PPT Slide
“In the United States the 170,000 public relations employees whose job it is to manipulate news, public opinion and public policy in the interests of their clients outnumber news reporters by 40,000. A study in 1990 discovered that almost 40 percent of the news content of a typical U.S. newspaper originates as public relations press releases, story memos, and suggestions. The Columbia Journalism Review reported that more than half the news stories in the Wall Street Journal are based solely on corporate press releases (cited in Korten 1995:146 [When Corporations Rule the World]). “United States corporations spend almost half as much on advertising (approximately $120 per person) as the state spends on education ($207 per person).”
—Richard Robbins, “Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism,” (Allyn and Bacon, 1999) p. 138.