“Secrets and Lies: The Anatomy of an Anti-Environmental PR Campaign” by Hager and Burton outlines how during the late 1990’s Timberlands West Coast Ltd. (a NZ government subsidiary logging company) employed Shandwick New Zealand Ltd., a Public Relations firm, as corporate activists. They embarked on an aggressive counter-campaign to undermine environmental campaigners opposed to the proposals for the dramatic expansion of West Coast logging. This is a prime example of how ‘money and power are …showed first 75 words of 463 total…

…showed last 75 words of 463 total…this case as they printed press releases originating from Shandwick’s as viable news stories. It took a book to be published before any story of misconduct was printed in the mainstream media. These elements interact with and reinforce one another. They fix the premises of discourse and interpretation and the definition of what is newsworthy in the first place, and they explain the basis and operations of what amount to propaganda campaigns.(Chomsky, 1988:1-2)