Freemasons Get PR



April 7, 2001



BROOKE GLADSTONE: This week on the freemason front, in England a government move to prevent freemasons from recruiting among members of the armed forces has been blocked because of claims that hit violates the European Conventions on Human Rights. However in Wales, freemasons this week lost their bid to change the rule forcing members of the government assembly to disclose their membership.

WALTER REUTHER:Meanwhile in Las Vegas meetings of the freemasons were listed in the local events calendar right in between the library club and cancer screenings, and a few items down from the pinochle group. Why such different treatment in different places? The freemasons believe the answer is public relations, and the membership has hired a PR firm to cleanse freemasonry of its clandestine taint.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Mike Dewar [sp?] of MDA Communications has been hired by the freemasons to manage their press. Mike, the goal of any PR campaign would be to dispel myths and negative perceptions about whoever you're representing - in this case the masons. One of the chief characteristics of this group has been its secrecy! Why suddenly in the '80s, '90s and today are they trying to change that?

MIKE DEWAR: Well I think they've had a bad press, certainly in the Britain over the last probably 40, 50 years. It was only perhaps in the '80s that they started thinking about coming out. In Britain they had one or two rather unsuccessful attempts to come out and they got a bad press; they still have the secretive image; they had the image of people who did favors to fellow masons and so on; a degree of corruption -- sinister almost. The fact of the matter is that for the last 20 years certainly their membership is not secret; the only thing which they keep to themselves and they prefer to use the word "private" is their induction ceremony, and they justify that by saying this is what makes being a mason special -- otherwise it'll become like the rotary club or whatever. I mean what does it matter if they roll up a trouser leg - it may not be your bag or mine.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:There was a report on the BBC this month that said new members are blindfolded, wearing a hangman's noose and are warned that their throats will be slit and their tongues torn out and they will be buried in the sand if they betray anyone else in the brotherhood. This is hardly a matter of a trouser rolled.

MIKE DEWAR: First of all those words were discontinued about 20 years ago. They were, of course, only symbolic. I haven't found too many freemasons with slit throats. When those words did exist, they had come right down from the early 18th Century when those sort of oaths were, were commonplace.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:How do you plan to get the freemasons into the press and into the press favorably, and why do the freemasons feel they need this now?!

MIKE DEWAR: Well, I, I, I think they want to be perceived as modern and more important as relevant. In summer of 2002 we have a freemasonry in the community week, and the idea will be to make an impact right across the country that freemasons really are part of the community and a useful part of the community. We intend to start up a magazine for them so that they sing off the, the same hymn sheet if you like; it'll be internal PR. We'd improve their web site by improving their literature. I could go on.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Freemasonry is open to people of all races, nationalities and creeds but not to women. Why not?

MIKE DEWAR:Yes. And I - again I find that very-- easy to defend. I do believe our democracy here has grown up enough and adult enough that if boys want to be boys together and if girls want to girls together, that's absolutely fine, and that's not sexist. So that one funnily enough is, is certainly in Britain just not a problem.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:I have read that the population of the freemasons is aging alarmingly and is part of this PR effort an attempt to boost membership?

MIKE DEWAR: Well they don't recruit, but certainly they would be happy if I created an atmosphere in which it might be easier for younger members to be invited. But their membership hasn't, hasn't tumbled drastically. It's now a third of a million in this country, and I think in its heyday it was about a half a million.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:When dealing with the challenges of representing freemasonry you have to come up against some pretty-- I think you would regard as far-fetched conspiracy theories. Freemasonry associated with UFOs; freemasonry associated with the Kennedy Assassination. Do you have to respond to these sorts of theories or do you just leave them alone?

MIKE DEWAR: Well if it as a general wild accusation, one tends to be dismissive and just pooh-pooh it. If it's a specific one and I don't know the answer, I'm quite honest and I say I don't know the answer but the freemasonry organization is absolutely the first to admit there have been rotten apples, and so I know that that has been a general answer which I have given.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do you blame the media for the masons' bad image?

MIKE DEWAR:No, I don't; not really. The media report perceptions. It's their job to. They have some favorite whipping boys; they always have done; and I think that the masons are one of their favorite whipping boys. But in my experience, if you do a good enough job for long enough in trying to change their mind, usually they come around. So I've obviously got a challenge on my hands.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: [LAUGHS] Thank you very much.

MIKE DEWAR: Not at all.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Mike Dewar is the managing director of MDA Communications in London; a public relations firm which has been recently hired by the freemasons.

MAN IN SKETCH: Oh Pff! the abattoir! That's not important. [LAUGHTER] But if one of you could put in a word for me, I'd love to be a freemason. Freemasonry [...?...]-- [LAUGHTER] I was, I was a bit on edge just now, but, but if I was a mason I'd just sit at the back and not get in anyone's way.

GUY: [POLITELY DISMISSING] Thank you.

MAN IN SKETCH: I've got a second hand apron.

GUY: [POLITELY DISMISSING] Thank you. [LAUGHTER]