In 2006 I exposed the myth-making of an important, Swiss state-funded, UN sponsored website Chernobyl.info. As part of my work for the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster I’ve revisited the issue and discovered things have got worse. Read on ›

Chernobyl was my Big Story: it was my life for a while. But it must fascinate any PR. It has it all: crisis communication, reputation management, single-issue campaigners and misleading media reporting. Read on ›

According to The Guardian’s John Vidal, the UN is set to report that Shell is responsible for just 10% of the oil spilt in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region over the last 40 years. Time to lay off Shell, or time to wheel out conspiracy theories?  Read on ›

Imagine the outrage if gaffe-prone BP chief Tony Hayward had said yesterday that the Gulf Coast places were “as vibrant and just as beautiful as they’ve always been”. Well, that’s what First Lady Michelle Obama did say yesterday. Read on ›

Who’s to blame for the blowout in the Gulf? It’s a fair bet that the corporations involved will get stuck with most of the opprobrium. But I’m more inclined to blame the regulators and their masters, the politicians. What’s BP to say about its plight? I’d say the big thing is for them to stress that, with luck, they’re here for the long haul. They want to fix the problem, clean up the mess, learn the lessons and go on aiming to be the “best in class”. The rest of the truth will need to be told by third parties.  Read on ›

Note: This piece needs to be treated with care. I was the victim of a sophisticated hoax. I apologize to anybody who was mislead. But I’m leaving the post here as a spoof of a spoof. It shows how even if the anti-Shell campaigning trickesters got their way, it would not address the problems in Nigeria in a sensible or realistic manner but would actually make things worse.

Yesterday “Shell” (go to hoax press release) said it was going to clean up the Niger Delta, compensate local communities for past injuries, and institute a local stakeholders’ program that will help lift the region out of poverty. That sounds like good news. But what if the real victim is the truth? Read on ›

At the Senate hearing into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill BP, Transocean and Halliburton disputed each other’s account of what caused the accident. It was a messy affair. But in it I glimpsed the makings of a much-needed corrective PR campaign. Read on ›

Terrorists are spoiled for choice. Their targets are very varied: wedding parties in Jordan; tourists in Bali; train and bus passengers in Madrid and London; skyscrapers in New York. Radioactive material from nuclear power programmes is bound to be in the frame, not least because the public has a horror of it. Read on ›

Horizon, the BBC’s science flagship has – rather belatedly – reported research which suggests that low-level radiation is not a risk to humans. This should reassure people worried about the “victims” of Chernobyl and the danger posed by the rest of the nuclear power industry. Read on ›

Dateline 1995: As the world prepared for the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, the world’s media began a memorial feast of disaster stories. Here I review three classic examples. Read on ›