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Mr. Green Spin
In a world of global-warming deniers
and right-wing media pundits, it’s not easy being
green. Maybe that’s why Jim Hoggan has built
a thriving PR business doing what he calls “God’s
work”
By Kevin Chong
“Whether preparing for a job search or a media
interview, you should always begin by preparing key
messages. Set your agenda and stick to it. It’s
the best hope for leaving the right impression.”
— P.R. Tips by Jim Hoggan, Vancouver Sun,
April 28, 2007
It’s a slight distinction, but Jim Hoggan comes
off as being well-prepared but not calculating. He’s
also casual, direct, and articulate. In short, he’s
a far cry from the stereotypical PR flack popularized
on
The Daily Show—the dissembling, conscientiously
obtuse Bush administration press secretary who responds
to tough questions with calibrated buzz phrases like “support
our troops” and “stay the course.” Then
again, maybe not looking slick is just a better way
of being slick.
Jim Hoggan’s the suit with the heart of green.
As one of the city’s top PR guys, he charges
$350 an hour to help clients like A&W, Century
21, and Canadian Tire look good. His weekly advice
on PR issues in the business pages of the Vancouver
Sun recently ended a four-and-a-half-year run and will
be published, with extra material, as a book next spring.
And he’s jumped into the middle of the angry
public debate on climate change, pitting himself against
his counterparts in the fossil-fuel industries.
Hoggan, a fit-looking 61-year-old with blue eyes and
side-swept, reddish hair, calls his work with the climate-change
Web site DeSmogBlog and his chairing the volunteer
board of the David Suzuki Foundation “God’s
work.” Since it launched in December 2005, DeSmogBlog
has become part virtual gathering spot, part dead-tree
reporter’s information resource, and part soapbox—tricked
out with Web 2.0 accoutrements like a YouTube channel,
RSS feeds, a Facebook group, and podcasts—for
the environmental movement. Hoggan says the site had
850,000 unique visitors last year. In February, the
Times of London’s Web site included it on a list
of the “Top 50 Eco Blogs.”
Hoggan’s work is fuelled by a zealot’s
conviction that immediate change is needed to avoid
catastrophe. DeSmogBlog is on a self-appointed mission
to provide a database and gathering place for those
fighting the climate-change “denial” movement.
The Web site labels as deniers those scientists who
challenge the now-mainstream belief in manmade climate
change (as opposed to a change that’s occurring
naturally due to sunspots, as some skeptics insist)
and calls for restrictions on greenhouse-gas emissions.
According to Hoggan, scientists like University of
Virginia professor emeritus Fred Singer, who also had
a hand in the U.S. tobacco industry’s efforts
to dispute the science on second-hand smoke, are instruments
of the oil and coal conglomerates. Working with industry-backed
scientific associations, right-wing think tanks, and
sham “grass-roots” organizations (in a
process Hoggan terms “astroturfing”), they
create the illusion of contention and debate on climate
change when in truth the real debate ended many years
ago.
Hoggan sees these tactics as a perversion of public
relations and bad for society. “A good PR person
knows how to balance the clients’ interests with
the public’s interests,” he says from the
Howe Street offices of James Hoggan & Associates. “Public
confusion [about climate change] caused by industry
and front groups, particularly in the U.S., is serious
stuff. What these folks are doing is not harmless.”
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