A “culture of secrecy” pervades the highest levels of the PR industry says Bob Burton is his powerful book Inside Spin, which won this year’s Iremonger award [2007] for writing about public issues.

The industry’s peak body, the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA), expects members to adhere to a “strict” code of conduct. But Burton maintains the industry maintains a “culture of secrecy” and estimates only about a quarter of the people employed in the industry are members of the PRIA. Its code of ethics obligates members to disclose sources of funding for campaigns, but another provision in the code requires members to “safeguard the confidence of clients”. In effect the latter provision trumps the first.

The contradictions implicit in this situation are damning, Burton says, especially given the drive from PR companies to promote the notion of corporate social responsibility among their clients. “For many companies, disclosing the names of clients is a balancing act between wanting to impress potential clients with their PR prowess while avoiding debate over some of their less savoury clients and controversial campaigns.”

The book is timely given the boom in the PR industry in the past half decade. In that time it has grown at a rate of 20 per cent, and it turns over more than $1 billion a year in Australia. Despite employing about 10,000 people it is difficult to get a full sense of the industry. “Exactly who falls within the PR profession is something of a moot point, as the boundary lines between PR, marketing and lobbying are often blurred,” says Burton.

The chapters on the relationship between PR and the pharmaceutical and tobacco industries are especially revealing. Globally the drug industry generated $US 608 billion in revenues last year. It is the world’s most profitable stock market sector. Australia’s share of the market is small but still worth $7.8 billion a year in sales. Dr Peter Mansfield from the industry watchdog Healthy Skepticism points out that the anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx killed hundreds of Australians in 2004. ”It killed more Australians than the Bali bombing and we are spending billions on anti-terrorism projects but we are not doing anything about drug advertising.” Ironically, the drug industry sponsors Australia’s most lucrative journalism awards.

Burton identifies the heart of health and pharmaceutical PR as third-party credibility – getting seemingly independent groups to say nice things about drug companies and their products. “Third-party messages are an essential means of communication for validating scientific credibility, for legitimising products, for building brand and disease awareness, and for building differences against crises,” Burton quotes Nancy Turett, president of Edelman’s health practice, as saying. Little wonder, Burton wryly notes, that the tobacco industry has a better reputation in Australia than the pharmaceutical companies.

Last year the global tobacco industry generated revenues of $US 348.57 billion. Smoking was also responsible for the death of 750,000 people, the World Health Organisation calculates. The industry has decided to opt for “reputation management” as part of its campaign strategy. Burton notes that in Australia many PR programs for multinational companies work from a global template. The policy in Australia appears to be based on a commitment to combating under-age smoking, promotion of sensible regulations governing the manufacture and marketing of tobacco products and the demonstration of “good corporate conduct”. Burton joins the dots in showing how in Australia both these industries appear to turn to PR companies staffed by people with links to former government ministers and lobby groups. Burton also shows the links between tobacco and major media companies. He cites a 1985 memo from Hamish Maxwell, CEO of Philip Morris, the world’s largest private tobacco company, saying that media proprietors such as Rupert Murdoch were “sympathetic to our position”. The media “like the money they make from our advertisements”. Murdoch was on the board of Philip Morris from 1989 to 2002.

Burton also illustrates the influence of think tanks. Last year articles from the Institute of Public Affairs, based in Melbourne, appeared an average of almost four times a week in the opinion columns of major newspapers. Most of that content is supplied free. Burton describes the IPA’s role as clearing the way for politicians and officials “to implement policies deemed too politically toxic to touch”. Think tanks are equally secretive about their funding sources, Burton says. He details the involvement of think tanks in major issues of the past few years, including the sale of Telstra, environmental concerns, Australia’s water policy, and free trade agreements. He describes their approach: obscure the funding source, court journalists with impressive-looking research and readily available talking heads, and “dovetail advocacy with allies in the media and politics to develop an ‘echo-chamber’ effect”.

This is a welcome book. It should be on the reading lists for all of the country’s journalism and public relations programs, especially the chapter “It takes two to tango” on the symbiotic relationship between journalism and PR. No hard data are available but the PR industry in Australia is growing – in July this year The Australian Financial Review highlighted the rising demand for graduates – while the ranks of journalists are thinning. The allocation of resources to online journalism, boosted by the growth of broadband, is putting more pressure on daily newspapers, traditionally the agenda setters.

Professor Steve Ross, recently retired from Columbia University, produces an annual survey of journalists’ use of the Internet. He concluded in his 2002 survey that journalists’ use of the Internet for research, especially for breaking news, had become “almost universal”. As journalists look to the web for information, PR companies are content to satisfy their needs behind the safety of online anonymity.

Burton believes the spread of the “invisible” and secretive forces that shape public debate in Australia is bad for society and incompatible with a healthy democracy. Australia’s democracy will be in trouble, he says, if the only voices citizens hear in public debate belong to people with enough wealth to fund PR campaigns, “especially clandestine PR campaigns”. By “shining a light” on the PR industry with this book, he hopes to help citizens, journalists and activists “understand how spin really works and help curtail its seemingly never-ending spread”. As United States Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis noted in 1914, sunlight continues to be the best disinfectant.

