Director: Kevin McMahon
National Film Board of Canada. 1998. $39.95
Length: 46 minutes
Audience: High School, Post-Secondary
Topics: PR, spin doctors

NFB video description:

Spin doctors, lobbyists, flaks - they are the sultans of spin. And in today's media-driven age, they exert enormous power, and have become important (if often reviled) players in the shaping of public opinion. No major corporation or government body is without them.

Truth Merchants enters the twilight world of public relations - part propaganda, part showbiz, part advertising - and explores the symbiotic relationship between PR people and journalists.

An executive gets lessons in public speaking from a communications consultant. NASA does damage control on an unsuccessful space mission involving dead lab animals. A PR agent for Starbucks receives an industry Oscar for having carefully shepherded her client through a difficult period of public scrutiny.

Truth Merchants provides a disturbing and intriguing behind-the-scenes look at the growing influence of the PR professionals, and the journalists they court in an uneasy alliance.

Truth Merchants can be ordered online from the National Film Board.