While I fundamentally agree with the idea of corporate transparency, Bernays justification rings a little hollow to me, only rating about a 2. Were I a corporate manager with scepticism about corporate transparency, I would not be swayed by this argument, especially since the paragraph from which this argument comes is an overly-dramatized attempt to sell me on the idea of hiring a "public relations counsel". Where is the justification that "a single false rumor at a critical moment" happens often enough for me to truly worry about? Bernays does not provide a sufficient level of data to make me question this skeptical point of view, much less an overwhelming level to make me abandon it altogether. Falling back on the word "may" then gives him room to argue, "well, I didn't say it would happen _all_ the time." I want to know tendencies. I want to know strengths of those tendencies. At the very least, I want to see fully examined case studies showing me how rumors were dealt with or not dealt with in time.