Media_manipulators_and_fake_persuaders

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GMW:_Media_manipulators_and_fake_persuaders

" GM_Watch "

Thu, 3 Jun 2004 11:50:05 +0100

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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PRESS RELEASE

 

Revealed: the media manipulators and fake persuaders

New website tracks deceptive public relations

http://www.lobbywatch.org

 

Contact: Jonathan Matthews +44 (0)1603 624021; email info

 

You cannot hope to bribe or twist,

thank God, the British journalist.

But, seeing what the man will do

unbribed, there's no occasion to.

- Humbert Wolfe, The Uncelestial City

 

Apparently independent research claiming to show Hormone Replacement Therapy

(HRT) improved the lives of modern day postmenopausal women received widespread

- and supportive - media coverage in the UK last year, gaining headlines such

as, " HRT leads to a better sex life and a happy healthy life " .

 

The British Medical Journal later reported that the research was commissioned by

a pharmaceutical industry front group as part of an industry-fashioned campaign

which gained an award from the magazine Pharmaceutical Marketing.

http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=123

 

This kind of media manipulation is not just a British phenomenon. Media experts

in the US estimate that 40 percent of all " news " comes virtually unedited from

public relations offices acting on behalf of corporate or political clients. The

PR industry's proudest boast is that " the best PR is never noticed " .

 

This is not necessarily the fault of the journalist. Few people have the time to

keep looking behind the ever-increasing number of front groups and

not-so- " independent experts " mouthing the message of industries focussed on

their financial bottom line.

 

WE CAN HELP

 

Our new website, www.lobbywatch.org, has been set up to track deceptive PR.

 

The site offers an invaluable resource for journalists and concerned citizens.

It provides an A-Z directory of lobbyists, PR firms, corporate front groups,

political networks, and industry-friendly scientists and other " experts " .

 

Journalist and author George Monbiot has said of the site, " If you want to know

how the world works, this is the place to start. I cannot think of a more

necessary set of facts than these. "

 

ABOUT LOBBYWATCH

 

Lobbywatch is an off-shoot of the work of GM Watch (www.gmwatch.org) which

reports on the massive PR push behind genetically modified (GM) foods. Our

investigative work has prompted many items in the media. Our exposure of a dirty

tricks campaign waged by Monsanto and its Internet PR firm against the company's

scientific and environmental critics, led to coverage in New Scientist, The

Guardian (a series of three articles), and in programmes on BBC TV and radio, as

well as other media items around the world. You can find out more about who we

are here:

http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=2 & page=1

 

In the course of investigating independent-seeming " third parties " promoting GM

we came across many organisations and individuals active in corporate advocacy

across a wide range of environmental, agricultural, health, development, trade

and other issues.

 

We do not pretend to be an unbiased source and we do not ask you to accept our

information unquestioningly. The great thing about an internet based directory

is that we can provide links to other articles and to source materials to help

you assess our findings for yourself.

 

We do think our findings raise questions that require answers. For example, if a

science lobby group is run by a PR agency directly linked to a major corporate

funder who has a known business and political agenda, why are they not

disclosing that fact to you?

http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=136

 

THREE LOBBYWATCH EXPOSES

 

The following examples are all based on information available at lobbywatch.org.

 

1. DR ROGER BATE is an " expert " whose views are widely promoted to the media on

several continents on issues that affect us all, such as global warming and the

environment.

 

Bate operates out of a whole series of lobby groups which serve as platforms for

Bate to launch attacks on matters as diverse as:

**the Kyoto treaty

**the UN, the World Health Organisation, and aid agencies

**environment groups and other NGOs

**the weakening of drug patents

**restrictions on smoking

**organic farming

**restrictions on pesticide use, on-farm antibiotics etc.

**concerns over GMOs

**restrictions on industrial chemicals.

 

His press releases are faxed out of often innocuous or mainstream-sounding

groups, such as:

 

**The Institute of Economic Affairs

**The European Science and Environment Forum

**The International Policy Network

**The Sustainable Development Network

**Africa Fighting Malaria

**The Competitive Enterprise Institute

**The American Enterprise Institute.

 

These groups are often inter-linked and the backing that they receive, from

major corporate sponsors or from a network of right wing groups and donors, is

not necessarily disclosed.

 

Take, for instance, The European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF), which

Roger Bate co-founded. Its website originally claimed ESEF accepted no corporate

donations: " To maintain its independence and impartiality, the ESEF does not

accept outside funding from whatever source, the only income it receives is from

the sale of its publications " . Yet papers released during a court case involving

the tobacco giant Philip Morris revealed that ESEF had been established with

Philip Morris money solicited by Bate. This sponsorship was not made apparent

during ESEF's campaign against restrictions on passive smoking.

