Toxic Sludge Is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public-Relations Industry.

• Author: Fantle, Will
• Position: Brief Article

by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton Common Courage Press. 236 pages. $16.95.

Authors John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton have penned a startling portrait of the poisoning of the American democratic process by the nation's professional spin doctors. Toxic Sludge exposes the bare-knuckled, invisible hand guiding and shaping public opinions. It's the hand of the master practitioners who work behind the scenes for the giant public-relations firms.

P.T. Barnum may have been America's first P.R. expert, but it wasn't until this century that the industry really took off. Today it's a $10-billion-a-year business employing, according to Stauber and Rampton, 150,000 "flacks"--20,000 more than the number of working journalists in this country.

The contemporary use of P.R. has moved way beyond issuing ho-hum news releases and engaging in damage control. The top P.R. firms now set out to change laws and regulations, develop phony grassroots political campaigns, infiltrate and spy on local citizens' organizations, and suppress information damaging to the interests of their corporate clients. Readers will find an inside view into how these flacks have distorted debate on such issues as nuclear-waste disposal, BGH, animal rights, national health...