Hill+Knowlton Strategies: Difference between revisions

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https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hill_%26_Knowlton
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hill_%26_Knowlton
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rendon_Group
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rendon_Group


== Cited ==
== Cited ==

Revision as of 19:32, 10 November 2022

Propaganda Campaigns

Steel Pollution

The PR firm known today as Hill+Knowlton Strategies was founded in 1927 with the Otis Steel Company in Cleveland, Ohio as a major first client.[1][2]

For the next 30 years, the firm had a reputation for defending the steel industry in public relations campaigns, including against striking workers most notoriously in the steel strike of 1952. [2][3]

Throughout this time, the steel industry not only had a known devastating environmental impact in terms of land contamination and Air Pollution in the areas surrounding manufacturing centers, it was also a central driver of industrial fossilization and greenhouse gas pollution.

A study conducted by CarbonBrief in 2021 found that the steel industry today remains responsible for 9-11% of global CO2 emissions, due to the fossil-fuel intense process used to manufacture it.[4][5]

Tobacco & Cancer

Starting in the 1950s, when the scientific consensus establishing the direct causal link between tobacco abuse, cigarette smoke, and lung cancer was established, Hill & Knowlton was hired as a PR agent for decades to protect the industry's profits and deny the enormous harm of the tobacco epidemic. [6] Hill & Knowlton played a central role in this campaign, as the architect of the industry's strategic plan of pseudo-scientific denial - "doubt is our product."

Carl Thompson, a Hill and Knowlton account executive, told a staff gathering in 1962: "What we do for tobacco has been said to resemble an iceberg— only one-ninth of it can be seen—the rest is submerged and unseen but important."

The same year, the company's official reports cited its tobacco propaganda campaign as highly influential on its future work, giving it "experience and personnel for dealing with scientific and medical problems in far better fashion than we had been previously able to do. This has been of considerable help to us in being prepared to deal with similar problems of other clients."[7]

Pollution Denial

Hill+Knowlton Strategies co-founded in the 1970s the Asbestos Information Association, which by denying the health risks of asbestos is responsible for thousands of lost lives.[8] Hill+Knowlton was also involved in similar practices concerning lead, vinyl chloride[9] and CFC.[10] During many of these operations Hill+Knowlton worked with notorious climate denier Fred Singer.

Money Laundering

In the 1980s, Hill + Knowlton represented the Bank of Commerce Credit International (BCCI) during its money laundering scandal. Until BCCI's conviction, the firm pressured regulators not to investigate the bank.[11][12]

Wars for Oil - Iraq

In 1990, Hill + Knowlton Strategies was paid $10 million to elicit false testimony in Congress to fabricate a pretext for former President and CIA Director George H.W. Bush's planned invasion of Iraq [13] [14]. The testimony elicited was proven false after the invasion,[15][16] and relied on images funded by the CIA and its partners such as the Rendon Group and Hill & Knowlton.[17]

Starting in 1991, Mark McKinnon, the Vice Chairman of Public Strategies (now part of Hill + Knowlton Strategies), worked on a number of high-profile Texas political campaigns which earned him the media appellation "the Spin Doctor."[18][19] After meeting then Governor George W. Bush at a dinner at the governor's mansion, McKinnon and Bush developed a personal relationship. According to Karl Rove, "Bush and McKinnon clicked from moment one. In a bow to McKinnon's cool image, Bush dubbed him 'M-Kat.'" McKinnon claimed he was charmed by Bush Jr.'s "compassion." [20] He went on to lead the advertising and media team for Bush's gubernatorial campaign in 1998, and became president of Maverick Media, created for the purpose of electing Bush as president.[21] He was the chief media advisor and advertising director of Bush's first and second presidential campaigns, and was appointed by Bush to serve as a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, responsible for the U.S. government's international broadcasting programs.[22][23]

At the Pentagon, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld drafted Victoria Clarke, head of Hill & Knowlton's D.C. office, to fabricate the pretext for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.[24][25] As Rumsfeld’s Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, Clarke oversaw the implementation of a psychological operations campaign involving more than 75 retired military officers who met regularly with Pentagon officials and served as unofficial conduits for broadcasting pro-war propaganda on large corporate newscasts including Fox News, CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS.[26] Together, these officers circulated and amplified falsehoods such as the claim that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction.[27] In the run-up to the war, Bush Administration officials made over five hundred false claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.[28]

