In 2004 Chris Mooney wrote on Op-Ed Seductions:
Two of the most striking recent incidents involve the same author: James Glassman of Tech Central Station and the American Enterprise Institute. Some essential background on Glassman's operation comes from this article by Nicholas Confessore in The Washington Monthly, which depicts Tech Central Station as a strange hybrid: It quacks like a pro-free market journalistic Web site, but it runs articles that closely favor the interests of the site's corporate sponsors. In fact, Tech Central Station is published by a lobbying shop, the DCI Group. Glassman, Confessore concludes, has "reinvented journalism - as lobbying."
And he's extended that practice beyond Tech Central Station itself and onto major op-ed pages. Recently, for instance, Glassman published a St. Louis Post-Dispatch op-ed attacking Morris Spurlock's new documentary "Super Size Me," which links fast food served at McDonald's to the American obesity epidemic. Glassman called the film an "outrageously dishonest and dangerous piece of self-promotion." What he didn't do is disclose that McDonald's partly funds Tech Central Station.
It's safe to assume that Post-Dispatch readers would have approached Glassman's piece very differently had this information been handy. In fact, the paper felt compelled to run a lengthy and embarrassing apology after Glassman's McDonald's ties were brought to its attention. After further inquiry, the Post-Dispatch even realized that Tech Central Station had created a "lavish spinoff Web site...devoted solely to discrediting 'Super Size Me.'"
At the time Glassman promised to disclose such connections in the future. The St Petersburg Times describes how that went:
His Scripps Howard columns continued to run without identifying his sponsors, even when he promoted their views on issues such as oil taxation and pharmaceutical regulation.
In a brief interview with the St. Petersburg Times, Glassman said he has changed his mind about disclosing his conflicts and that the "About TCS" page of the Tech Central Web site is sufficient. He does not believe he needs to reveal his corporate ties to newspapers that publish his columns.
"I've done enough disclosure," he said. "We list who our advertisers, and sponsors are right on the site so people can see it. They can make their own judgment." ...
Glassman's decision not to disclose his corporate ties is surprising given that he lambasted fellow journalists for similar conflicts. In a 1995 column in the Washington Post, Glassman predicted that reporters accepting speaking fees from companies and owning stock in businesses they cover would become "the next great American scandal."
Lots more on opinion laundering in the St Petersburg Times article.
Hat tip: Teresa Nielsen Hayden.
This whole Tech Central operation reeks even more when you consider that the PR firm behind this operation, as you wrote, is DCI Group. The president of DCI, is a guy named Doug Goodyear, and before he picked up the battle against climate change science, he was heavily involved in the maufacturing of fake grass roots organizations on behalf of Phillip Morris. Here's a link to the original document for anyone interested: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/cgi/getdoc?tid=wtm33d00&fmt=pdf&ref=resu…
Well, where Glassman gets his money from is a sorta boring question. The stuff about "super size me" is much more interesting.
Morris Spurlock's new documentary "Super Size Me," which links fast food served at McDonald's to the American obesity epidemic.
Didn't this help fuel the lawsuits that were filed against the fast food industry for making a couple of fat idiots fat?
No, the movie came AFTER the lawsuits.
BTW, if American conservatives are going to keep pushing the idea of private torts as a way to regulate corproate behaviour in the absence of government action they really need to stop complaining every time someone initiates a law suit they don't like.
Well, where Glassman gets his money from is a sorta boring question.
Suuuure - industry gaming public perceptions about the effects their products have on the environment is a real snoozer.
Anyway, his site is rife with doubt-sowing on the food-obesity question.
Best,
D
BTW, if American conservatives are going to keep pushing the idea of private torts as a way to regulate corproate behaviour in the absence of government action they really need to stop complaining every time someone initiates a law suit they don't like.
You got it all backwards. The trial lawyers have the Democrats in their pocket.
