The Playbook

April 25, 2022
Jacquet (Is Shame Necessary?), a professor of environmental studies at NYU, delivers a tongue-in-cheek guide for corporate leaders seeking to mislead the public and dodge regulatory efforts. Fashioned as a strategy manual, Jacquet’s satirical advice explains how to achieve greater effectiveness in the goals of misdirection and obfuscation. For example, she documents how trade associations, public relations specialists, and private investigators can help challenge the credibility of scientists and reporters, noting that the Koch brothers hired a former New York City police commissioner to dig up dirt on New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer. Elsewhere, Jacquet offers instructions for attracting and retaining university experts in the defense of corporate causes. Emphasizing that public communication is crucial to protecting corporate interest and amplifying scientific doubt, she details how to challenge the existence of a problem, the integrity of those who raise it, and the need for policies to address it. A list of “near-term threats” to these tactics—including stricter university disclosure policies and better public education about the processes of disinformation—doubles as a checklist of reforms. Though some of the nuance between sincere and cynical expressions of scientific doubt gets lost, this whip-smart and delightfully snarky exposé gives readers the tools to recognize and refute corporate deception.