WEBVTT - Melissa Aronczyk on the History of Greenwashing 0:00:00.360 --> 0:00:03.400 I have created the most advanced AI soldier. 0:00:03.640 --> 0:00:07.560 The weight is over tron aries now streaming on Disney Plas. 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:15.080 We are looking for something, something you've discovered, and some 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:19.000 of us will stop at nothing to get it ready. 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:21.520 The countdown is complete. 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:22.439 Professional going back. 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:27.639 Our directive is clear. Hang on tron aries now streaming 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:41.560 on Disney Plas. Rady BG thirteen, Welcome back to Drilled. 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:47.320 I'm Amy Westerveldt. We've covered a lot about propaganda and 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:52.120 disinformation in this podcast over the years. Today, I'm pleased 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:55.600 to bring you an extended conversation with someone I have 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.920 gone to multiple times for information on this subject, Melissa Ron. 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:04.880 She's a media studies scholar at Rutgers University. Her new book, 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:09.399 A Strategic Nature is one of the best most helpful 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:14.000 things I've read on how our understanding of the environment 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:19.760 evolved in the US, how environmental communications in particular evolved, 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:22.200 and what that all has to do with where we're 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:26.479 at now on the climate crisis in particular, Melissa spent 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:30.800 in particular Ironchik spent a large amount of time with 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:35.040 one of our mad Men from season three E Bruce Harrison. 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:38.560 In the last couple of years of his life. Harrison 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:41.880 died earlier this year, in January twenty twenty one, and 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:46.200 Aronchik spent and Ironchick was probably the last person to 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:52.080 talk to him in depth about his contributions to Climate Spin, 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:56.280 about his contributions to how we think and talk about 0:01:56.280 --> 0:02:00.480 climate change. We get into all of that and a 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.960 whole lot more in this conversation. I hope you enjoy it. 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:30.679 That's coming up after this quick break, Melissa, thanks for 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:33.600 talking to me today. I'm super excited to dig into 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:36.080 everything about this book, but I wanted to start with 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:40.840 asking you what prompted you to start researching and writing 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:42.280 this book in the first place. 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:48.400 I was thinking that the only way to understand the 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:53.679 role of the environment in our lives is to understand 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:58.720 how something called the environment has been invented and communicated 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:04.359 to us throughout history. So the actual concept of the 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:08.960 environment as a social problem or as a moral problem 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:13.519 would not really come out until the nineteen sixties. And 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:16.280 I think a lot of people know this story, the 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.880 story of the publication of Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring. 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:22.800 I mean, it's a landmark book for a lot of reasons, 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:26.680 but one of the big reasons was how it spoke 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:30.240 to a public that had not previously really thought about 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:34.600 the environment at all. So before the book itself came out, 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:36.960 there were excerpts of the book that appeared in the 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:41.760 New Yorker magazine, and that meant a very different readership 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:46.040 was exposed to the ideas in Rachel Carson's book. And 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:50.800 that story that she told was an absolutely terrifying story. 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:57.240 Silent Spring was about a landscape destroyed by pesticides where 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:01.240 nothing more could grow or thrive, no more birds, hence 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:03.920 the title of the book, No more Sounds in the Spring. 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:08.000 So Carson was an amazing storyteller and she reached a 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:11.080 lot of people. But of course she was not just 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.480 an amazing storyteller. She worked with the Department of Fish 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:19.160 and Wildlife for the federal government, and she was able 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:25.880 in her book to show how government agencies were colluding 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:30.919 with the irresponsibility of the chemical industry and with academic 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:36.440 scientists to hide some of the really terrifying stories about 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:42.560 environmental destruction. So what Carson's book did was create a public. 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.720 It created a public that cared about the environment and 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:50.640 that could then identify the environment as a precious set 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:56.039 of resources of land and air and water that we 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:57.000 needed to protect. 