Big Sugars Sweet Little Lies Mother Jones. Skip to main content. Chris Buzelli. On  a brisk spring Tuesday in 1. Sugar Association stepped up to the podium of a Chicago ballroom to accept the Oscar of the public relations world, the Silver Anvil award for excellence in the forging of public opinion. The trade group had recently pulled off one of the greatest turnarounds in PR history. For nearly a decade, the sugar industry had been buffeted by crisis after crisis as the media and the public soured on sugar and scientists began to view it as a likely cause of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Industry ads claiming that eating sugar helped you lose weight had been called out by the Federal Trade Commission, and the Food and Drug Administration had launched a review of whether sugar was even safe to eat. Consumption had declined 1. Marketing Public Relations Plan Health Center Planning Template Provided by Fall 08 Template prepared by Agency MABU 1003 Gateway Ave. Bismarck, ND 58503. We offer a range of open programmes taught by our renowned faculty, as well as custommade training programmes for private and publicsector organisations. As John JW Tatem Jr. Jack OConnell Jr., the Sugar Associations president and director of public relations, posed that day with their trophies, their smiles only hinted at the coup theyd just pulled off. Their winning campaign, crafted with the help of the prestigious public relations firm Carl Byoir Associates, had been prompted by a poll showing that consumers had come to see sugar as fattening, and that most doctors suspected it might exacerbate, if not cause, heart disease and diabetes. Greenpeace will never stop fighting for a greener, healthier world for our oceans, forests, food, climate, and democracyno matter what forces stand in our way. Top community relations tips as well as strategies on community investment, public participation and community engagement and best practices. PRSA Jobcenter Career Resources Guiding Your Career To Help Get You Your Next Job Whether you are beginning your job hunt or preparing for the final interview, the. With an initial annual budget of nearly 8. Dixie Crystals, Domino, C H, Great Western, and other sugar brands, the association recruited a stable of medical and nutritional professionals to allay the publics fears, brought snack and beverage companies into the fold, and bankrolled scientific papers that contributed to a highly supportive FDA ruling, which, the Silver Anvil application boasted, made it unlikely that sugar will be subject to legislative restriction in coming years. The story of sugar, as Tatem told it, was one of a harmless product under attack by opportunists dedicated to exploiting the consuming public. Over the subsequent decades, it would be transformed from what the New York Times in 1. American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association approved it as part of a healthy diet. Research on the suspected links between sugar and chronic disease largely ground to a halt by the late 1. So effective were the Sugar Associations efforts that, to this day, no consensus exists about sugars potential dangers. Public Relations Tactics Pdf' title='Public Relations Tactics Pdf' />The industrys PR campaign corresponded roughly with a significant rise in Americans consumption of caloric sweeteners, including table sugar sucrose and high fructose corn syrup HFCS. This increase was accompanied, in turn, by a surge in the chronic diseases increasingly linked to sugar. Since 1. 97. 0, obesity rates in the United States have more than doubled, while the incidence of diabetes has more than tripled. The chart below uses sugar availability numbers rather than the USDAs speculative new consumption figures. Precisely how did the sugar industry engineer its turnaround The answer is found in more than 1,5. They show how Big Sugar used Big Tobacco style tactics to ensure that government agencies would dismiss troubling health claims against their products. Compared to the tobacco companies, which knew for a fact that their wares were deadly and spent billions of dollars trying to cover up that reality, the sugar industry had a relatively easy task. With the jury still out on sugars health effects, producers simply needed to make sure that the uncertainty lingered. But the goal was the same to safeguard sales by creating a body of evidence companies could deploy to counter any unfavorable research. For 4. 