Re: [pf] Abandoned Malls, Suburban Blight

by Betsy Barnum

20 December 2000 23:18 UTC

prichter1@aol.com wrote:

> When I visited over Thanksgiving, the local paper was full of outraged
> letters from people who really wanted a super Wal-Mart. Sigh.

Don't assume those were all "ordinary folks." It's a major tactic now of PR 
firms
that work for developers, and other issues as well, to hire people to submit
letters to the editor, call in on talk radio, etc., as if they were residents
with the "common person" point of view. They know the business point of view 
will
be viewed with suspicion, but making it sound like regular folks gets through
people's doubt and they're less likely to dismiss it. It's a cynical and
manipulative tactic.

Betsy
--
Betsy Barnum
bbarnum@wavetech.net
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/1624

**************************************
I can think of no greater task for activists today than to study
the reasons why so many common people, surely a majority,
objected to the ratification of the Constitution.

--Jerry Fresia, Toward An American Revolution