I just received my July issue of Harper’s Magazine, complete with an article about lobbying and public relations in Washington. Unfortunately, the article is behind a paywall, but it’s too good for me not to share some highlights.
It seems to me that this article screams for a legislative intervention and for an ethical rule at newspapers: the strengthening of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (You can search registrations under FARA here), and a requirement for oped writers to disclose their financial conflicts of interests. After all, what makes this all possible is newspapers like the Washington Post that routinely publish opeds by these think tanks.
I explained the background in an earlier post. Basically, Harper’s Ken Silverstein posed as a business interest from Turkmenistan, and approached four major Washington lobbying firms to see what they’d do for a foreign government with serious human rights issues.
APCO Associates, winner of PR Week’s PR agency of the year award in 2006, offered Silverstein a four part plan. First, “policy maker outreach,” which is simply setting up meetings with Congressmen. The others were more interesting:
…APCO promised to “create news items and news outflow,” organize media events, and identify and work with “key reporters.”
[…]
In addition to influencing news reports, Downen added, the firm could drum up positive op-eds in newspapers. “We can utilize some of the think-tank experts who would say, ‘On the one hand this and the other hand that,’ and we place it as a guest editorial.” Indeed, Schumacher said, APCO had someone on staff who “does nothing but that” and had succeeded in placing thousands of opinion pieces.
Discussion about the strategy’s third item–building “coalition support,” which meant developing seemingly independent and therefore more credible allies to offer favorable views about Turkmenistan–was brief.
[…]
How could we use think tanks and academics?…[the fourth element] …One possibility, Downen said, would be to hold a forum on U.S.-Turkmen relations, preferably built around a visit to the United States by a Turkmen official. Possible hosts would include The Heritage Foundation, the Center for Strategic & International Studies, and the Council on Foreign Relations. “Last week I contacted a number of colleagues at think tanks,” Downen went on. “Some real experts could easily be engaged to sponsor or host a public forum or panel that would bring in congressional staff and journalists.” The only cost would be refreshments and room rental–Schumacher joked that
[…]
Another option, he explained, would be to pay Roll Call and The Economist to host a Turkmenistan event. It would be costlier than the think-tank route, perhaps around $25,000, but in compensation we would have tighter control over the proceedings, plus gain “the imprimatur of a respected third party.”
This is all typical Washington PR, but the frankness with which groups like Heritage can be hired to do the dirty work is troubling.
Leave a Reply