Terrific article/interview on the role of the PR industry in America.

And then one day while we were finishing up our book, I got a call from [a woman] at the Water Environment Foundation. And in my business, when you hear something like “Water Environment Foundation,” you turn the needle 180 degrees [and ask suspiciously], “What’s the Water Environment Foundation?”

Well, it turned out to be the sewage sludge industry, and she was calling because she said, “I heard that you have this book coming out, Toxic Sludge is Good for You, and I’m really quite concerned because, frankly, it’s not toxic anymore and we don’t call it sludge. It’s now bio-solids, and it’s a natural organic fertilizer. And we’re very concerned that your book title is going to interfere with our education campaign to get farmers across the country to use bio-solids as a fertilizer on their farm fields.”

So, that became a chapter in our book called, “The Sludge Hits the Fan,” and we actually broke nationally this whole story about how this toxic sludge — mountains of it building up at sewage plants all across the country that the Environmental Protection Agency had deemed too toxic to landfill or incinerate or dump in the ocean — has basically been renamed “bio-solids — a natural organic fertilizer.” And now half of it is being spread all across the country on farmlands, despite the fact that it’s still as toxic as ever.

Link Discuss (via Electrolite)