0 years, the sugar industrys priority has been to shed doubt on studies suggesting that its product makes people sick. This decades long effort to stack the scientific deck is why, today, the USDAs dietary guidelines only speak of sugar in vague generalities. Reduce the intake of calories from solid fats and added sugars. Its why the FDA insists that sugar is generally recognized as safe despite considerable evidence suggesting otherwise. Its why some scientists urgent calls for regulation of sugary products have been dead on arrival, and its whyabsent any federal leadershipNew York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg felt compelled to propose a ban on oversized sugary drinks that passed in September. In fact, a growing body of research suggests that sugar and its nearly chemically identical cousin, HFCS, may very well cause diseases that kill hundreds of thousands of Americans every year, and that these chronic conditions would be far less prevalent if we significantly dialed back our consumption of added sugars. Robert Lustig, a leading authority on pediatric obesity at the University of California San Francisco whose arguments Gary explored in a 2. New York Times Magazinecover story, made this case last February in the prestigious journal Nature. In an article titled The Toxic Truth About Sugar, Lustig and two colleagues observed that sucrose and HFCS are addictive in much the same way as cigarettes and alcohol, and that overconsumption of them is driving worldwide epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes the type associated with obesity. Sugar related diseases are costing America around 1. The fact that no confirmed scientific evidence links sugar to the death dealing diseasesis the lifeblood of the Sugar Association. The Sugar Association dusted off what has become its stock response The Lustig paper, it said, lacks the scientific evidence or consensus to support its claims, and its authors were irresponsible not to point out that the full body of science is inconclusive at best. This inconclusiveness, of course, is precisely what the Sugar Association has worked so assiduously to maintain. In confronting our critics, Tatem explained to his board of directors back in 1. This crucial point is the lifeblood of the association. The Sugar Associationsearliest incarnation dates back to 1. Sugar Research Foundation to counter World War II sugar rationing propagandaHow Much Sugar Do You Need None declared one government pamphlet. In 1. 94. 7, producers rechristened their group the Sugar Association and launched a new PR division, Sugar Information Inc., which before long was touting sugar as a sensible new approach to weight control. In 1. Sugar Association spun off its research division as the International Sugar Research Foundation. On My Way Home Pentatonix Mp3 here. Misconceptions concerning the causes of tooth decay, diabetes, and heart problems exist on a worldwide basis, explained a 1. ISRF recruiting brochure. As early as 1. 96. Sugar Association memos had acknowledged the potential links between sugar and chronic diseases, but at the time sugar executives had a more pressing problem Weight conscious Americans were switching in droves to diet sodasparticularly Diet Rite and Tabsweetened with cyclamate and saccharin. From 1. 96. 3 through 1. A dollars worth of sugar, ISRF vice president and research director John Hickson warned in an internal review, could be replaced with a dimes worth of sugar alternatives. If anyone can undersell you nine cents out of 1. Hickson told the New York Times in 1. By then, the sugar industry had doled out more than 6. Sugar Twin and Sucaryl. In 1. 96. 9, the FDA banned cyclamates in the United States based on a study suggesting they could cause bladder cancer in rats. Not long after, Hickson left the ISRF to work for the Cigar Research Council. Spin propaganda WikipediaSpin doctor redirects here. For the rock band, see Spin Doctors. Public figures use press conferences so often as a way to control the timing and specificity of their messages to the media that press conference facilities have been nicknamed spin rooms. In public relations and politics, spin is a form of propaganda, achieved through providing a biased interpretation of an event or campaigning to persuade public opinion in favor or against some organization or public figure. While traditional public relations and advertising may also rely on altering the presentation of the facts, spin often implies the use of disingenuous, deceptive, and highly manipulative tactics. Because of the frequent association between spin and press conferences especially government press conferences, the room in which these conferences take place is sometimes described as a spin room. Public relations advisors, pollsters and media consultants who develop deceptive or misleading messages may be referred to as spin doctors or spinmeisters. As such, a standard tactic used in spinning is to reframe, reposition, or otherwise modify the perception of an issue or event, to reduce any negative impact it might have on public opinion. For example, a company whose top selling product is found to have a significant safety problem may reframe the issue by criticizing the safety of its main competitors products or indeed by highlighting the risk associated with the entire product category. This might be done using a catchy slogan or sound bite that can help to persuade the public of the companys biased point of