''Secrets and Lies'', subtitled ''"the anatomy of an anti-environmental PR campaign"'', is a 1999 book by

Nicky Hager Nicky Hager (born 1958) is a New Zealand investigative journalist. He has produced seven books since 1996, covering topics such as intelligence networks, environmental issues and politics. He is one of two New Zealand members of the Internationa ...

and Bob Burton.

The book

The book documents the

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. ...

information put out by Timberlands West Coast Limited in order to win public support for logging of native forests on the West Coast of

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. The material is based on a large amount of documentation leaked by a staff member from the local branch of Shandwick (now Weber Shandwick Worldwide), a global public relations company, which had been hired by Timberlands to run a secret campaign against environmental groups such as

Native Forest Action Native Forest Action (NFA) was set up protect the publicly owned native forests of the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand from logging. The West Coast has extensive stands of virgin native forests and numerous organisations had lobbi ...

between 1997 and 1999. The book describes its tactics of surveillance of meetings, monitoring the press and responding to every letter to the editor,

greenwashing Greenwashing (a compound word modeled on " whitewash"), also called "green sheen", is a form of advertising or marketing spin in which green PR and green marketing are deceptively used to persuade the public that an organization's products, aim ...

, the use of SLAPPs, cleaning anti-logging graffiti and blotting out campaign posters in public places, and managing to install its pro-logging educational materials into schools. The book alleges that almost every pro-logging letter or article was organized by this campaign.

Reception and responses

In 2000, a press council complaint was made against a letter to the editor in ''The Press'', which argued that Hager had lied in the book. The complaint was not upheld, because the Press Council ruled that it was responsible for vetting robust debate in the letter pages. During a general Parliamentary debate in November 2006, when the book ''

The Hollow Men "The Hollow Men" (1925) is a poem by the modernist writer T. S. Eliot. Like much of his work, its themes are overlapping and fragmentary, concerned with post–World War I Europe under the Treaty of Versailles (which Eliot despised: compare " ...

'' had an injunction against its publication, the MP

Gerry Brownlee Gerard Anthony Brownlee (born 4 February 1956) is a New Zealand politician of the New Zealand National Party. He has been a Member of Parliament since 1996, was Leader of the House, Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery and Minister of ...

said of the author and the book: ''The Hollow Men'' documents behind the scenes activities of the National Party, of which Brownlee was deputy leader at the time. In 2009, Kerry Tankard looked back at the book in a review for '' Salient''. She concluded that: "As a study of how PR firms help corporations to spin and manipulate public opinion, I’ve seen none better."

References

External links

Detailed rebuttal
of the book b
Chris Perley
a New Zealand forestry and agriculture consultant. {{DEFAULTSORT:Secrets And Lies (Hager) Environment of New Zealand New Zealand books Environmental non-fiction books Non-fiction books about public relations Greenwashing 1999 in the environment 1999 in New Zealand Potton & Burton books