October 3, 2011

Extreme Makeover: Mideast Autocrat Edition

From Moammar Qaddafi to the house of Saud, six repressive rulers who hired PR firms to help clean up their images

<a href="https://secure.flickr.com/photos/byammar/2701802819/in/photostream/">Ammar Abd Rabbo</a>/Flickr

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It’s gotten tough for Middle Eastern autocrats to keep up appearances. But Western PR firms are ready to help—for a price. As a disgusted former employee of Qorvis Communications told the Huffington Post, “These scumbags will pay whatever you want.” Some recent examples:

Hosni Mubarak

Egypt

World Economic Forum/Flickr

 Egypt

darkroom productions/Flickr

PR headache:

The former Egyptian president’s (above left) record of 26 years of economic stagnation and political repression

Image makeover:

DC-based Qorvis Communications announces in 2007 that Mubarak has embarked on “a new era of open elections.”

Price tag:

$125,000

Bahrain

World Economic Forum/Flickr

 Bahrain

malyousif/Flickr

PR headache:

The 230-year-old monarchy answers calls for reform with arrests, beatings, and shootings.

Image makeover:

Qorvis publicizes the regime’s $3 million donation to famine-stricken Somalia. Sanitas International and ex-Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi sign on to provide “strategic communications counsel.”

Price tag:

$40,000/month (Qorvis)

Undisclosed (Sanitas/Trippi)

Syria

Anmar Abd Rabbo/Flickr

 Syria

Syria-Frames-of-Freedom/Flickr

PR headache:

International condemnation for the bloody repression of antigovernment protests

Image makeover:

Brown Lloyd James helps get First Lady Asma al-Assad (above left) a spread in Vogue. The magazine calls her “the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies” and Syria the “safest country in the Middle East.”

Price tag:

$5,000/month

Yemen

Egypt

Wikimedia Commons

 Egypt

Al Jazeera English/Flickr

PR Headache:

Months of demonstrations and violence threaten the Yemeni government, headed by President Ali Abdullah Saleh (above left).

Image Makeover:

Qorvis does “media outreach” for the National Awareness Authority, a pro-government propaganda group

Price Tag:

$30,000/month

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

Ammar Abd Rabbo/Flickr

 Saudi Arabia

NidalM/Flickr

PR Headache:

The Middle East’s oldest ruling family, headed by King Abdullah (above left), gets a tad nervous about the Arab Spring.

Image makeover:

A Qorvis press release emphasizes that the country’s restless youth—not oil—are “its greatest natural resource.”

Price tag:

Undisclosed. (The Saudis paid Qorvis more than $11 million for similar work in 2002.)

Moammar Qaddafi

Lybia

Vectorportal/Flickr

 Ammar Abd Rabbo/Flickr

PR Headache:

The former Libyan president’s reputation as a megalomaniacal, terrorism-sponsoring despot

Image Makeover:

Brown Lloyd James helps set up Qaddafi’s 2009 speech at the UN. Hopps & Associates buses in fans to watch and hands out T-shirts. The Monitor Group, a consulting firm, signs up “to enhance the profile of Libya and Muammar Qadhafi.”

Price Tag:

$1.2 million (BLJ)

$665,000 (Hopps)

$3 million/year (Monitor)

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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