Bob Burton is a freelance journalist and public relations

Public relations

Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....

 analyst based in Canberra

Canberra

Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...

, the capital of Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

He worked until the early 1990s as a researcher and campaigner on energy, mining and forestry issues for The Wilderness Society

The Wilderness Society (Australia)

The Wilderness Society is an Australian, community-based, not-for-profit non-governmental environmental advocacy organisation. Its purpose is to protect, promote and restore wilderness and natural processes across Australia for the survival and ongoing evolution of life on Earth.It is a...

 in Australia.

He has been a contributor to PR Watch since 1997. He has also edited the website of mining industry watchdog, the Mineral Policy Institute. He commenced as part-time editor of SourceWatch

SourceWatch

SourceWatch is an internet wiki site that is a collaborative project of the liberal Center for Media and Democracy...

 (then known as Disinfopedia) in October 2003.

With New Zealander Nicky Hager

Nicky Hager

Nicky Hager is an author and investigative journalist born in Levin, New Zealand and now resides in Wellington. He generally writes about issues involving intelligence networks, environmental issues and politics. He has degrees in physics and philosophy...

 he co-authored Secrets and Lies

Secrets and Lies (Hagar)

Secrets and Lies, subtitled "the anatomy of an anti-environmental PR campaign", is a 1999 book by Nicky Hager and Bob Burton.The book documents the public relations information put out by Timberlands West Coast Limited in order to win public support for logging of native forests on the West Coast...

, detailing the campaign on behalf of Timberlands West Coast Limited

Timberlands West Coast Limited

Timberlands West Coast Limited is a New Zealand state-owned enterprise based on the West Coast.It was formed to manage the native and exotic forests on the West Coast of the defunct New Zealand Forest Service....

, a State-owned enterprise in New Zealand

State-Owned Enterprises of New Zealand

State-owned enterprises in New Zealand are registered companies listed under Schedules 1 and 2 of the State-Owned Enterprises Act 1986...

, by public relations firm Shandwick (now Weber Shandwick Worldwide).