PERSUASION BY LOBBY

And while we're considering the issue of our power to make people think about specific things in specific ways, we need to discuss that revered lobby technique that public relations professionals often employ in an attempt to persuade particular groups ”notably government ”to their point of view.

In his book A Social History of Spin , Stuart Ewan makes a compelling case for all the world to read that the PR industry steers the public mind, and by doing so undermines the very meaning of democratic principles. And although much of what the average PR person does at his or her desk on a day-to-day basis seems far removed from these earth-changing events, the more high-profile and often creative approaches to strategic public relations do, indeed, require an imaginative strategy that may cross the line into the murky area of manipulation.

One example of such a creative strategy is what places like the PR Watch [http://www.prwatch.org], a kind of watchdog on the PR industry, calls front groups. As new and creative as this approach might seem, it actually has a rather long and not altogether sparkling history.

In the 1930s, public relations pioneer Carl Byoir, a contemporary of Edward Bernays, was holding his own in the arena of developing new and original strategies to solve corporate communications dilemmas. As if his work as a front man for both the Cuban dictatorship and the German Tourist Information Office hadn't muddied his reputation enough, he went to work back home in the USA for grocery giant A & P. Although the actual facts of the story vary depending upon which source you read (the PR Museum [http://www.prmuseum.com] seems to present it as a legitimate lobby), Carl Byoir is credited with developing the first front group as a PR ploy.

When proposed taxation on chain stores threatened to close down his client's operation, he advised them to go down fighting. His strategy involved setting up what some sources indicate were in fact dummy organizations such as the National Consumers' Tax Commission and Business Property Owners Inc. to do what we might now call indirect lobbying against the tax. ^{[ 8]} To all appearances , these groups were grassroots organizations echoing the opinions of an often silent majority in a democratic society. At what point, then, does the front group overstep the boundaries of ethics? When is a front group manipulation and when is it simply a good strategy?

^{[ 8]} Bleifuss, J (1994) Flack attack, Utne Reader , January-February, pp 72-73, 76-77