Fracking

Hill & Knowlton has worked closely to generate propaganda for the fracking industry in recent years.[29]

COP 27

In November 2022, Hill & Knowlton, as official PR firm for the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, was criticized by scientists and environmentalists for having an appalling conflict of interest due to its century-long track record of pollution denial on behalf of fossil fuel and other industries.[30][31]

Scope

Hill & Knowlton represents or has represented up to 50% of the corporations on the Fortune 500 list.[32][33]

Ownership

Hill+Knowlton Strategies is owned by WPP plc, whose chairman Philip Lader is a senior adviser to Morgan Stanley and Palantir, serves on the boards of Marathon Oil and RAND (where he was formerly the vice chairman), and is a member of the Rockefeller-founded Council on Foreign Relations.[34]

Sources

Pyrolize

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hill_%26_Knowlton

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rendon_Group

Cited

  1. ↑ Scott M. Cutlip (2013). The Unseen Power. Routledge. ISBN 9781136690006. Retrieved 5 October 2014.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Jeffrey Goodell (9 September 1990). "What Hill & Knowlton Can Do for You, (And What It Couldn't Do for Itself)". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 October 2014.
  3. ↑ Karen Miller. Business and Economic History Volume 24 (PDF). Business History Conference. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 May 2013. Retrieved 5 October 2014.
  4. ↑ https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-these-553-steel-plants-are-responsible-for-9-of-global-co2-emissions/
  5. ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2021/08/19/how-sweden-delivered-the-worlds-first-fossil-fuel-free-steel/?sh=345af9a06b55
  6. ↑ http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/zkh84c00
  7. ↑ find cite
  8. ↑ https://cprlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/AIA-Article-AJPH.pdf
  9. ↑ Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health, David Michaels, 2008, chapter 5
  10. ↑ Optimistic Environmentalist, The: Progressing Towards a Greener Future, David R. Boyd, ECW Press, 2015
  11. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=pTr8AQAAQBAJ&q=Hill+and+Knowlton+BCCI
  12. ↑ http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-08-21/business/1991233107_1_mankiewicz-relations-clients-international-clients
  13. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/oct/04/socialsciences.highereducation
  14. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=uWadPwAACAAJ&q=Toxic+Sludge+is+Good+For+You:+Lies,+Damn+Lies+and+the+Public+Relations+Industry+Paperback+by+John+Stauber
  15. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/14/business/the-media-business-advertising-a-dispute-in-the-public-relations-industry.html
  16. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20190407152520/https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1992-07-08-9202180589-story.html
  17. ↑ https://www.academia.edu/36107361/9_11_and_American_Empire_Intellectuals_Speak_Out
  18. ↑ http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2008/05/where-are-they-now-mark-mckinnon/
  19. ↑ http://www.texasmonthly.com/1996-11-01/feature5-1.php
  20. ↑ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/architect/interviews/mckinnon.html
  21. ↑ http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2008/05/where-are-they-now-mark-mckinnon/
  22. ↑ https://projects.publicintegrity.org/consultants/default.aspx?act=profiles&pid=2
  23. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20090716161937/http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/2707
  24. ↑ https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/20/how-they-sold-the-iraq-war/
  25. ↑ http://www.spacewar.com/2003-a/030616173206.f68gs5zs.html
  26. ↑ Barstow, David. “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand,” The New York Times, April 20, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html
  27. ↑ Blumenthal, Sidney. “Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction,” Salon, September 6, 2007. https://www.salon.com/2007/09/06/bush_wmd/
  28. ↑ Reading-Smith Mark, et al. “Search the 935 Iraq War false statements,” The Center for Public Integrity, July 1, 2004. https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/06/24/14969/search-935-iraq-war-false-statements
  29. ↑ http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/grey-energizes-americas-natural-gas-alliance-100371
  30. ↑ https://cleantechnica.com/2022/11/06/400-scientists-call-out-cop27-pr-firm-for-supporting-fossil-fuel-clients/
  31. ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/04/environmentalists-slam-corporate-influence-un-climate-talks/
  32. ↑ http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/410/18/97357.html
  33. ↑ http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=1007204
  34. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WPP_plc
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