SECRETS AND LIES
The anatomy of an anti-environmental PR campaign
Background information on the writers
Nicky Hager is best known in New Zealand for his role as a researcher and critic on public issues such as nuclear and
military policy and intelligence. However his main work, for the last decade, has been as a writer. In 1998 he was
judged fourth in a United States investigative journalism award and his 1996 book, Secret Power, documenting New
Zealand’s role in a previously unknown international spy network, was a best seller. It has been published in
translation in Europe and a revised version is due to be released in Europe and the US in 2000. World-wide publicity
from that book earnt him the description of being the New Zealander who had ‘received the most overseas coverage in
1998’.
During 1997 and 1998, Nicky Hager gave some time to assist the environmental campaign to have all the public native
forests of the West Coast reserved. His interest in this subject dates from the early 1980s when he worked for the DSIR
Ecology Division studying and writing about these forests.
Nicky Hager was born in Levin and has degrees in physics and philosophy from Victoria University. He lives in
Wellington.
Bob Burton is a journalist specialising in environmental issues and the PR industry. He has written extensively about
public relations and the use of PR campaigns to counter public movements, including articles for Consuming Interest and
US based magazines PR Watch and In These Times. He edits Mining Monitor, a quarterly newsmagazine on the mining industry
in Australia, Asia and the Pacific for the Sydney based Mineral Policy Institute.
He was born and educated in Sydney, gaining an Arts degree from Sydney University. He has previously been a researcher
for various Australian environment groups, publishing numerous papers on minerals and energy policy. He lives in
Canberra.
ENDS