view. This tactic could enable the company to defocus the publics attention on the negative aspects of its product. As it takes experience and training to spin an issue, spinning is typically a service provided by paid media advisors and media consultants. The largest and most powerful companies may have in house employees and sophisticated units with expertise in spinning issues. While spin is often considered to be a private sector tactic, in the 1. Spin approaches used by some political teams include burying potentially negative new information by releasing it at the end of the workday on the last day before a long weekend selectively cherry picking quotes from previous speeches made by their employer or an opposing politician to give the impression that they advocate a certain position and purposely leakingmisinformation about an opposing politician or candidate that casts them in a negative light. EtymologyeditThe term has its origin in the old American expression to spin a yarn. In the 1. 8th and 1. Sailors were also well known for telling incredible tales about their exploits when they were back on shore. When someone fooled you, it was said that he spun me an amazing yarn. Yarn also became a synonym for tall tale What a yarn means what a made up story. HistoryeditEdward Bernays has been called the Father of Public Relations. As Larry Tye describes in his book The Father of Spin Edward L. Bernays and The Birth of Public Relations, Bernays was able to help tobacco and alcohol companies use techniques to make certain behaviors more socially acceptable in 2. United States. Tye claims that Bernays was proud of his work as a propagandist. As information technology has increased dramatically since the end of the 2. Joe Trippi have advanced the theory that modern Internet activism spells the end for political spin. By providing immediate counterpoint to every point a spin doctor can come up with, this theory suggests, the omnipresence of the Internet in some societies will inevitably lead to a reduction in the effectiveness of spin. TechniqueseditThe techniques of spin include Selectively presenting facts and quotes that support ones position cherry picking. For example, a pharmaceutical company could pick and choose two trials where their product shows a positive effect, ignoring hundreds of unsuccessful trials, or a politicians staff could handpick short speech quotations from past years which appear to show their candidates support for a certain position. Non denial denial. Non apology apologyMistakes were made is an example of distancing language commonly used as a rhetorical device, whereby a speaker acknowledges that a situation was managed by using low quality or inappropriate handling but evades any direct admission or accusation of responsibility by not specifying the person or organization who made the mistakes. Grammatically, the expression uses the passive voice to focus on the action while omitting the actor. The acknowledgement of mistakes is framed in an abstract sense, with no direct reference to who made the mistakes. The speaker neither accepts personal responsibility nor accuses anyone else. The word mistakes also does not imply intent. A less evasive active voice construction would place the focus on the actor, such as I made mistakes or John Doe made mistakes. Phrasing in a way that assumes unproven claims, or avoiding the question5Burying bad news announcing unpopular things at a time when it is believed that the media will focus on other news. In some cases, governments have released potentially controversial reports on summer long weekends, to avoid significant news coverage. Sometimes that other news is supplied by deliberately announcing popular items at the same time. Misdirection and diversion6Limited hangout. For years, businesses have used fake or misleading customer testimonials by editingspinning customers to reflect a much more satisfied experience than was actually the case. In 2. 00. 9, the Federal Trade Commission updated their laws to include measures to prohibit this type of spinning and have been enforcing these laws as of late. Several companies have arisen that verify the authenticity of the testimonials businesses present on the marketing materials in an effort to convince one to become a customer. See alsoeditReferenceseditWilliam Safire, The Spinner Spun, New York Times, December 2. Michael, Powell. Tit for Tat on a Night Where Spin Is Master,New York Times. February 2. 2, 2. Stauber, John and Sheldon Rampton. Book Review The Father of Spin Edward L. Bernays The Birth of PR by Larry Tye,PR Watch Second Quarter 1. Vol. 6, No. 2. Branigan, Tania, Internet spells end for political spin, says US web guru, The Guardian. June 2. 00. 7. Staff. Are these examples of political spin. BBC Learning Zone. Business Rule Engine Pdf: Full Version Software. Clip 7. 26. 5. 2. Weissman, Jerry. Spin vs. Topspin. The Huffington Post. June 2. 00. 9. BibliographyeditExternal linksedit.