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Toxic Sludge is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public Relations Industry by John C. Stauber and Sheldon Rampton. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1995, 236 pp., $29.95 cloth [ISBN: 1-56751-061-2], $16.95, paper [ISBN: 1-567514]. Reviewed by Jon Entine, Journalist, Columbus, Ohio
To most people, "muckraker" suggests the underbelly of journalism: shady investigative reporters picking through detritus of the high and mighty for salacous innuendo, all in the name of ratings or selling papers. "Muckraker" has become equated with sensationalism and questionable balance, we've been snookered by the public relations industry.
"Muckraker" has become the favorite word of the corruptor to switch focus from the message-corporate and political abuse of power-to the messenger, usually the media, corruption's favorite whipping boy. John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton's Toxic Sludge is Good for You: Lies, Dann Lies and the Public Relations Industry, an ambitious, populist analysis of the public relations business, offers many insights into how opinion manufacturers shape public issues to the commercial advantage of their clients. This is not a comprehensive analysis of the multi-billion dollar industry. It is an insightful, frequently polemical account of how l9th century "flim-flam" artists evolved into today's below-the-radar spin meisters. It supplements, rather than supplants, mainstream texts.
At its best, Toxic Sludge shows how modern public relations, which originated as part of the corporate backlash against turn-of-the-century populism, has become a communications medium in its own right. By the late l9th century, the industrial revolution had led to great disparities in wealth. An aggressive press emerged to document the social convulsions. In 1899, a premier magazine of the era, McClure's, ran a savagely accurate 11-part deconstruction of Standard oil's stranglehold on the oil industry. Not surprisingly, Big Oil's PR operatives vilified the reporter, Ida Tarbell; the accusations were all "muck" with no substance, they claimed.
Tarbell helped usher in the anti-trust era and contributed to the election of "Big Stick" Teddy Roosevelt, who coined the word "muckrakers" to describe with admiration journalists who expose corruption. The oil monopoly was eventually dismantled. "Muckraker," rather than a scarlet letter, became a badge of honor worn by a...