How Britain's Spin Doctors Manipulate the Media
This is a ground-breaking expose of how Britain's spin doctors manipulate the media. In a country that is increasingly media dependent - Britons read twenty-eight million newspapers and watch an average three and a half hours of TV every day - few understand the degree to which the PR industry influences the news agenda. But in this compelling insider's account, David Michie reveals how much of what we take for news comes straight off the desks of the PR industry.
Probing the darker corners of financial and corporate PR, celebrity PR and political lobbying, 'The Invisible Persuaders' uncovers the power and personalities of the men who studiously avoid all forms of publicity themselves. From the secret media wars waged on behalf of British Gas and British Airways on their corporate enemies, to the machinations used by the chemical and tobacco industries to silence their critics, from the lucrative deal-broking activities of kiss-and-tell master Max Clifford, to the star studded world of celebrity PR, the strategies of Britian's most powerful spin doctors are unraveled. In his analysis of political PR, Michie show how the creation of 'New Labour' was one of the most spectacular spin doctoring achievements of recent times - and why, in the wake of the 'Cash for Questions' scandal, the lobbying of MP's was the reddest herrings in the public affairs industry.
