FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION #1: If the PETA Kills Animals phenomenon is a hoax, why are there so many articles and blogs available online indicating that its true? ANSWER: Though the Center for Consumer Freedom is a registered non-profit, over half of its $2.5 million dollar annual revenue is paid to its founders public relations firm, by way of billed staffing and operating expenses. The Center for Consumer Freedom is staffed and operated by Rick Bermans public relations firm, Berman and Company, a Washington-based research and communications outfit that prides itself on its media relations savvy. So what do public relations firms do for their clients? According to Forbes, A good agency or PR practitioner can analyze the organization, find the positive messages and translate those messages into positive media stories. When the news is bad, an agency can formulate the best response and mitigate the damage. An agency is a good listener to the marketplace and knows what conversation starters will work, but also what just might catch fire. Public relations firms start conversations, either about their clients or about their clients adversaries, and they do it by way of writing and distributing press releases and sending pitches directly to journalists. Public relations firms cultivate relationships with many different journalists to guarantee their campaigns are received by a broad audience. Since journalists dont actually work for public relations firms, their articles appear to have an unbiased outsider view, even though, behind the scenes, the journalists are often working closely with public relations groups to disseminate a very specific message. Public relations firms also specialize in crisis management strategies and develop counter campaigns to mitigate any damage their clients critics might do to their reputations. By way of its aggressive distribution of PETA Kills Animals press releases and its publishing the PETA Kills Animals website, the Center for Consumer Freedom effectively acts as both the messenger and the source for the disinformation it itself creates. Effective public relations firms identify where their operatives will have the most influence and they position them there. One the most influential positions a public relations operative can hold is being the Executive Editor of a major online news outlet. David Martosko, the Center for Consumer Freedoms former Director of Research and the public relations operative who created the PETA Kills Animals on behalf of the Center for Consumer Freedom, is the current Executive Editor of the Daily Mail, giving the Center for Consumer Freedom yet another tool with which to bend public debate in a direction that will benefit its clients. In a column titled, The DC’s Top 2012 Stories, Part 2: The ‘Animal Crackers’ Edition, David Martosko features the article, Documents: PETA Kills More Than 95% of Pets in Its Care, making the following statement: The documents, obtained from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, were published online by the Center for Consumer Freedom, a non-profit organization that runs online campaigns targeting groups that antagonize food producers, never disclosing to the Daily Mail readership that it was he who created the PETA Kills Animals campaign as the Center for Consumer Freedoms former Director of Research. David Martosko has been frequently cited as a source for the Center for Consumer Freedoms PETA Kills Animals material in other online publications and videos , including the Penn and Teller Bullshit episode featuring PETA. whypetaeuthanizes/how-the-center-for-consumer-freedom-disseminated-the-peta-kills-animals-campaign.html
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 00:37:59 +0000
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