A PR Primer by Kevin Barrett

I learned quite a bit about Public Relations for my BA in Journalism. I also learned something about rhetoric and persuasion for my three M.A.s and one Ph.D. in various languages and literatures. And since I traded in the academy for the public perception battle over 9/11, I have learned even more. ("University people do not go plunging out into the world unless there are great events at stake. They huddle in their safety and are scared of shadows..." --Clifford D. Simak)   

So I consider myself qualified to dispense PR advice to my colleagues in the 9/11 truth movement, some of whom wouldn't know a good PR strategy from a hole at Ground Zero, others of whom are doing well but could always do better. 

"If you want an audience, start a fight." -Gaelic proverb. 

More than seven and a half years after the fact, the 9/11 truth movement has not yet achieved its objectives. Our progress has been steady but slow.   

To arrive at our goal (exposure of truth, implementation of justice) we need to win the battle of public opinion. It really is that simple. Once public opinion has swung far enough to our side, the rest will come automatically. 

What does "winning the battle of public opinion" mean? Here is a simplified diagram to help clarify things: a vertical axis with pro-truth at the top, and anti-truth at the bottom. 

The Truth vs. Lies Ladder: Truthers on Top, Liars on the Bottom 

1. Extremely knowledgeable, works full-time for truth

2. Knowledgeable, works for truth

3. Somewhat aware of issue, discusses it occasionally

4. Neutral

5. Believes official story but not strongly committed to it

6. Strongly committed to official story

7. Works against 9/11 truth (may or may not genuinely believe official story--the professionals, like Chertoff at Popular Mechanics, presumably know it was an inside job, and if so are guilty of treason and complicity in mass murder). 

Our task is to move people upward, away from the bottom and toward the top. Once enough people have been moved high enough on this diagram, a tipping point will be reached, and success will ensue. (While it may not be quite that simple--for example, it does matter who we move upward--this diagram gives a good basic summary of the task.) 

We must focus relentlessly on the task at hand. Some activities that may seem important from a "truth for the sake of truth" viewpoint turn out to be useless or counterproductive in light of the task at hand. For example, spending time trying to convince people who are already at the 1 and 2 positions that the 9/11 inside job was or was not accomplished through some particular means -- thermate versus directed energy versus mini-nukes, passenger planes versus military planes versus no planes, and so on -- is worse than useless. Why? Because it feeds internecine fighting, which discourages people at the 1 and 2 positions and causes them to work less, not more, for truth. Remember, the BIG PICTURE, what Griffin calls a "cumulative argument," is what proves 9/11 was an inside job. It doesn't matter if one or two, or even one or two dozen, of the links of the chain of argument are weak. The case is still proved by the cumulative effect of the hundreds of strong links. Anything that gets people to look at the cumulative argument serves our cause. 

Activities that draw the attention of those who are relatively unaware of the issue, and who are susceptible to being moved upward on the ladder, should be our main focus. These are the people in the middle, at the three, four, and five positions. Simply getting these people's attention, letting them know or reminding them there is a controversy about 9/11, and piquing their curiosity enough so they look into it, is by far the single most effective thing we can do. The more 3s, 4s and 5s whose curiosities we pique, the better. Going after them at the retail level by doing street actions is good. Going after them wholesale, by getting their attention via mass-distributed media, is much better. One article or broadcast in the mass media can reach tens of thousands, even millions, of people. It would take many lifetimes to reach that many people directly by approaching them in the street or through low-traffic websites. 

Contrary to the opinions of certain pessimists, it isn't impossible to use the mass media effectively for truth. The 9/11 truth movement has scored some media successes. I know; I was right in the middle of several of them:  

*Getting C-Span to broadcast 9/11 truth events nationwide. (I organized the breakthrough David Griffin C-Span talk 9/11 and American Empire in April, 2005.) 

*Getting mainstream newspapers to print hard-hitting pro-9/11-truth op-eds. (I authored the first three such op-eds ever published in any mainstream U.S. newspaper, in 2006.) 

*Getting mainstream media coverage of the academic freedom battle between pro-truth professors and those attempting to silence them. (I triggered a wave of media interest in June 2006 by drawing an attack by State Representative Steve Nass; later that year Professors William Woodward and Steven Jones also drew attacks and got mainstream coverage.) 

*Getting lots of mainstream coverage of William Rodriguez's Midwest tours in 2007. 

*Getting widespread state and local coverage of my congressional campaign in 2008.  

I have also done retail activism. I have bullhorned, done teach-ins, handed out DVDs like candy. I have a five-drawer DVD burner, and have burned and distributed many thousands of DVDs. In five years of retail activism and DVD burning, I may have reached ten thousand people. That's a minuscule fraction of those I've reached through the mass media activities listed above. 

