR firm to launch a corporate blog, that of CEO Richard Edelman.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">International partners</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Edelman has agreed a strategic business partnership with Indo Pacific Public Relations (IPPR), one of Indonesia’s largest independent public relations firms," wrote the Holmes Report ("Edelman Forms Alliance with Indonesian PR Firm," March 19, 2007). The partnership, to be known as Indo Pacific Edelman, will be launched in April 2007.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Senior technical advisor to IPPR Chadd McLisky, will continue to lead a team of 114 staff and will work closely with Bob Grove, Edelman’s managing director for Southeast Asia, to support clients, particularly in the healthcare, technology, FMCG and oil and gas sectors," according to the Holmes Report.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Case Studies</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman lends E.ON UK a hand on the company's global warming woes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman's Campaign for INFOTAB on Environmental Tobacco Smoke</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Personnel</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Richard Edelman</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pam Tabot CEO & President, US</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michael Morley, is Deputy Chairman of Edelman Public Relations Worldwide and author of “How to manage your global reputation: a guide to the Dynamics of international public relations”, New York University Press, NY 2002.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nancy Turett, President and Global Director, Health.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kenneth Adelman, a senior counselor to Edelman, is a member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, a government-appointed group that advises the Pentagon, a national editor for The Washingtonian magazine, and former deputy U.S. representative to the United Nations. [23].</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michael Deaver, Vice-Chairman.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Leslie A. Dach, Vice-Chairman (Public Affairs specialist)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michael Burrell, European Chairman</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mike Seymour, Global Leader, Crisis and Issues Management</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Katie Levinson, senior vice president and political director in Edelman's New York public affairs shop. Levinson previously served as communications director for Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign, press secretary to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, director of television at the Bush / Cheney White House, and senior spokeswoman and director of broadcast media for the Republican National Committee in 2004. [14]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nicholas Burns, chair of Edelman's global public affairs advisory board; Burns previously worked at the U.S. State Department as under secretary of state for political affairs and as a spokesperson, and before that at the National Security Council [15]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mark Grundy, Corporate Social Responsibility</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mary Young, executive vice president of food and nutrition communications (formerly vice president of nutrition at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association) [16]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jane Madden, previously with the World Bank, was named Edelman's Senior vice-president of corporate social responsibility and sustainability in April 2009; she provides "strategic counsel and support to clients on environmental and social issues, developing CSR programs domestically and in emerging global markets, engaging with multilateral organizations, and developing stakeholder communication strategies." [17]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Income and employee totals</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">O'Dwyer's PR lists Edelman as earning $324,488,483 in net fees in 2006, up 23.9% on the previous year. It notes the firm has 2,259 employees. This makes it by far the largest independent PR firm since in second place is Ruder Finn Group with $99,303,000 in net fees and 593 employees. [18]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PR Week ranked Edelman as the number one PR agency in the United States in 2008, with 2007 revenue of $262,885,026, a 22% increase from the previous year's total revenue of $216,145,972. These totals are more than double the second largest PR firm, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide. The ranking also notes its staff total of 1,711, with $153,644 in revenue per employee.[19]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Clients</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Compiled from the O'Dwyer's firm listings and additional sources as noted.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Current</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Main source O'Dwyer's listing for Edelman (accessed April 2008): [20]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Abbott Laboratories</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Adobe, Inc</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Advanced Medical Optics, Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alston & Bird</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">American Egg Board</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">American Heart Association</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">American Petroleum Institute (API)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Arla Foods UK plc</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AstraZeneca</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AT&T Corporation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Attorneys' Title Insurance Fund</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Autodesk Inc</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Avanade, Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Avaya Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Barilla</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bayer</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Boy Scouts of America</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Burger King</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bush Brothers & Co.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Business Roundtable</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Canine Corporation Plc</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Canon</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cara Operations Limited</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Career Education Corporation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Charles Schwab & Co, Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chiquita Brands, Inc</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Church & Dwight</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Citrix Systems, Inc</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ConAgra Foods, Inc</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dairy Management, Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Danone</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Suzuki Foundation[21]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Deutsche Telekom</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Diageo</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Duke University</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dupont</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Esmark</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">European Commission</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">France Telecom</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">General Electric</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">General Services Administration</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GlaxoSmithKline</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">H.J. Heinz</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hanesbrands Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IAC/InterActiveCorp</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Illinois Dept of Commerce & Econ Opportunity</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Inbev</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">InFocus</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Johnson & Johnson</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kaiser Permanente</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kraft</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mars Incorporated</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MedImmune Inc</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Merck</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MetroPCS Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Microsoft</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mobile Top Level Domain, Ltd (mTLD)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Motorola</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MTD Products Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mushroom Council</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">National Cattlemen's Beef Association</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">News International[22]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nissan</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Northern Star Natural Holdings, LTD</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Novartis</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Oregon Bridge Delivery Partners</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Palm, Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Panama Canal Authority</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pfizer</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PhRMA</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PricewaterhouseCoopers</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pro Team Golf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Procter & Gamble</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Project Management Institute (PMI)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prom Peru</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Puerto Rico Dept. of Economic Dev</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Qwest Communications International Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Roche Holding Ltd</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Royal Dutch Shell plc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Royal Numico N.V.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Samsung</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sanofi-Aventis</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Schering Plough</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scotts</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shui On Holdings Ltd.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SICPA Holding SA</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Solvay</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sony</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Starbucks Coffee Company</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sun Hung Kai Properties Limited</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Symbol Technologies</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, LTD.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Boeing Company</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Time Warner, Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Toy Industries of Europe</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unilever</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">United Parcel Service</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whirlpool Corporation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wyeth</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In February 2009, the major military contractor ITT Corporation hired Edelman, to promote the company "in the defense in the defense and commercial markets, as well as raise awareness of its ongoing CSR," or corporate social responsibility, efforts. [23]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Past</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Main source O'Dwyer's October 2003 firm profile: [24]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Adidas</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">American Health Care Association</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">American Petroleum Institute</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Apple Computer</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Association of American Railroads</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Baxter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Berlex Laboratories</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Boeing</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bunge</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Butterball Turkey Co.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Campanha Serra</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chiron Corporation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Citibank</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cranium</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Diebold Inc. [25]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Eli Lilly & Co.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">European Society of Intensive Care Medicine</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Expedia</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">First Pacific Co. Ltd.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fuji Photo Film</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gap Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">General Motors</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Georgia-Pacific Corp.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gilead Sciences</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Henry Schein Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hershey Foods Corp.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Home Depot</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Household International</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IDA Singapore</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kimberly-Clark</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kinko's Inc.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MasterCard International</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michelin</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Motion Picture Association of America</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mutual of Omaha</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">National Association of Broadcasters</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">National Bedding Co.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Natuzzi</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Netflix</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New York City Economic Development Corporation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New York Life</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Orange</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Patton Boggs LLP</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Philip Morris (Chris Merrit, "Spin Doctor has some free advice for law firm", Australian Financial Review, May 10 1996)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Progress Energy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Raytheon</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rockwell Collins</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shell [26]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Synopsys</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Taiwan Semiconductor</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thaksin Shinawatra</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Together Rx LLC</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unilever</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">VTech Industries LLC</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Valvoline Co. Wm.