Thirty seven years ago, on this day, October 27th, 1988, the limits are pushed…
This recalls an infamous case from 1988 involving the Guardian, considered Britain’s most liberal newspaper. An article by Guardian journalist James Erlichman covered a Greenpeace campaign to name and shame Ford motor company – then by far the country’s biggest advertiser – because it lagged behind other car manufacturers in adapting engines to take unleaded petrol. A Greenpeace poster showed exhaust fumes in the shape of a skull and crossbones with the slogan: ‘Ford Gives You More.’
Greenpeace tried to publish the poster as an advertisement in The Times, the Guardian and the Independent – all refused. The conclusion to Erlichman’s piece contained one of the great bombshells in the history of British journalism:
“Greenpeace booked 20 hoardings for its poster campaign. But then the advertising agency was informed that most of the sites – those owned by Mills & Allen – had been withdrawn.
Carl Johnson, who is handling the account, said: ‘We were told that the posters were offensive, but I am sure someone was afraid of losing a lot of Ford advertising.’
Mr Johnson attempted to book the ‘skull and crossbones’ advertisement with The Times, the Guardian and the Independent. ‘I have no doubt that they all feared losing Ford’s advertising if they accepted ours,’ he said.” (Erlichman, ‘Threat of boycotts “turns firms green”,’ The Guardian, October 27, 1988) https://www.medialens.org/2009/the-guardian-climate-and-advertising-an-open-email-to-george-monbiot/
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 351ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 425ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that newspapers have been reliant on advertising for a very long time. Efforts to break free of that have on the whole not worked so well, at a mass level.
The specific context was that everyone was het up about global warming. It was a good story. There was nothing wrong with it journalistically. Economically though….
What I think we can learn from this – that advertising is one of the five filters in the Herman and Chomsky Propaganda Model. Which should be taught in schools, but won’t ever be.
What happened next – the Guardian mostly learned its lesson, eh?
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
October 27, 1990 – The Economist admits nobody is gonna seriously cut C02 emissions –