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.520 You tell this story in the early chapters of your 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:07.840 book about these kind of two flavors of understanding nature 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:11.479 and the environment that started to emerge the end of 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:14.400 the nineteenth century in the US, and that really kind 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.760 of went on to define how we think about nature 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:22.240 and the environment, mostly down to the ideas of two men, 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.320 John Muir and Gifford Pinchot. I want to have you 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:27.719 summarize that history for us here. 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.440 So essentially, if we want to look at the beginning 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:37.560 of a twentieth century national awareness about the need to 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:40.680 protect the natural environment, we have to look at the 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:45.880 naturalist John Muir and the forester Gifford Pinchot. And we 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:50.159 especially have to look at how they interacted, because each 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.279 of them came to stand for a very different idea 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:57.200 of what nature and forests in the environment meant in 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.240 the United States. And we also need to look at 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:02.800 who the winner was or what the outcome was of 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:06.719 their interaction. And to avoid the mystery, I'll tell you 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:09.880 the ending right now, which is Gifford Pinchot and the government. One. 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:16.320 Gifford Pinchot was considered America's first forester in the sense 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:20.760 of somebody who was professionally trained to manage forest, to 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:24.279 manage nature in the United States, and that's really important 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:28.480 because it introduces the idea that nature is something that 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:32.720 should be managed. Many people have heard of John Muir. 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:37.120 John Mure is considered in a way America's first naturalist, 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:40.960 first environmentalist, even though the word the environment was not 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:45.360 used at this time in history. But John Muir made 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:50.000 preserving the natural environment his life's work, so we could 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:54.720 if we had to distill Muir's vision of nature and 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:58.240 Pinchot's vision of nature, we would say that Muir was 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:02.400 interested in the preservation of the natural environment, or the 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:06.520 preservationist movement as it's come to be known, and Pinchot 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:10.800 was invested in the idea of conservation of nature. And 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:13.840 those two terms, if you read about them now, people 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:18.160 tend to mush them together or they're sometimes used to synonyms. 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:20.440 But if we think about it, in that time period, 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:26.280 preservationism what Mures stood for, was really about protecting the 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:32.160 natural environment. That meant creating parkland, creating forests, or protecting 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:35.840 forests and having boundaries drawn around them so that they 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:38.200 were owned by the federal government and could not be 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:41.200 used for any private purpose, and that you couldn't cut 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:43.720 down the trees, you couldn't use the water for anything 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:50.520 but the enjoyment of nature, Whereas for different Pinchot, natural 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:56.520 resources were just that resources. It was lumber that Americans 0:07:56.560 --> 0:08:00.600 needed for development, it was water that maybe needed for 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:06.600 serving cities that didn't have enough natural water resources. And 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:10.720 there was an economic benefit to protecting forests, but you 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:16.080 had to protect them for the service of American enterprise 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:18.920 in the American economy. So those were the two really 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:23.040 different points of view. So one of the ways that 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:28.120 Gifford Pinchot's vision of conservation ended up winning out was 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:32.080 that Pincho worked in the federal government with Theodore Roosevelt, 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:36.480 and Theodore Roosevelt knew John Muir as well, But I 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:39.439 don't think John Muir was ever taken quite as seriously. 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:42.679 He was not a bureaucrat by any stretch of the imagination. 