There are many ways to get media coverage. One is to offer a human interest story of the caliber of William Rodriguez's. Another is to run for office. But perhaps the most tried-and-true way to draw mainstream coverage, or to generate widespread internet interest (which makes the internet the equivalent of a mainstream medium) is to pick fights -- carefully. 

How To Pick Fights -- Carefully 

Rule #1: Thou shalt not pick a fight with thy fellow truther. There is simply no way that any internecine squabble between pro-truth forces can possibly move people up the truth vs. lies ladder. People outside the movement -- those in the 3, 4 and 5 positions we are trying to reach -- don't care about our internecine fights. If they notice them at all (which is unlikely) it poisons their perception of the movement. 

Anyone who starts a fight with a fellow truther (and anyone who claims to be a truther must be accepted as one in this context) is doing intentional or unintentional disinformation. Even in a case where the fight-picker is right, and the target of the attack is wrong, the net effect of picking the fight will ALWAYS be worse than simply ignoring the target would have been.           

This does not mean we shouldn't critique our fellow truthers. We should -- constantly! But critiques should always be private, friendly conversations. If you think someone needs to adjust what they're doing, call them up or email them privately. If you can't agree, just agree to disagree, and stay friends. When Truther A attacks Truther B in public, without having first pursued a private conversation as far as it would go, then Truther A is working against the cause. Anyone with a pattern of initiating attacks on fellow truthers, even if the attacker is right about the particular issues involved, is doing major PR work against 9/11 truth. Such people first should be gently corrected, then ignored or ostracized. 

Rule #2: Thou SHALT pick fights with non-truthers and (especially) anti-truthers.  

When a truther verbally battles an anti-truther, a crowd gathers around -- including lots of the people in the 3, 4 and 5 positions, the people we are trying to reach. As long as the truther can come across as reasonably sympathetic and/or interesting, the net result will be extremely positive. And as long as the truther isn't a hideous, drooling, misshapen cretin jumping up and down and yowling incomprensible yowls, the net result will be at least somewhat positive. Some of the people watching the fight will go home and watch Loose Change or Zeitgeist or 9/11 Mysteries or Zero on youtube. Some will check out PatriotsQuestion911 or Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.  A few will track down a David Ray Griffin book. Many of these people will move up the ladder, away from lies and toward truth. 

Some examples of productive squabbles between truthers and non/anti-truthers include: 

*We Are Change's truth-squadding confrontations, especially their search-and-destroy mission against Rudy Giuliani. (Mission accomplished!) 

*David Ray Griffin's debate with anti-truth mouthpiece Matt Taibi. 

*The exchanges between truthers (including me, David Ray Griffin, Jesse Ventura, Richard Gage, Rob Balsamo and others) and anti-truthers (no point publicizing their names) on Richard Greene's Air America show in May and June, 2008. Lots of threes, fours, and fives in the Air America audience! 

*Mark Dice's battle for his life with death-threat-dealing Michael Reagan. 

*My academic freedom fight against State Rep. Steve Nass, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and others; my political fight against Rep. Ron Kind; and my verbal jousts with Amy Goodman and Noam Chomsky. 

*Splitting-the-Sky getting arrested trying to arrest George Bush. 

*Webster Tarpley & friends' squabble with prominent anti-war activists including Cindy Sheehan over the Kennebunkport Warning. 

I am intentionally including the Kennebunkport affair as an extreme case showing that even the most apparently destructive conflicts can actually be productive. The Kennebunkport Warning was a document written and publicized in August, 2007 by Webster Tarpley warning against a possible false-flag attack by Dick Cheney and company. It appears that several anti-war activists signed the document, possibly without having read it, and later had second thoughts about the document's content and denied they had signed. (Evidence here.) Since this amounted to an accusation of criminal forgery against Tarpley and friends, it set off a heated battle that helped draw attention to the Warning.  

Here in Madison, Wisconsin, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that key people in the local antiwar alliance, which has traditionally excluded 9/11 truth, came around to the truther perspective after hearing about the Kennebunkport Warning and the subsequent loose nukes scandal, which appeared to bear out the Warning's message.  

In assessing the PR impact of what we do, we must remember that most people, including virtually all in the crucial 3, 4 and 5 positions, just remember vague, general impressions and don't have time for the details. In this case, many non-truther Cindy Sheehan fans, including those in Madison, heard about Cindy being involved in some kind of controversy about the Warning. This led them to read the Warning and remember the gist of its message.  Later, they heard about the loose nukes scandal, and made the connection. As a result, they moved half a rung or a rung up the truth ladder.  