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wyndham International</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">YUM! Brands</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2002 Edelman won a $400,000 tourism promotion contract from the Cancun Convention & Visitors Bureau. The firm has also done travel PR campaigns for the Governments of Mexico, Egypt, Scotland, and Texas, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, and the Bitter End Yacht Club in the British Virgin Islands. [27]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In July 2002 Edelman won a $1 million issues management and government affairs account with the Puerto Rico Tourism Co. According to O'Dwyer's PR Services Report, the contract likely included addressing the controversy over the U.S. Navy's use of one of the islands for target practice. [28]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In May 2001 O'Dwyer's reported that Edelman were working for the government of Jordan to promote trade and economic development. [29]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contact information</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1500 Broadway</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New York NY 10036</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Phone: 212 768-0550</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fax 212/704-0128</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Email: ny AT edelman.com</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Web: http://www.edelman.com</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SourceWatch resources</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Blogging</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Citizens' Health Care Working Group</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Public relations firms</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shell</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wal-Mart Stores</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Richard Sambrook - vice chair</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">External links</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">StrategyOne</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Articles and other resources</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">See Edelman: External links</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">References</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? Edelman Public Relations, About Us:Welcome, organizational Web site, accessed November 23, 2010</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? Hamilton Nolan, "'Sometimes, you just have to stand up there and lie'," Gawker, February 13, 2008.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? Virgil Dickson, Under-fire advocacy group ALEC works with Edelman, PRWeek, May 10, 2012</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? Edelman, O'Dwyer PR, online public relations firm database, accessed August 2012</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? PR Firm Rankings: Independents, O'Dwyer PR, online public relations firm database, accessed August 2012</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? Activists target Edelman in climate change protest, PR Week UK, 7/17/2008</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? E.On Corporate Website, accessed 7/18/2008</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? Carbon capture at E.ON’s Kingsnorth coal plant, Carbon Commentary, January 14, 2008</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? Oxford Climate Action Spin The Spinners!, UK Indymedia, July 16, 2008</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? "Edelman: Our approach - the relationship imperative," archived page of the Edelman website from August 2004, accessed via the Internet Archive.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? Aarti Shah, "PepsiCo taps Edelman to lead multimillion-dollar campaign," PR Week, July 7, 2009.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? "Edelman Forms Food and Nutrition Advisory Panel," Holmes Report (sub req'd), June 29, 2008.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? "Edelman Launches Virtual Studio, Invites Talent to Pitch Clients," Holmes Report, May 4, 2008.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? Elizabeth Benjamin, "Giuliani Campaign Aide Joins Edelman PR," New York Daily News blog, March 25, 2008.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? "Edelman Lands State Veteran Burns," O'Dwyer's PR Daily (sub req'd), September 17, 2008.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? "Edelman Ropes Young," O'Dwyer's PR Daily (sub req'd), January 22, 2009.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? "Edelman Names Madden to Lead CSR and Sustainability Unit," The Holmes Report, April 12, 2009.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? "2006 Worldwide Fees of independent Firms With Major U.S. Operations", accessed May 2007.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? "2008 Agency Rankings," PR Week, 28 April 2008.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? "Edelman," PR Firms Database, O'Dwyer's PR, accessed April 9, 2008.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? Edelman, "Edelman Retained by David Suzuki Foundation to Provide Strategic Counsel in Quebec", Media Release, June 11, 2008.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? "[1]"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? Tonya Garcia, "ITT awards Edelman with account," PR Week, February 3, 2009.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Edelman</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Richard Edelman is the President & Chief Executive Officer of the Edelman public relations company, a position he has held since September 1996.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Commissioner, Latin Media & Entertainment Commission</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Advisory Trustee, International Business Leaders Forum [1]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">US Board of the Jerusalem Foundation [2]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contents</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;[hide]&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1 Background</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2 Edelman & Journalism</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3 Der Spiegel Hits a Nerve</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4 Contact details</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5 Resources and articles</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5.1 Related Sourcewatch articles</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5.2 References</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6 External links</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6.1 Articles by Edelman</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6.2 Articles About Edelman</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Background</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to his biographical note, prior to taking up his current position he was "president of Edelman's U.S. operations, regional manager of Europe and manager of the firm's New York office".</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He currently has "assignments for Schering-Plough, Swiss Re and Gap. "He has counseled several countries on economic development programs, including Egypt, Israel and Mexico".</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman boasts that he "has special understanding of the non-governmental organization (NGO) movement. He has spoken on this topic at several conferences including The Institute of Social & Ethical AccountAbility, The Conference Board and the World Economic Forum".</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"He has worked on several political campaigns including "Jim Thompson for Governor" and "Ed Koch for Mayor", according to his biographical note.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman told Esquire magazine "in this era of exploding media technologies there is no truth except the truth you create for yourself." [1]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Following the Federal Communications Commission warning that broadcasters should disclose the origin of at least some video news releases Edelman pragmatically conceded that disclosing government VNR’s "in some way" was reasonable. However, Edelman drew the line at labeling corporate VNR’s, which comprises the bulk of those produced. "I do not believe in the need for government to put a black box on any VNR that's produced for a company," he told PR Week. [2]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman & Journalism</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"How serious is it for PR that the man who runs the foremost center for press and public policy in the US is fundamentally skeptical about our profession?" wrote in a blog posting following a speech by Alex Jones of Harvard University's Shorenstein Center at a recent gathering of the PR Seminar, a rather secretive annual gathering of top public relations executives. [3]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jones told PR executives that news is moving away from objectivity, as "subjectivity, finding underserved markets, ideologically targeted, is a viable business strategy." The result is that we are "fast approaching a time of relative truths, resulting in an even more toxic partisan environment." Jones also lamented the cheapening of news and says that "media with reduced staff is looking for packaged content. The temptation will be high for PR people to do in print what has been done in video news releases."