Public Relations

The Burson-Marsteller PR form has established a partnership with Leeds Metropolitan University, the UK's largest university provider of public relations education. B-M will provide input into LMU's courses, share research, provide visiting lecturers and offer undergraduate and graduate training programmes, and LMU has also offered an honorary degree to company founder Harold Burson.

Agribusiness needs to use "attack technologies" against activists, according to Nick Nichols of the PR/crisis management firm Nichols-Dezenhall. Speaking to the annual business meeting of the National Pork Producers Council, Nichols quoted gangster Al Capone, who said: "You can get more with kind words and a smile and a gun than you get with kind words and a smile." (PR Watch has obtained a copy of Nichols' Powerpoint presentation to the pork producers.

This article examines attempts in England to establish a "press council" that would control what reporters are allowed to write about issues involving science and product safety, particularly in regard to genetically modified foods. Mae-Wan Ho and Jonathan Mathews report on the seamless way in which the corporations, the state and the scientific establishment are co-ordinating their efforts to suppress scientific dissent and force feed the world with GM crops.

Dairy Management Inc., a trade association funded by dairy industry check-off money for building U.S. dairy product demand, awarded an issues management account to Weber Shandwick. The contract is believed to be around $2 million. Weber Shandwick won the account over top-tier agencies Fleishman-Hillard, Edelman PR Worldwide, Burson-Marsteller and Porter Novelli. Sara Galvin heads the DMI account from WSW's Minneapolis office. She is supported by staffers in Washington, D.C. The campaign had been expected to focus on concerns raised by foot-and-mouth and mad cow disease in Europe.