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:47.040 He was an outdoor wilderness explorer. He you know, he 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:52.080 was very poetic and lyrical, and he attempted to use 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:56.400 pr in his way to get Americans to understand the 0:08:56.480 --> 0:09:00.760 value of nature. But the team of Gifford Pinchow as 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:05.360 chief forester in the federal government and Theodore Roosevelt would 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:10.520 end up dominating and defining what the public interest was 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:14.040 when it came to the environment. Another way we could 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:17.960 say that is it was John Muir who captured Roosevelt's 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:22.040 imagination about the value of nature, but it was Gifford 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:26.600 Pinchot who would ultimately win Theodore Roosevelt's favor when it 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:30.200 came to national policy for the forests. And that just 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:33.800 came down to, you know, Pincho's vision for forests was 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:38.000 much more practical. It was more so to speak, scientific, 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:42.560 and it was easier to manage. And this word management 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.480 keeps coming back because it was really how the federal 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:49.480 government came to understand what nature was for It was 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:53.200 a resource to be managed. It was not something just 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.840 beautiful out there that we should leave alone. It's really 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:01.520 important to just mention that neither John Muir's nor Gifford 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:06.120 Pinchot's visions included the indigenous people who were living on 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:09.679 this land long before either of them came along. And 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:14.960 that's that entire story of what the indigenous people's on 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:18.400 the land did with nature, how they viewed nature, their 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:22.120 relationship with nature, that was completely ignored in this American story. 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:25.760 One other really important feature to mention with Pinchot's vision 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:28.720 and why it went out, was that he was an 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:32.840 absolute expert in managing not just natural resources, but also 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:36.839 managing publics. From the very beginning of his life as 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:42.920 a professional forester, Pinchot was constantly promoting himself and his work. 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:47.160 He was very aware of the value of public support 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:52.040 for his vision of forestry, and he used every means 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:58.400 at his disposal to accomplish that. He wrote textbooks that 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:03.480 he expected would be to from kindergarten on up about forestry, 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:05.840 and indeed they were. There were thousands of copies of 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:10.160 his book sold. He created what we would today call 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:13.320 I guess press events, you know pr events, sometimes with 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:17.200 Teddy Roosevelt, where he would be sure to invite all 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:19.560 of the news media of the time to cover the 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:23.800 event when he appeared to announce a new policy or 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:28.000 in front of an important natural resource. And he also 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:33.480 made very close behind the scenes connections with lumber operators 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.599 and others who would then of course end up supporting 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:40.120 Pinchot whenever he wanted a new policy to be put forward. 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:45.760 He was so effective at managing public opinion and at 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.720 controlling what kinds of information went out to the public. 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.839 That he actually got investigated by the federal government at 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:57.320 one point because they were concerned that he was spending 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.160 too much time and too much of his per So 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:03.240 now we're devoted to just publicity and not to the 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:08.800 actual task of managing forestry. So Pinchell was, you know, 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:11.480 and he was very He very handily got out of 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:14.520 that investigation and managed to show that what he was 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:18.280 doing was absolutely in the public interest. So part of 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:20.360 that was that he was able to show us that 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:24.640 forestry was a public matter and that that particular vision 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.560 of forestry as a resource to be managed was the 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:28.840 way to think about nature. 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:34.199 Yes, so he was a really business friendly guy who 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:38.520 was helping to craft some of the first policies around 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:40.760 natural resources in the country. It's that sort of a 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:42.000 fair assessment. 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:45.240 That's right. Pinchell was really the earliest example of that. 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:49.520 And it's important to think about that because it reminds 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:54.760 us that the state and corporations were often very very 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:57.240 much on the same side when it came to talking 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:00.360 about nature and the environment. In other words, if you 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:04.080 think about the monopoly companies of the early twentieth century, 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:08.480 these were mainly in heavy industry. These were in rail, 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:13.760 in steel, and in coal, and these industries relied on 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:17.280 the favors of the government to achieve their size and 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:21.560 their power. So as we know now, of course, those 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:25.400 industries were also terrible for the environment. And we also 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:28.800 know that back in that era and what we call 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:33.839 the progressive era, Americans were becoming increasingly worried over