 

It would be a mistake to see the actions of lobbyists like Bate as marginal. The

close links of George W. Bush's administration to the American Enterprise

Institute (AEI), where Bate is a visiting fellow, are well known. The Institute

of Economic Affairs (IEA), where Bate founded an Environmental Unit which he

directed for seven years, claims to have had " enormous influence on public

policy and the views of leading politicians " .

 

More information and links: http://www.lobbywatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=30 & page=11.

 

2. HALL OF MIRRORS

 

What do the following have in common?

 

The Science Media Centre, Progress Educational Trust, Genetic Interest Group,

Sense About Science, the Pro-Choice Forum, and the British Pregnancy Advisory

Service

 

They all have directors, CEOs or policy directors, and sometimes other staff,

who are part of a political network which eulogises technologies like genetic

engineering and human reproductive cloning and which is extremely hostile to

their critics, whom they brand as Nazis.

 

This network engages in infiltration of media organisations and science-related

lobby groups in order to promote its agenda.

 

What do the following have in common?

 

Families for Freedom, Institute of Ideas, Freedom & Law, Transport Research

Group, Africa Direct, Spiked-online, WORLDwrite, Irish Freedom Movement, LM

magazine, Feminists for Justice, Global Futures, Internet Freedom, The Litigious

Society, Audacity.org.

 

They are just some of the front groups that have been directly generated by the

same political network. These front groups have been used to deny the genocide

in Rwanda, attack climate change science, support a big road building programme,

oppose laws on date rape, etc. What makes these groups so difficult to deal with

is that they do not normally disclose their allegiances.

 

More information and links

- the network: http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=78

- Fiona Fox: http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=45

- Thomas Deichmann: http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=161

 

3. THE LIBERTY INSTITUTE

 

The Liberty Institute (aka The Julian Simon Centre) is an anti-regulation

pressure group based in New Delhi, India. It's also part of rightwing coalitions

like the US-based International Consumers for Civil Society (ICCS) and the

London-based International Policy Network (IPN).

 

The institute's founder and director is Barun Mitra who has made regular

appearanes in the western media. Mitra and Liberty lobbied hard for commercial

approval for Monsanto's GM cotton, claiming there should be " free access " to new

technologies without any government interference.

 

In March 2002 in the run-up to India's approval of the commercialisation of

Monsanto's GM cotton, the Liberty Institute hosted a press conference at which

representatives of large corporate farmers threatened to grow Monsanto's GM

cotton regardless of regulatory approval. The group of farmers' leaders present

included Chengal Reddy of what was billed as the " Indian Farmers Federation " .

None of the " farmers' leaders " present has a significant constituency.

 

Liberty has also been a strong supporter of Big Tobacco, publishing an attack on

the World Health Organisation by Roger Scruton - the British philosopher since

exposed as being in the pay of the tobacco industry - with a forward by Barun

Mitra. In Liberty's press release for the book it is claimed, " The anti-tobacco

crusade from the West, like the environmental one as manifested at the WTO

meeting in Seattle last December, is the newest manifestation of the

neo-imperialistic desires. "

 

Attacking corporate critics as " neo-colonialists " is a frequent ploy. The

Liberty Institute and Mitra are used in this way, as is the Kenyan James

Shikwati and the US-based Indian scientist CS Prakash. The result: a Third World

face is put on a pro-corporate agenda and civil society movements in the Third

World who challenge corporate interests are denigrated.

 

An example of this was a march in support of free trade and biotechnology,

involving farmers like Chengal Reddy, at the World Summit on Sustainable

Development in Johannesburg in August 2002. James Shikwati wrote a commentary

about the march for The (London) Times headlined, " I do not need white NGOs to

speak for me " . Mitra made a speech during the march in which he gave a " Bullshit

award for Sustaining Poverty " to the Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva. In

making the award, Mitra condemned Shiva as " a mouthpiece of western

eco-imperialism " .

 

However, the media contact given on the press releases for both the march and

for Mitra's award was Kendra Okonski, the daughter of a US lumber industrialist

who has worked for various right wing anti-regulatory NGOs - all funded and

directed by " whites " . These include the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a

Washington-based think tank whose multi-million dollar budget comes from major

US corporations, amongst them BIO member Dow Chemicals. Okonski also runs the

website Counterprotest.net, where her speciality is helping right wing lobbyists

take to the streets in mimicry of popular protesters.

 

Okonski works for the London-based International Policy Network and the

deceptively named Sustainable Development Network. She has edited a book

attacking climate change and makes multiple media appearances on a variety of

issues, most recently on BBC TV news criticising Fair Trade.

 

More information and links: http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=156

 

 

www.lobbywatch.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

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