Introduction
5
They create perceptions without any public disclosure of who is doing the persuading or for what purposes. Although PR techniques remain a mystery to most people, the art of invisible persuasion has long been in the making. PR and corporate propaganda go back to the early part of the twentieth century. One of the first practitioners was Ivy Lee— often called the father of modern PR—who was hired by the Standard Oil Company to transform John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s reputation from “biggest criminal of all time,” as his detractors called him, to “the great benefactor of society,” as he is more commonly known today. Lee’s biggest competitor at the time was Edward Bernays, who was able to persuade young women to start smoking cigarettes on behalf of his client, the American Tobacco Company. From such precedents grew a profession reaching from big tobacco to the military-industrial complex, and now to health care. It uses deceptive tactics to influence how the public thinks and, ultimately, how lawmakers vote. Over the last several decades, through the skillful use of such tactics, the American health insurance industry has created a perception of its role and usefulness—its raison d’être—that obscures its real goal: profits. Many of the biggest and most influential PR firms in the country, including APCO Worldwide and Porter Novelli, have carried out deception-based campaigns over many years for health insurers, as I will describe. Their attitude and approach have all too often been to do whatever it takes to win. I should know; I often hired them for just this reason. That said, it is not my intention to write a book that condemns an entire profession. Many—probably most—PR professionals follow guidelines established years ago by the Public Relations Society of America, an organization that encourages ethical behavior among its members and all PR practitioners, and of which I have been a proud member for more than three decades. In fact, PRSA was one of the first organizations—and there have been many—to invite me to speak
206-44970_ch01_3P.indd 5
8/12/10 2:22 PM