the 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:38.520 size and power of corporations, and so we could think 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:45.000 about how public relations was essentially designed to reassure Americans 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:49.480 that these companies were good citizens and that their vision 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:53.480 of how to use the environment as a resource was 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:58.240 the right vision. I really like the quote or the 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:03.839 concept that the historian Roland Marshall uses where he says 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:07.840 that pr was charged with a mission to invest corporations 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:12.400 with a soul. That's really key, I think to understanding 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:17.040 how that vision of nature and of the environment as 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:19.840 something for people to use and not something to be 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:22.680 protected came to be so popular. 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:27.840 That just reminds me a lot of the ways that 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:32.640 we talk about corporate personhood. And I know that oil 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:36.240 companies in particular have really leaned on that this idea 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:39.640 that companies are people and that we should give them 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:43.320 the same benefit of the doubt that we would give 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:49.280 to individuals, or that they have souls and moral compasses 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:51.640 and that they're really just trying to do the right thing. 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:56.040 I mean, what legal fiction as it's known that corporate 0:14:56.040 --> 0:15:00.920 personhood idea. I don't know the direc legacy, but I 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.880 have to imagine that it comes from this time period. 0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:06.320 I mean, we know this from that time period that 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:10.760 the leaders of industry, especially in the nineteenth century, were 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:15.200 considered the most important citizens in society. We looked up 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:19.200 to these leaders of industry as people who only brought 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:23.200 good things to the American public. They brought jobs, they 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:28.440 brought welfare and employee health programs. They helped to create 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:34.200 entire urban centers and areas with their infrastructure. So in 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:37.800 the progressive era, when questions started to be asked about 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:42.320 whether the size and power that corporate leaders had was 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:46.600 really such a good thing, public relations was born essentially 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:50.960 to restore that personhood to companies that they had enjoyed 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:51.960 in the nineteenth century. 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:56.240 I've always had this sense that pr sort of emerges 0:15:56.320 --> 0:16:00.640 at this point in history when these captains of industry 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:04.320 are facing challenges from all sides, right like, you've got 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:08.960 the journalists critiquing them, I to Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, all 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:13.280 of that, You've got labor unions starting and asking for 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:16.920 higher wages and better working conditions. You've got the vote 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:21.160 extending to people who are not white land owning men. 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:25.520 And you've got the government starting to pass some of 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:30.520 the very first regulations on industry in the US. So 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:35.920 they go fairly quickly from being revered and also kind 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:39.880 of being able to do whatever they want to being criticized, 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:44.160 held up to scrutiny, and expected to actually act on 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:47.840 behalf of the public. So it seems like pr is 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:51.800 a handy tool helped to shape the public's ideas in 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.280 a way that will help industry do what it wants 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:54.640 to do. 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:59.840 Yeah, I think the entire history of this relationship between 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.320 are and the environment, I see it as a cycle 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:05.720 of exactly what you just described. So it's a cycle 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.879 where the captains of industry are indeed the captains, and 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:11.719 everybody looks to them to steer the ship, so to speak, 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:16.720 and then they lose their power or their power is 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.720 questioned in some way, and public relations is brought in 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:24.119 to restore relationships with the public. Exactly as the term suggests, 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:27.720 and that is that cycle has happened again in the 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:32.160 nineteen sixties when the environmental movements started to really gain 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:35.800 steam and all kinds of government regulations were passed to 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:39.160 protect the environment. In this moment of awareness that these 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:41.959 companies were maybe not so great after all, really not 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:45.520 so committed to the well being of all Americans. Once again, 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:49.080 public relations was brought in in the early seventies to 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:52.719 restore the balance, so to speak, to bring corporate leaders, 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:56.560 captains of industry back up onto the prows of their ship. 0:17:57.200 --> 0:17:59.840 And yeah, yeah, right. 