By getting involved in a public squabble with non-truther (but potentially truth-friendly) Cindy Sheehan and the other antiwar women, Webster Tarpley and friends unintentionally amplified the effect of the Kennebunkport Warning a hundred-fold. The Warning soared to six-figures worth of google hits. For all we know, this fight may have saved the world from Cheney's loose nukes. 

The value of the Kennebunkport fight was in its getting noticed by non-truthers, those in the 3, 4, and 5 positions on the truth ladder. Its value lay in its involving non-truthers and thus reaching a non-truther audience. This value was amplified because of Sheehan's status as a media figure. (Yes, I know it's terrible to get in a fight with someone as cool as Cindy Sheehan, but if that's what it takes to save the world...) 

As an internecine squabble among 9/11 truthers, of course, the Kennebunkport affair was worse than useless, as are all internecine squabbles. Those who sided with the non-truthers against Tarpley and the truthers, thereby creating an internecine squabble, were effectively doing disinfo work, whether or not they knew it, as are all truthers who attack fellow truthers. 

It is of course much better to fight George Bush than Cindy Sheehan or Amy Goodman or Noam Chomsky. With Bush you take off the rhetorical gloves and let him have it from the get-go; with Sheehan or Goodman or Chomsky you approach them politely, and avoid bellicosity unless they're bellicose first. When Sheehan's side falsely accused Tarpley's side of criminal forgery, that was the first blow, and a counter-attack was warranted. Likewise, when Chomsky falsely accused me of lying, I was justified in taking off the gloves and going after him...especially since his approach to 9/11 truth is so preposterous in its obvious bad faith. 

But it's better to fight the bad guys, as opposed to the not-good-enough-guys. Splitting-the-Sky's decision to get himself arrested while trying to arrest George Bush was as brilliant as it was brave. This is the perfect way to pick a fight with a war criminal. Just walk toward police lines saying "I'm going to arrest this war criminal" until they arrest you. Then put on a civil resistance defense. If enough people follow Splitting-the-Sky's example, the media will be unable to ignore it, and before long the war criminals will actually be arrested. 

Rule #3: Try to maintain a relaxed, hope-filled, "I'm having a good time" demeanor during the fight, and use appropriate humor if at all possible.      

What we're fighting, ultimately, is fear. The 9/11 attacks were designed to incite fear, because fearful people are easier to control. Those who perpetrated 9/11 did not try very hard to hide the evidence of their deed, because they figured that anyone who saw through it would be afraid to do anything about it.  

Emotion determines human reality far more than intellect. It is more important to transmit fearlessness than mere information.  

One way to transmit fearlessness is by doing something brave. Splitting-the-Sky's brilliant decision to get himself arrested while trying to arrest Bush in Calgary may inspire others to attempt citizens' arrests of war criminals. 

Another way to broadcast fearlessness is to maintain a relaxed, cheerful, optimistic demeanor while presenting 9/11 truth to people in the critical 3, 4 and 5 positions. It is of course difficult to do this when you're in a verbal battle, which triggers the "fight or flight" response and floods your system with adrenaline.  

Meditation is a good way to get your demeanor under control and project cheerfulness even when jousting with the forces of the lie. (I recently returned to intensive Sufi-Islamic meditation and have greatly benefited from it.) 

Rule #4: Make sure that the crowd that gathers to watch the fight knows where to go for more information. Example: You find a mud pit and put up a sign "Truther vs. Debunker Mud Wrestling." You find some truthers who are willing to get down and dirty on behalf of truth (my phone number is 608-583-2132) and on the other side you get Hannity or O'Reilly or Chertoff or Giuliani or someone like that. You publicize the event. A crowd gathers. At this point, I hope you will have remembered to hire a couple of airplanes to fly over the mudpit streaming banners reading "PatriotsQuestion911.com" and "AE911.org"!    

Seriously...always take advantage of any situation where you get attention, by turning that attention in the right direction. 

Remember, your job is to pique the curiosity of people in the 3, 4 and 5 positions on the truth ladder. You don't need to convince anybody. Their own research will convince them, once they've been spurred to do it. What can spur them? Oddly, intellectual curiosity usually doesn't. An emotionally compelling story like William Rodriguez's, or a fight between Barrett and Hannity or between David Griffin and Matt Taibbi, is more likely to serve as an effective spur. Emotions, not intellect, create reality. 

To sum it all up: Before you can lead a horse to water, you have to catch the horse's attention, by doing something a horse finds entertaining or at least interesting. Only then can you lead the horse to water. Obviously, not all horses will drink. But if you lead enough horses to water, some of them drink.   

Before you know it, you have a cavalry.  

Charge!!