PR Week is watching you

In evident imitation of your favourite anti-corporate research group, PR Week, the public relations trade journal this month launched a new regular feature, NGO Watch. NGO Watch ranks NGOs’ public profile according to the number of mentions they receive in the media each month and provides commentary.

Results for April indicate that human rights group have become prominent due to their activities around the Iraq war. Amnesty International UK and Human Rights Watch topped the list with 150 mention and 136 mentions and Oxfam came in fourth with 80 mentions throughout April.

In spite of almost blanket coverage of the war in early April, Cancer Research UK managed an impressive 113 mentions through media interest in its work on breast cancer detection rates and its ‘Race for Life’ event.

Friends of the Earth was the fifth highest profile NGO (62 mentions), gaining coverage for its campaigning against Shell and GM foods, whilst Greenpeace was sixth with 56.

PR Week sees the need for NGO Watch due to the increasingly high profile and authoritativeness of NGOs commenting that the “results provide an insight not only for charities unable to monitor rivals’ coverage, but also for the companies who NGOs themselves watch.”

A couple of things rather concerned us about this announcement - not that companies are watching their critics, we know that already, but the perception that charities are 'rivals', concerned to keep track of each other's press coverage while chasing an ever-larger share of the pot of public donations. Also, the perception that companies and their critics pursue each other in similar ways, as opposing sides in a morally neutral contest. Most of all, we were concerned by the fact that, for the larger mainstream charities and NGOs, both these perceptions may be accurate.

PR Week 2-5-2003