So over the weekend in Germany, the public TV media let loose a story which I think they'd like to see disappear rather quickly. Some folks folks were reviewing historical documents from the 1970s/1980s, and this fair-sized folder appears.....with this 'talk' of a PR campaign being run out of South Africa (in the days of the white government).
What South Africa did was hire a German public relations company, and draft up a 'game' to bring both politicians and news journalists down for 'sun and fun'. They were supposed to be shown the 'good' South Africa.
They came back from their trip, and wrote kindly of the South African government.....year after year.
Several of the big-name journalists of German public TV (SWR, ZDF, and ARD) carried the 'message' of a positive white government back to the German public. The free trip and propaganda handed out via these sponsored trips? It's obvious now that the PR effort worked and stalled off the government change for well over twenty year. The odds that this was done in the UK, France, and US? No one says much, but I would wager it was very common.
Some shame? Maybe, but this was a totally different environment in that period, and I just don't see the shock value of the weekend story.
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