Rampton, Sheldon and Stauber, John. Trust Us, We're Experts! -- How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future. New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 2001. 360 pages.

John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton are activists who live in Madison, Wisconsin, and work out of their nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy. They publish a quarterly called "PR Watch: Public Interest Reporting on the PR/Public Affairs Industry" (www.prwatch.org). An excellent previous book of theirs, "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You!", is also indexed in NameBase. If the U.S. had a hundred more investigative reporters as competent and dedicated as Stauber and Rampton, we could turn this country around (assuming that it's not too late, and such journalism could get published at all).

This book blows the lid off of "expert opinion" and "research" in America. While many recognize the threat from the big corporations, it remained for Stauber and Rampton to show that scientists and experts are often eager to sell their lab coats to the highest bidder. When you hear about some new research, what may be happening is that mega-corporation "A" hired PR firm "B", which hired expert "C" to fake some research. Then "B" organizes some astroturf pseudo-activists "D", to spin the results to the media "E", or better yet, "E" just runs the video feeds produced by "B" on the evening news, pretending that it's a story. This all translates into more profits for "A" through "E", while We the People get "F*****".
ISBN 1-58542-059-X

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