I won't apologise for our success

I won't apologise for our success."Mission headquarters is a small office building in Farringdon, central London. Greenpeace International, which co-ordinates the individual Greenpeace groups in 30 nations, is based in Amsterdam but Greenpeace Communications is based in one of the world's top five media cities.Mr Titchen is one of seven executive directors of Greenpeace International. I use the same editorial standards and guidelines as I did during 16 years at the BBC. But I make no apology to those critics who say we have this professional communications capability We've no control over the way journalists use our material. They simply could not resist using the dramatic TV images of a David and Goliath confrontation at sea.

Thus, said the critics, the Europeans, and especially the Germans, were persuaded to boycott Shell.This line of argument irritates Richard Titchen, an ex-BBC journalist who is Greenpeace International's director of communications "I don't even have a budget to take anyone to lunch. There was widespread questioning among the UK media, including the BBC, as to whether Greenpeace deserved to win.The suggestion was that Greenpeace had won the day thanks to the continental media, which uncritically broadcast Greenpeace's emotional appeals not to dump the Spar in the Atlantic. But it was surprised when it came under attack in the British press in the immediate aftermath of its Brent Spar victory, after Shell called off its plans to sink the structure and the contaminants inside.It was not merely a matter of indignation on the part of right-wing newspapers at the way in which a group of activists had humiliated one of Britain's largest multinationals and the Tory government that had supported it. There's nothing wrong with that."Until this year, Greenpeace had quietly and successfully got on with improving techniques for seizing air time and column inches. The British, journalists included, like the underdog to win, and Greenpeace used that. The media were joyful in taking the angle they did at the time of Brent Spar, and now they are pontificating, saying, `How terrible' They played the game and then they moan about it afterwards. It's entirely justifiable for Greenpeace to use effective PR.

PR is about putting your case across in order to win the argument PR is all about psychology. We never put enough distance between ourselves and the participants. I'm left feeling Greenpeace was pulling us by the nose."Quentin Bell, head of the Quentin Bell Organisation and chairman of the Public Relations Consultants' Association, shrugs off the fuss: "I think that's disgraceful. Looking back on the Brent Spar coverage, David Lloyd, senior commissioning editor of Channel 4 news and current affairs, told the Edinburgh Television Festival last week: "We were bounced.

By the time broadcasters tried to introduce scientific argument into the narrative, the story had long since been spun far, far in Greenpeace's direction."Richard Sambrook, head of newsgathering operations at the BBC, admitted: "It was our own, the media's fault. Indeed, even those who have profited from Greenpeace's efficiency have recently taken to carping. It produces media packages that are used all over the world, and has impressive archives of still and moving images. It also publishes books.Critics and enemies are, of course, appalled by the way a relatively small, self-appointed outfit can command the headlines. They captured their own capture on video.Last month, when Greenpeace protested against Chinese nuclear testing, in Tiananmen Square, it ensured there was a way of smuggling footage out of the country.Greenpeace is a committed communicator that keeps talking to the end - which is why it is the planet's best-known environmental organisation.