Public Relations

The PR industry is in dire need of PR help itself, according to industry leaders. Even before September 11, American PR firms "were looking at their first year of negative growth, slashing staff and shuttering offices as an economic slump wiped out clients and accounts," reports Andrew Quinn. According to Alan Kelly of a high-tech public relations firm in San Francisco, "We've swung from a media Camelot to what one of my colleagues has termed 'Death Valley.' "

The United States is engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity and presidential speeches designed to rally support for the war, which has begun to slip internationally. Even in Britain, America's most reliable ally, support for war has fallen from around three-quarters to two-thirds. And in the Muslim world, observes the Economist, "The burden of proof has shifted: America is being asked to prove it is not waging war against Islam."

An Australian public relations company working for the pharmaceutical industry has been accused of running a secretive dirty tricks campaign to discredit an industry critic. Sydney-based Susan Andrews Communications Group, which helped promote arthritis pill Celebrex for Pfizer and Pharmacia, was named in last week's Medical Observer magazine as the source of leaked documents attempting to smear former Government drug adviser Professor David Henry.

Environmental activists are stereotyped sometimes as head-in-the-sand hippies, but the protesters who are blockading logging in Western Australia are "some of the most organised and tactically smart activists around," according to Aizura Hankin, who profiles Louise Morris, a self-described "media liaison (media slut), police/industry liaison, and lock-on wench" for the anti-logging campaign.