The newly-formed gun lobby The Sportsman’s Association of Great Britain
(SAGB) has angrily distanced itself from a public relations consultant
who urged supporters to launch a smear campaign against Snowdrop - the
anti-gun group formed in the wake of the Dunblane massacre.
Last Sunday’s Observer reported that Marcus Harrison, who it described
as a founder member of the SAGB, has been using the Internet to urge gun
owners to dig for dirt on their ‘enemies’ - namely anti-gun groups such
as Snowdrop.
The article quoted from Harrison’s Internet material, where he states:
‘As a professional communicator I know how to distort information and
manipulate facts’. Speaking directly to the Observer, Harrison claimed
this was ‘standard PR practice’.
However, Mike Yardley, a leading shooting journalist who claims to be
the official spokesman for SAGB, along with its chairman, Albie Fox
declares: ‘The article is completely inaccurate. It describes Harrison
as a founder member of SAGB, which he is not; it calls him a leading
target shooter, which he is not; and it claims his comments have plunged
the new shooters’ rights group into crisis, which is also a fantasy. We
have had 30,000 applications for membership in just two weeks.’
‘To call Harrison a founder member of the SAGB is misleading,’ said
Yardley. ‘This story has done harm to the association and its
membership.’
When PR Week asked Harrison about his credentials as an SAGB member and
spokesman, he replied, ‘I told the Observer I’d applied for membership a
few days earlier and I reiterated that I was an individual who didn’t
belong to any groups.’
In his Internet posting Harrison claims to be ‘a professional
writer/director/producer with 20 years experience in
marketing/PR/advertising communications; working on everything from
selling chocolates and colas to Rolls Royce cars’, but when questioned
about his PR credentials Harrison said he had always been freelance and
couldn’t reveal which companies he had worked for.
Defending his definition of public relations as distortion and
manipulation he said: ‘It is par for the course, information is
information.’