Inside Spin: The dark underbelly of the PR industry by Bob Burton, published by Allen & Unwin, 2007, has 313 pages and costs $29.95.

* Review written September 2007.

The federal election is being fought online as well as in the streets and malls of the marginal electorates. What is happening with the online campaigns? Stephen Quinn takes a look.

That damn worm. As a former journalist I squirm when I read the hundreds of column centimetres about the worm, the device used to measure audience reaction to political speeches. The audience for the federal leaders’ debate was 90. The audience for the Costello-Swan debate was 50. The margin of error for such tiny audience samples would be in double figures. So the worm is a major concern to anyone who understands basic statistics.

What has the worm got to do with online coverage of the federal election? Any attempt to predict a result based on online coverage would involve as many brain cells as the average worm, and be as statistically valid.

Various opinion polls have been predicting a Labor win for months. But during the actual election campaign, in the past three weeks, the difference has come back to about 6 points. For the groups sampled by the main pollsters, the margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. This means the reported gap of six points between the major parties could produce a close result.

This article would never dare suggest that many journalists covering the election are numerically challenged. But when did you last read an opinion poll that included the margin of error?

Having said that, let’s get a wriggle on and look at how the election is shaping online.

We’ll start with Facebook and MySpace, the most popular social network sites. MySpace’s main audience is aged between 14 and 30, and tending towards the teenage end of the continuum. Facebook is the MySpace for the over 30 brigade.

Kevin Rudd has both a dedicated election web site, at http://www.kevin07.com.au/, and a MySpace account. John Howard does not appear to have a MySpace account. He gets plenty of online space at the official Liberal Party site (http://www.liberal.org.au/). The site makes powerful use of video rather than text. It seems to know its audience. And I liked the easy access to information about candidates in individual electorates.

Kevin07 is a pretty cool site. It also focuses on video and gives easy access to key topics. But just as revealing are the hundreds of comments on the Whirlpool archive (http://whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/796765.html) about this site. They provide a totally unscientific sense of what the audience thinks about Kevin07. These comments cannot and should not be reported in any article because all come from people with pseudonyms so it’s impossible to verify their accuracy. But the do make for fun reading.

Most analysts expect the under 30 group to vote for Rudd. So the people who may decide this month’s election will be the 55+ group. In some respects it’s pointless writing about the impact of online on that group. Most recently available ABS data suggest that only 21 per cent of people aged 60 or older had used the Internet in the previous year.

Dr Norman Abjorensen, lecturer in politics at the ANU, described this as the first blog election, noting that never before had a campaign been so analysed and disected as this one is online. “I suspect from anecdotal evidence that this is drawing in people, especially the younger ones, who might not otherwise be interested in or taking much notice of an election campaign.

“It is the shape of things to come, just as television was a few years ago, and the politicians who can master the new medium now, as those that did then, will be the ones who dominate the coverage” Dr Abjorensen said.

Both leaders have a Facebook site. For the uninitiated, Facebook is an online place where people establish a free profile, which usually includes a photograph and a biography.

Two graduate students at Harvard University in the US invented it, but in the past year Facebook has moved beyond universities and spread around the world. Late last month Microsoft paid $US 240 million for a mere 1.6 per cent stake. This values Facebook at an astronomical $US 15 billion.

As of November 8 Rudd had three Facebook accounts, and a total of 5,838 friends. PM John Howard also had three Facebook accounts, but only 3,049 friends. Any attempt to base an election prediction on these numbers would be as valid as trusting the accuracy of the worm.

None of the six Facebook accounts provides any information about either candidate. You have to go to Wikipedia, the online user-provided encyclopaedia, for that. Blogs are providing some astute coverage. Hugh Martin, general manger for the online in Australian Provincial Newspapers, said some of the most interesting election commentary came from non-mainstream commentators such as academics. “People like economist John Quiggin offer some very astute opinions in their blogs.”

All of the mainstream media have an election site. The ABC site is, as usual, professional and formidable. The broadsheet newspapers tip most of their print content onto the web site, so we tend to get the same “commentariat” online and in print. During the first cricket test, the SMH did not have a link from its home page to the election. The cricket was obviously more important.

The Australian’s site, news.com.au, provides some fun material in the shape of Nicholson animations and Leak cartoons. These are a pungent delight and show how to mix spinach with sweets to get people to spend time on the election site.

Crikey offers an extensive election site, and a clever election tracker (http://www.electiontracker.com.au/). Its collection of commentators, the “Crikey Commentariat,” make for a good read.

And I like the Australian Electoral Commission’s clock that counts down the days and minutes before election day (http://www.aec.gov.au/).

But the most interesting site comes not from mainstream media, but Google (http://www.google.com.au/election2007/). It offers what the web does well: Videos of candidates via YouTube, and Google maps which allow people to find their electorate, see their seat in satellite view, and explore marginal seats.

Voters can monitor a specific House of Representatives seat and search Hansard and MPs’ homepages to see what MPs have said on specific issues. My favourite is the election trends site that allows me to see graphically and quickly what issues and politicians are hot in the news and on Google.

So much more useful than that damn worm.

* Published in The Age Just before the federal election in November 2007