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:02.840 There's this kind of push and pull throughout history, right 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:07.639 where the public will challenge what industry is doing, and 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:11.360 then pr will sort of help them be back that challenge. 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:14.119 That'll work for a while, and then there will be 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.239 another challenge. I keep thinking that we're kind of in 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:19.600 one of those moments again right now. 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:23.120 Yeah, we're inter reckoning right now. We're in these moments 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:26.000 of I think a lot of it is actually driven 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:30.879 by people like you, by journalists who are exposing the 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:33.920 companies for what they are, for what they're actually doing, 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:38.719 and calling for reform. This prompts often a groundswell of 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:43.600 reform and outrage by publics well deserved outrage, and then 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:45.640 once we will not at all be surprised to see 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:49.199 PR come onto the scene once again and restore the 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:53.119 balance we already see it in terms of big tech companies, 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:57.760 where these companies do things like censor the worst kinds 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:02.439 of misinformation on their plots forms, or say they're actually 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:06.879 working to help solve the problem, or partner with journalists 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:10.360 and organizations to help promote certain kinds of information. Those 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:14.120 are all really important PR maneuvers by those firms. 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:16.640 Okay, So I want to take us back in time 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:20.240 again and talk about one of my favorites, the first 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:24.600 modern corporate PR, Guy iv Ledbetter Lee. 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:29.760 So ivy led Better Lee a very unusual name. He 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:34.120 lived from eighteen seventy seven to nineteen thirty four, and 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:39.639 he played a major role in shaping and influencing the 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:45.400 idea of publicity as the most legitimate form of communication 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:52.560 in American democratic life, no small task. During his career, 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:58.560 Lee represented nearly every kind of big business you can imagine, 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:02.480 both in the United States and abroad. It's a very 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:08.719 long list. So the list includes public utilities, banks, shipping coal, 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:18.320 oil metals, sugar, tobacco, meat packing, breakfast, cereals, soap, cement, rubber, 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:25.480 and chemicals, in addition to major organizations like foundations, universities, 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:30.359 and charities. So that's I don't think too many pr 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:34.359 people could claim that many kinds of clients. What I 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:39.080 really did was also found and advised trade associations, and 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:42.960 that was key to his success as well, because trade 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:48.520 associations are responsible for maintaining standards for the industries they represent. 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:53.480 They interpret what government regulators say companies can and cannot do. 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:58.119 So if you represent clients in the railway industry and 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:02.119 then you create the trade association that enforces the rules 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:05.639 for the railway industry, well your clients will be pretty 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:10.399 pleased with you, say the least Lee. At the beginning 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:14.080 of his career, nearly all of Lee's clients fit into 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:20.360 two categories public utilities, which was railroads, electricity companies, public transit. 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:25.320 But also then the energy and infrastructure required to support 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:29.480 those public utilities. So, as you said, the coal mine operators, 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:34.439 the shippers, and the steelmakers. And what Lee managed to 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:39.080 do was to promote this idea that we rely on 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:43.200 energy and its infrastructure and we cannot live without it. 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:46.760 That's such an important idea that is still the kind 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:51.399 of conversation we're having today when we talk about alternative energy. 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:55.920 And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that 0:21:56.040 --> 0:22:01.200 what Ivy Le did for the railway companies is the same. 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:04.600 He created a playbook that we are still using today, 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:08.440 or that public relations people and company leaders are still 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:13.639 using today when they try to promote oil as an 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:19.040 ongoing energy source. So in Lee's time, in the early 0:22:19.080 --> 0:22:23.320 twentieth century, there was, as I said earlier, there was 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:27.760 national concern over the abuses of power by monopoly interests, 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:31.000 and there were a lot of calls for reform, and 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:34.200 public utilities were not exempt from those calls for reform. 