Re: Elizabeth Corcoran on MS Stealth PR

[Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>]

At 11:11 AM 4/11/98 -0400, James Love wrote:
>I would be interested in reactions the story by Elizabeth Corcoran in
>today's Washington Post.  My initial reaction was that he story only
>briefly mentions a few of the details of the phony "astroturf" PR
>effort, doesn't use the word Stealth at all, and portrays it mostly as a
>business as usual thing that big companies and PR agencies do. 

Some observations about the story:

1. The one document mentioned in the article is described as an "eight-
page proposal." The LA Times story mentions a binder full of
materials. Has Ms. Corcoran seen all of the documents discussed
in the LA Times story? Has she seen anything other than the one
memo that she claims to have obtained?

2. Ms. Corcoran confirms that Microsoft plans to commission opinion
pieces and letters to editors praising Microsoft. Since such letters
would have to be surreptitiously submitted to be printed (no editor 
would knowingly accept a letter that was "commissioned" by a company),
the company's argument that such submissions would not be covert
is specious. Yet she repeats that argument... uncritically.

3. The Washington Post is one of the newspapers in which Microsoft
is placing its regular, expensive "advertorials." Some have speculated
that the income generated by these ads is intended to influence
coverage. The influence could be subtle -- i.e. to "soften" stories
written about the company.

>I think that Elizabeth was accurate in pointing out that (some) big
>companies do this type of thing.  I think she was remiss in not
>questioning the broader implications for the public, who is mislead by
>such manipulative campaigns, or mentioning past MS efforts, such as the
>Barkto incident, the NT-PRO event at our conference, or similar efforts,
>which MS has done in the past. I also think she should ask the press a
>question -- does it have an obligation to tell readers when its op-ed
>pieces have been "planted" by a PR agency,  or should it do more to
>report various front group activities.  

It should, of course. But most journalists do not see the "big picture" --
especially when a company pursues subtle tactics on many fronts at once.
I wonder if Ms. Corcoran spends much time on the Internet? Interestingly, 
the Net has served as one of the best ways of aggregating data on the full 
scope of a company's activities -- and has thus done more to expose such 
agendas than any other medium in the history of Mankind. Putting things
in perspective, this mailing list is historic in that it's one of the first 
to be used to pull together the pieces of a very intricate puzzle of great 
importance.

--Brett Glass