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edelman called Jones' remarks a "very important speech" and called on PR pros to "to recognize that with our enhanced opportunity comes a very real responsibility" to "be more credible" and adopt a policy of "total transparency."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Der Spiegel Hits a Nerve</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In response to an article in Der Spiegel reviewing the work of the PR industry, including examples of the work of Burson-Marsteller, Edelman and other major companies, Edelamn let fly. [4] "This article is basically a conflation of cinema-induced fantasy, anti-Americanism, anti President Bush, anti-capitalism, and fear of propaganda stemming from World War II," he claimed. [5]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contact details</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Web: Richard Edelman's Blog</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Resources and articles</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Related Sourcewatch articles</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">References</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? Board of Trustees, International Business Leaders Forum, accessed October 7, 2007.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">? The Jerusalem Foundation, Inc. (USA), Jerusalem Foundation, accessed May 13, 2010.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">External links</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Articles by Edelman</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Richard Edelman, "An Open Letter to Karen Hughes--A Search for Dialogue and Support", Speak Up, October 17, 2005.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Richard Edelman, "Are NGOs Returning to Activist Roots, or are they Maturing? How does Business Respond?", Speak Up blog, May 15, 2006, accessed November 30, 2006.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The Fork in the Road", Speak Up, May 30, 2006.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Richard Edelman, "Why Bother?", Speak Up, June 05, 2006.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Richard Edelman, "Hit Me with Your Best Shot, Again and Again", Speak Up, August 07, 2006; This post was in response to "Masters of deception", Der Spiegel, August 2006. (This is a rough translation of the article, in Word format, originating from the Hamburg office of the PR firm Edelman and posted to the blog of Richard Edelman).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Articles About Edelman</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Richard Edelman President & CEO Edelman", undated, accessed October 2004.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, "Flack Attack", PR Watch, Fourth Quarter 1996.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Erica Iacono, "DoE report cites a lack of ROI, not ethics", PR Week, April 25, 2005. (Sub req'd).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Categories:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Public relations professionals</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">United States</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In May 2012, PRWeek reported that ALEC had hired the notorious global PR firm Edelman. Edelman is the firm of choice for big tobacco, big oil, and big pharma, all key sponsors of ALEC. ALEC also held a special meeting asking right-wing bloggers, such as the Breitbart operation,for help in "a very aggressive campaign to really spread the word about what we actually do," as CMD has reported.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An "aggressive campaign" is clearly underway.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ALEC's note to legislators claims that CMD's "top investigative reporter" has a "lengthy criminal background." It links to a attack-piece published by a newly created entity called The Washington Free Beacon (WFB), the online publication of the self-proclaimed "conservative advocacy group" the Center for American Freedom.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In that piece, recent college grad CJ Ciaramella focuses on Beau Hodai, a freelance reporter who has written for the Center for Media and Democracy, In These Times, Prison Legal News, Extra! (a publication of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), and the investigative news publication he founded, DBA Press.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Beau has been researching and reporting on ALEC since late 2009. His reporting has detailed the relationship between ALEC and private prison contractors in the dissemination of bills based on Arizona's SB 1070, and has identified ALEC as one of the key forces behind attempts to destroy public employee unions and privatize public services.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Notably, the WFB attack job does not find any material errors in any of Beau's extensively documented reports on ALEC, but focuses on misdemeanor court records. It dwells on the fact that his legal first name is Mohamad. Beau has been nicknamed "Beau" since birth. (It is worth noting that "CJ" is not Ciaramella's legal first name but the nickname he uses instead of "Carl.")</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Beau recently stirred the pot with a special report detailing corruption in the Ohio General Assembly based on public records that raise questions as to whether the state's elected officials in ALEC are complying with Ohio's ethics laws regarding gifts.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Interestingly enough, Beau learned that exactly one week following the publication of the Ohio ALEC corruption story, a private investigation firm requested court records concerning a past arrest. Allegations from those same court records emerged as the centerpiece of the WFB attack article.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.prwatch.org/node/11717</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">fang; At CPAC — which was sponsored in part by API — ThinkProgress spoke to API representative André Carter at his organization’s booth at the convention. Carter is an account executive at Edelman, the K Street public relations firm that manages API. Carter told ThinkProgress that API has been “sharing resources, coordinating efforts” with Gingrich’s ASWF group for some time. When contacted for comment, API spokesman Bill Bush disputed that API was “working in any way” with Gingrich.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mar 12, 2021 — Research by the Brown sociologist Brulle found that five big oil companies combined have “spent nearly $3.6 billion in advertising purposes for ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PR Giant Edelman Breaks Pledge Not To Work For Dirty ...https://www.dailykos.com › story ›</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mar 16, 2021 — Between 2017 and 2019, AFPM paid Edelman some $12 million for public relations work. While disclosures don't show what work they did together, ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PR giant Edelman breaks pledge to not work for dirty energy ...http://redgreenandblue.org › 2021/03/17 › pr-giant-ede...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mar 17, 2021 — PR giant Edelman breaks pledge to not work for dirty energy climate deniers by taking AFPM money · Top Climate and Clean Energy Stories: · Share ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Drilled S3Ep3: Psychological Warfare, Astroturfing ... - DeSmoghttps://www.desmog.com › ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Apr 26, 2020 — Featuring: Bob Brulle, environmental sociology researcher at Brown University; Christine Arena, former Edelman PR executive; and clips from ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The PR Industry Has Been a 'Major' But 'Overlooked' Influence ...https://www.desmog.com › 2021/11/30 › pr-industry-m...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nov 30, 2021 — Edelman stood out with the most PR “engagements,” and also accounted for ... Brulle and Werthman noted that the study is not comprehensive; ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div>