Microsoft Not Alone In Planting Grass Roots

Welcome Guest. | Log In| Register | Membership Benefits

April 21, 1998 (3:49 PM EDT)

Page 1 of 3

By Malcolm Maclachlan,

Microsoft got grilled again earlier this month when details of its latest public relations campaign came to light. Working with Edelman Public Relations, the Redmond, Wash., software giant allegedly planned to launch a prefabricated "grassroots" campaign to aid it in its legal battles with the Justice Department and state attorneys general. The companies planned to use everyday citizens to plant letters to the editor and other materials that would make it seem there was an outpouring of public support for Microsoft.

The news prompted an outpouring of criticism against the company, both in the media and among the public. Microsoft then made the situation worse by issuing a denial, then retracting it. Yet media watchers and PR professionals have a cautionary message to those disturbed by the incident: Stop acting so surprised.

"It's totally common among all political/ideological types and stripes," says Jon Entine, a freelance journalist who writes about socially responsible business.

It's naive to think large corporations haven't noticed and emulated the types of campaigns that have been so successful for groups such as Greenpeace, Entine says. The sort of thing Microsoft tried is common enough to have a name: astroturfing.

Planting Astroturf
John Stauber, an investigative journalist with the Center for Media and Democracy, says it's likely that every member of the Fortune 500 has been involved in such a grassroots campaign, either individually or more likely through a trade group. Most consumers, Stauber says, have no idea how common astroturfing is. For this reason, he works to publicize such practices via PR Watch, the Center's news magazine.

"If you've got the money to spend, any company can gin up a grassroots campaign within a matter of days or weeks," Stauber says. "It's expensive, but it's pretty much off the shelf."

Such campaigns use corporate dollars to mobilize letter writing and telephone campaigns. Operators will often canvass citizens directly. If they find someone who supports the cause, they will offer to write a letter on that person's behalf, or to connect them directly to the office of their congressional representative. Well-run campaigns appear as spontaneous outbursts of public support, when they are anything but spontaneous, Stauber says.

"If you've got the money to spend, any company can gin up a grassroots campaign within a matter of days or weeks."
-- John Stauber
Center for Media and Democracy

Stauber cites numerous examples of supposed grassroots groups that really receive the majority of their funding through corporate sources.

One major example, Stauber says, is the National Smoker's Alliance. In a 1995 article titled "Smokin," Stauber and partner Sheldon Rampton charged that the Smoker's Alliance was created by "Burson-Marsteller PR with millions of dollars from Philip Morris." They said Burson-Marsteller executives Thomas Humber, Kenneth Rietz, and Pierre Salinger have served as officers and members in the Alliance, which seeks legal assistance for pro-smoking causes and coordinates letter-writing campaigns. The Smoker's Alliance also targets reporters who criticize the tobacco industry, such as Washington Post reporter Stanton Glanz.

Health care is an even more blatant example, Stauber and Rampton say. U.S. President Bill Clinton's 1993 health care initiative was defeated by the most effective astroturf campaign ever: Health insurance companies -- working through PR firms such as Beckel Cowan and Goddard-Clausen/First Tuesday -- were able to fund and create a seemingly disconnected group of numerous fake grassroots groups, under such names as The Coaltition for Health Insurance Choices and Rx Partners, according to Stauber and Rampton.

Next: Corporations have rights, too

Page 1 of 3