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:38.840 There were a lot of campaigns calling for government ownership 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:42.600 of the companies and the land that they occupied. And 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:46.080 so what Ivy Lee came up with, the idea he 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:50.080 came up with was to show that industrial power was 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:54.959 directly serving the public interest. And we can look at 0:22:54.960 --> 0:22:57.520 a couple of events in particular to show how he 0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:02.879 did this. One was in nineteen thirteen nineteen fourteen, Ivy 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:07.520 Lee was trying to support the railroads as they called 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:11.560 for a freight rate increase, so as you can imagine, 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:15.000 that was not very popular at that time. Now, Ivyley 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:19.320 had been publicity expert for the Pennsylvania Railroad since nineteen 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:22.600 oh six, and he had worked on several other railroad 0:23:22.600 --> 0:23:26.600 accounts as well, and he also helped found and advise 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:32.000 the Association of Railroad Executives and the Bureau of Railroad Economics. 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:36.200 So Ivyley had this idea. When the freight rate increase 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:39.639 was proposed, of course, there was public outcry. You know, 0:23:39.680 --> 0:23:42.760 we're talking about regulating these industries, not about giving them 0:23:42.840 --> 0:23:47.960 more money. What he did was to turn the railways 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:54.280 into an information machine. In other words, rather than hiding 0:23:54.440 --> 0:23:59.239 behind their corporate leader or just saying nothing when there 0:23:59.320 --> 0:24:03.240 was a public out cry, Ivy Lee created public support 0:24:03.280 --> 0:24:06.760 for the railways by having the railways come out in 0:24:06.840 --> 0:24:10.000 front and communicate with all of the reasons that they 0:24:10.000 --> 0:24:13.920 could come up with to support them. So Lee placed 0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:18.280 ads in trade journals, he issued circulars and pamphlets. That 0:24:18.600 --> 0:24:22.480 was the usual stuff. But then he also created events 0:24:22.520 --> 0:24:26.440 where journalists were invited and railroad executives would be there 0:24:26.520 --> 0:24:29.639 to give exclusive interviews about what they were trying to 0:24:29.680 --> 0:24:33.720 do and why. Lee and his team also wrote news 0:24:33.840 --> 0:24:38.480 editorials and articles giving reasons for the proposed rate hike, 0:24:39.280 --> 0:24:42.240 and they placed those news editorials and articles in both 0:24:42.600 --> 0:24:47.560 the large metropolitan dailies and also in smaller local publications. 0:24:48.000 --> 0:24:50.880 They reached somewhere in the vicinity of twenty two thousand 0:24:50.960 --> 0:24:54.919 news outlets with that work. Lee was, however, not satisfied 0:24:54.920 --> 0:24:58.360 with just putting information into the newspapers, so he ended 0:24:58.440 --> 0:25:02.760 up writing and mailing personal letters directly to the people 0:25:02.800 --> 0:25:07.040 that he called leaders of opinion. That included congressmen and 0:25:07.160 --> 0:25:13.679 state legislators. It included mayors, It included college presidents, economists, bankers, 0:25:14.400 --> 0:25:19.679 and clergymen, among others. Finally, to reach everyday passengers, he 0:25:19.800 --> 0:25:24.119 put bulletins in railway stations and left information folders in 0:25:24.280 --> 0:25:29.280 passenger railway cars. So one of the things we need 0:25:29.320 --> 0:25:33.400 to understand here in terms of how successful this campaign was, 0:25:33.400 --> 0:25:39.080 was that ivyly wanted ordinary individuals to feel connected to 0:25:39.359 --> 0:25:42.639 the larger issues that were being lobbied in Congress, and 0:25:42.680 --> 0:25:45.159 by reaching out to them by putting bulletins in the 0:25:45.200 --> 0:25:49.639 railway stations and newsletters in the train cars, he managed 0:25:49.680 --> 0:25:54.040 to convince those people to also then become part of 0:25:54.440 --> 0:25:58.040 the public that had to say in what kinds of 0:25:58.119 --> 0:26:03.000 decisions got made in Washington. So while Thee's campaign was 0:26:03.119 --> 0:26:07.480 organizing meetings with you know, special audiences, he was also 0:26:07.600 --> 0:26:11.600 trying to get a letter writing campaign going by ordinary, 0:26:11.760 --> 0:26:14.880 everyday individuals, people who just rode the rails to get 0:26:14.880 --> 0:26:17.160 where they were trying to go. And once you had 0:26:17.160 --> 0:26:21.000 that kind of public support behind a campaign, it became 0:26:21.119 --> 0:26:25.919 really hard to justify turning it down once it got 0:26:25.720 --> 0:26:30.399 into Congress. So those letters of support, you know, and 0:26:30.440 --> 0:26:33.960 of course, being Ivy Lee, not only did he get 0:26:33.960 --> 0:26:36.960 people to write letters of support, he then obtained copies 0:26:36.960 --> 0:26:40.320 of those letters of support and reprinted them in the media. 0:26:41.400 --> 0:26:43.879 So what ivy Le did was create and coordinate an 0:26:44.000 --> 0:26:48.480 unbelievably unified campaign through the railways pushing through the freight 0:26:48.640 --> 0:26:52.080 rate hike as something that the public absolutely wanted. 0:27:12.520 --> 0:27:16.400 Okay, And then I know that another one of these 0:27:16.480 --> 0:27:19.680 kind of pr grades is someone that you spent quite 0:27:19.680 --> 0:27:24.080 a bit of time talking to and researching in his 0:27:24.880 --> 0:27:29.760 later years, E. Bruce Harrison. So tell us about who E. 0:27:29.920 --> 0:27:30.960 Bruce Harrison was. 0:27:32.240 --> 0:27:37.040 So E Bruce Harrison is the consummate or was, I'm 0:27:37.040 --> 0:27:41.199 sorry to say, was the consummate public relations professional in 0:27:41.240 --> 0:27:46.200 the United States. And I say that because he checks 0:27:46.240 --> 0:27:51.000 all the boxes in terms of what is underlying the 0:27:51.160 --> 0:27:55.040 power of public relations in American life. One is that 0:27:55.080 --> 0:27:58.240 he was virtually unknown to most people. That is, you know, 0:27:58.320 --> 0:28:01.800 e Bruce Harrison is not a household name by any stretch. 0:28:02.400 --> 0:28:07.680 He was incredibly powerful. He had hundreds of clients in 0:28:07.800 --> 0:28:11.040 all kinds of industries. I dare say as many kinds 0:28:11.080 --> 0:28:14.360 of industries as ivy Le did, actually, although it's much 0:28:14.440 --> 0:28:18.160 much less well known and Ebrews Harrison was also he 0:28:18.240 --> 0:28:23.080 was just incredibly charming. The charisma of this individual I 0:28:23.119 --> 0:28:26.639