As most senior citizens like myself know, cheeky youngsters love telling us that we’re repeating ourselves, and may even complete our stories for us! But in public relations, repetition is part of the job, and certainly when countering claims by the animal rights movement.
A great illustration of this happened to me just the other day. My elder brother, 72 years young, has always taken an interest in my job, so it was no surprise to me when he announced that his favourite TV channel was “breaking” news that was right up my street.
He then proceeded to relate how geese were being force-fed to fatten their livers, which were sold through restaurants as a delicacy called foie gras. Good Lord, could it really be true?
Of course, I then had to explain that animal rights groups had been plugging this same story for decades, which made it almost as old as us. Far more interesting – to me, anyway – was that he’d heard about it just now.
SEE ALSO: Why a ban on fur and foie gras should matter to ranchers. Truth About Fur, 2019.
Which brings me to three arguments why anyone in my line of work must get used to repeating themselves.
1. Gaps exist in everyone’s knowledge
No matter how educated, old, or up to date with current events you are, I guarantee there are gaps in your knowledge that may astound you.
Of course, knowing the gaps in your own knowledge is hard, and even impossible if you don’t know they exist! But I’ll never forget two conversations I had with close friends that caught me by surprise.
Neither of these friends was young at the time or had led a sheltered existence, yet one had never even heard of the Beatles, and the other believed that low-fat milk was simply regular milk with water added! How could two intelligent and well-informed people be so ignorant?
The answer is simple. We all have these gaps in our knowledge, and should never take it for granted that just because our friend is a rocket scientist or brain surgeon, they know about stuff that’s outside their field of expertise. For example, many people don’t know that shearling is sheep fur, that faux (as in faux fur) is just French for “fake”, or that furbearers are never skinned alive. Heck, someone out there probably believes fur grows on trees!
So it is for these people that we need to repeat ourselves.
SEE ALSO: Notorious “skinning fur animals alive” video exposed as complete fraud! Truth About Fur, 2019.
2. Youths are a blank slate
On a similar note, young people inevitably have larger gaps in their knowledge than older ones, plus they tend to be more gullible. Most adults know better, but when you were growing up, you probably thought politicians and spokespeople always told the truth, particularly if they were quoted in a newspaper or on TV.
Youngsters are thus a blank slate for anyone in public relations – a fact that was recognised by the animal rights movement as early as the 1970s. This gave their campaigns, such as that against fur, a major head start over animal users who naïvely believed the common sense of adults would prevail.
And in the 21st century, as society’s grasp of “sustainable use” as key to “saving the planet” has grown, animal rights groups have asked kids to believe that animal welfare and sustainable use are somehow related.
In recent years, though, animal users have regained much of this lost ground. In large part they have achieved this by explaining to youngsters how sustainable use really works, and that animal welfare, while extremely important, is actually a separate issue. Against this backdrop, all natural, renewable resources – including fur – have been making a comeback among younger consumers.
So for these youngsters too, we must repeat ourselves. They aren’t born knowing how to save the planet. They need to be told.
SEE ALSO: Sustainability of fur: Bringing the story to schools. Truth About Fur, 2019.
3. Endless campaigns
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And then there are those endless campaigns for which solutions seem to be irrelevant or even undesirable. Why do these campaigns even exist? Their primary purpose is not to achieve their stated objectives, but to keep advocacy groups in the public eye and the funds rolling in.
The animal rights movement is a masterful exponent of this approach, as my brother’s foie gras story shows. True, a town or restaurant chain may ban the delicacy from time to time, but that’s missing the point.
A classic example of an endless campaign was launched by PETA in the UK, all the way back in 2002. That’s right – the campaign’s been running for 24 years, during which time there’s been zero progress, so why does PETA persist?
Ostensibly, the campaign aims to convince the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) to swap the bearskin caps of the King’s Foot Guards, made from Canadian black bears, for synthetic ones, but in reality it works like this. Every year, PETA invites a publicity-hungry backbench politician to raise the issue in Parliament. It then feeds this “hook” to the mainstream media who trot out the same old story as if it’s new, replete with eye-catching photos of the Guards and cheap shots at the Royals. The British public are titillated, media ratings are guaranteed, and PETA gets its dose of free publicity.
And every year, PETA’s opponents are obliged to respond. The MoD says it’ll go synthetic if an acceptable alternative to real bearskins comes along, while the Canadian government and the Fur Institute of Canada recycle old talking points like bears needing to be culled, or that they’d be killed regardless of whether the MoD buys their pelts.
Like it or not, defenders of bearskins must repeat themselves.
SEE ALSO: PETA’s golden goose: Is it serious about ending bearskins? Truth About Fur, 2022.
Of course, there are other reasons why those of us in public relations might repeat ourselves. Perhaps we’ve forgotten that we said something before, or we’ve simply run out of new things to say.
But the bottom line is that, when it comes to countering claims by the animal rights movement, we’re in the business of repeating ourselves. Or did I already say that?
