Opinions for Sale
Cutlip, Scott M.
Opinions for Sale TH E IMAGE MERCHANTS, THE FABULOUS WORLD OF PUBLIC RELATIONS, by Irwin Ross. Doubleday. 288 pp. $4.50. Reviewed by Scott M. Cutlip PUBLIC RELATIONS truly "is a...
...Their fame may be less than that of a Bernays, but their cumulative impact is greater...
...The author's New York-oriented life also explains the Madison Avenue emphasis...
...Guided by the standards of a good reporter, Ross sailed a steady course between the platitudinous pap found in practitioner-written journals and the sledgehammer criticism by those who view public relations as nothing but black magic used for evil ends...
...The result is a readable and informative book that deserves a wide audience...
...Given this knowledge and free access for all points of view in the public opinion market place, democracy will endure...
...The fact that our wire services and daily newspapers are abdicating more and more of the news reporting task to PR people serving primarily the interests of their employers deserves more attention than it is getting...
...Ross has done much the same job for public relations that Martin Mayer did for advertising in his Madison Avenue, U.S.A...
...We know that sometimes private interest and public interest coincide, sometimes conflict...
...The too-seldom recited failures of public relations campaigns "characterized by manipulation" speak well for the public's ability to define its own best interests...
...Ross' research is that of a good reporter rather than that of a scholar...
...Reviewed by Scott M. Cutlip PUBLIC RELATIONS truly "is a capacious term covering a multitude of activities," ranging from brassy press agentry to Presidential peace missions...
...It isn't checked, it isn't gone into...
...That the book grew out of this series of profiles explains its most serious weakness—undue emphasis on the well-known counselors centered in New York City as against the less well-known but larger army of practitioners, some 80,000 in number, employed as public relations specialists on the payrolls of corporations, cooperatives, community chests, colleges, churches, labor unions, hospitals, banks, trade associations, government, and so on, from coast to coast...
...To these profiles Ross has added a chapter on public relations in the non-profit field (mental health) and thoughtful discussions of the PR man's life, his ethics, his results, and his impact on society...
...The term is difficult to define, the field hazardous to generalize about...
...Opinions for Sale TH E IMAGE MERCHANTS, THE FABULOUS WORLD OF PUBLIC RELATIONS, by Irwin Ross...
...Ross shrewdly cuts through this shibboleth to say, "The public interest is a rhetorical device to win acceptance for policies which might otherwise be unpalatable...
...For example, he does not disr cuss fully the impact of this "fastestgrowing service trade" on our mass media...
...Both needed doing...
...Simply defined, public relations (PR) is a systematic effort to influence public opinion, either in one's favor or against one's competitor...
...Irwin Ross concludes his critical look at the practice of public relations with this: "We would all gain, in sum, if the PR man were edged out of the shadows and subjected to the glare of attention normally reserved for his clients...
...So would a large share of the public...
...Ross is quite right, and he has made an important contribution to this end...
...One chapter, that on Whitaker & Baxter, the slick salesmen of California politics, appeared in the July, 1959, issue of Harper's...
...The most solemn part of the ritual of PR practitioners proclaiming themselves professions is that, as John W. Hill puts it, "The foundation for good public relations consists of sound policies and good works conceived in the public interest...
...These days he is important enough to warrant continual scrutiny...
...Too often the more talented newsman is on the public relations side of the press table...
...Insofar as he blocks, suppresses, or distorts information, he hurts democracy...
...It is a rather alarming thing...
...You could get similar debate over whether Hill & Knowlton are serving "the public interest" in their service to the tobacco industry since medical research linked lung cancer to cigaret smoking...
...This book is an elaboration of a series of profiles of the major PR counseling firms which Ross wrote as a reporter for the New York Post...
...The basic fact is that the public must ultimately decide what is in "the public interest...
...I am sure that Hill conscientiously believes that the policies of the major steel companies which he has helped formulate and implement from the Little Steel Strike of 1937 to the Big Steel Strike of 1959 were "conceived in the public interest...
...This corrosion of our public communications channels is indeed an "alarming thing," but the culprit is not the PR man...
...The PR specialist meets an essential need in our specialized, segmented society plagued by communications breakdowns, by frictions born of misunderstandings, and by failure of the mass media to measure up to their job...
...Incidentally, Ross* appraisal of public relations is much sounder than Mayer's chapter on PR...
...He does not delve as deeply as he might into the impact of public relations...
...Public relations men serving the cause of labor would violently disagree...
...A former student of mine is quoted by Ross as saying: "We can get almost anything in the newspapers and magazines distorted, left out, omitted...
...Insofar as the public relations man serves that end, he serves democracy...
...This the public can and will do so long as it has free access to reliable information...
...Ross takes this larger group into account, but the emphasis in terms of space goes to the well-known names and activities of Carl Byoir & Associates, Hill & Knowlton, Ben Sonnenberg, Edward L. Bernays, Earl Newsom, Ruder & Finn, and other big-time counseling firms...
...We must focus our attention on knowing who these practitioners are and the causes they serve...
Vol. 24 • February 1960 • No. 2
