Toxic Sludge Is Good for You by John Stauber, Sheldon Rampton

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(Paperback - 1st ed)

  • Pub. Date: October 1995
  • 224pp
  • Sales Rank: 350,989
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    Detailed Rating: "Intellectual Stimulation" See All

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    Product Details

    • Pub. Date: October 1995
    • Publisher: Common Courage Press
    • Format: Paperback, 224pp
    • Sales Rank: 350,989

    Synopsis

    Common Courage's number one seller blows the lid off of today's multi-billion-dollar propaganda-for-hire PR industry, revealing how public relations wizards concoct and spin the news, organize phony "grassroots" front groups, spy on citizens and conspire with lobbyists and politicians.

    Publishers Weekly

    Stauber and Rampton cite a classic example of image manipulation in this chilling analysis of the PR business. During the aftermath of the 1975 Three-Mile Island nuclear accident, a company spokesman said that a spark in the accumulated hydrogen bubble could result in a ``spontaneous energetic disassembly''otherwise known as an explosion. The authors trace certain specious practices of the $10 billion PR business to P.T. Barnum, who in 1836 wrote anonymous pro and con letters to editors about himself, generating heated interest. Modern public relations has evolved ``crisis management'' and ``anti-'' PR campaigns including sabotaging the tours of authors who challenge industry clients, for example, Jeremy Rifkin, author of Beyond Beef. The new euphemism for sewage sludge, ``biosolids,'' is part of a campaign to convince the public that municipal sludge, replete with an astounding array of toxic substances, is good for farm soil. The authors point to Business for Social Responsibility, an organization that includes The Body Shop, Ben & Jerry's and others, as now containing ``some of the most environmentally destructive corporations on the planet.'' Giant agencies extend their contracts to selling national policies, as Hill & Knowlton did in selling the Gulf war to the American public. Although most large news organizations at least rewrite PR materials, many smaller markets ``rip and read'' prepackaged video news releases. This is a cautionary reminder that much of the consumer and political world is created by for-hire mouthpieces in expensive neckties. (Dec.)

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    Customer Reviews

    Good, but way too slanted.by Anonymous

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    July 03, 2009: This book sheds a lot of light on the types of questionable and downright un-ethical PR practices that have occurred in the United States. I did however feel it was overly biased. The authors relentlessly unearth the evils of the PR machine, but become guilty themselves of slanting the issues.

    I'm fairly moderate--being conservative one some issues and liberal on others. Stauber and Rampton don't even try to hide their far left leanings. I found it especially interesting in chapter 10 "The Torturers Lobby" the authors don't mention a single socialist/communist regime in their list of countries with severe human rights abuses and the propaganda that supported them. No mention of Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's Great Leap Forward in China, or Pol-Pot's reign of terror in Cambodia? Instead they list South Korea as one of the governments with severe human rights abuses (pg. 150) SOUTH KOREA??? Do they seriously think that South Korea deserves to be on this list before NORTH Korea or China or Cuba or Iran?

    The book starts out as a good critique of the PR business, but seemed to slowly digress into a mere diatribe about the socio-economic issues themselves and less on the PR issues. If one didn't know better, it would seem that the only people and entities guilty of PR abuses are Republicans, Christians and big business.

    We can all agree that the examples in the book are despicable, and that the public has a right not to be deceived. The authors seem to think however that if PR would just stop covering up for big business; the Republican Party; Christians; and our evil government, that war, poverty, pollution, disease and torture would simply vanish into thin air. In my opinion they fail to realize at a fundamental level, these are ethical issues that go far beyond the scope of PR.

    Humans have wrestled with these issues since the dawn of time, let alone since the founding of Burson-Marsteller or Ketchum. While it's easy to naysay and blame the "system", it's not so easy to propose a viable solution. Do we tear down civilization and go back to a hunter/gatherer society? It's easy to complain about big business, yet we all like our indoor plumbing, cars, laundry detergent, IPods, cell phones, diet cokes and cable TV. We don't want to know how any of or modern conveniences are provided just so long as we can flush our toilet. Unless Stauber and Rampton's book was printed on 100% recycled paper with only water based coating and with soy and vegetable based inks in a factory run on 100% wind power...well you get the point.

    Must Read Book!by Anonymous

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    July 27, 2002: This book is a must read for anyone! Very informative, great research has been done for his book. Amazing book and brilliant authors.


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