Ben, absent regulatory law, how exactly does the magic of the marketplace work for the little guy? How does a small fry stand up to a large corporation? Lawsuits are the way it happens, and the rightwing expects the regulatory powers to butt out, so you're left with lawsuits as the only reasonable recourse for redress. You either know this,a dn are being disingenuous, or don't know this and are therefore obstuse.
Trial lawyers are considered one of the Democrats main base of financial support and especially oppose Republican efforts to place caps on lawsuit awards and to place limits on class action lawsuits.
From here.
Whatever you're selling, I'm not buying. The power we have over the "booga booga" corporations is numbers. If they suck, we stop buying, they die. Consider Jack in the Box. I bet they're one of the safest places to eat since the whole e coli thing. They could not afford another debacle like that.
So that's the thing. If I don't like a particular big scary corporation, there's nobody holding a gun to my head to make me buy their products. On the other hand, I don't have much choice when it comes to a product or service the government "provides" or requires. In fact, in the case of these "requirements" somebody is holding a gun to my head. And I can't sue. My one measley vote isn't worth much since I'm in the minority in Seattle. Swell!
Ben, so you've hoenstly never heard Libertarians run that line?
If so, you're lucky.
Ben, you're right of course about governmental services, but it doesn't detract from QrazyQat's point about private litigation against corporations.
Most people of course don't sue for damages that big corporations may cause. While product liability suits are subject to some abuses, they, along with various consumer information media, remain the best way for the private market to police corporate behavior - and of course are far preferable to unwieldy federal and state regulations, which tend to push up the price of goods to the benefit of larger corporations.
Corporations already have an unfair advantage through (1) their limited liability feature that protects investors from the costs of risky activities that end up being foisted on the market and (2) the fact that injured consumers must weigh the potential gains from litigation against the personal expense and inconvenience, as well as the risk they may lose at the end of the day.
"Conservatives" that advocate restrictions on litigation are essentially selling out consumers and their own principles in exchange for campaign contributions from large corporations, who naturally prefer the safety of a regulated and uneven playing field to the rigors of the market. Surely your principles matter to you. No matter how distatesful you may find trial lawyers, they are surely better and less costly than a bunch of government bureaucrats and their enduring legacy of stifling the market for the benefit of favored corporate interests.
Ben. Ben ben ben ben ben ben ben ben ben BEN. Ben.
One tiny thing:
"...which Tech Central Station offered free to newspaper editorial pages..."
That's true of all TCS pieces. It's happened several times with stuff I've written.
TokyoTom, I mostly agree with you. The world is not perfect, and hence the trial lawyers are a necessary evil. I think consumer choice does more to "regulate" the corporations, and then lawsuits allow an extra necessary measure. The lawsuits often seem to get out of hand, and then it costs all of us in the long run.
Pinko Punko, like, I don't get it.
What PP said.
Best,
D
Not helpful. Here, lemme try
PP Pp Pp Pp Pp Pp Pp Pp Pp Pp PP. Pp.
What ben said.
I still don't get it. What gives? Did I miss some axiom about the booga booga corporations controling my thoughts with powerful gamma rays that override my will and force me to stock up on high margin twinkies and dead babies at the quickie mart?
Yes, your hand-waving gives away your fear of your argument's flaws being discovered, ben. 'Nuff said.
Anyway, what PP said was, in effect: 'try to use your magical Consumer Choice(TM) to have a healthy consumer diet sans high fructose corn syrup, GMOs, etc.'
IOW, when you go up the Ave. for lunch, use your magical Consumer Choice(TM) to consume a product sans MSG. Use your purchasing power, ben, to maybe eschew MSG and go to the Apollo for some gyros in non-enriched wheat flour pita. Or to eat non-corporately/non-subsidizedly and privelege small farmers by eating at Chipotle. Or you can eschew crappy corporate beer and go to that microbrewpub I can't remember the name of and eat non-subsidized nachos while you're at it - you know the ones: with the non-subsidized corporate tomato salsa. Or go to the Safeway to buy produce with country-of-origin labeling...oh, wait: you can't because that was lobbied away. Ah, well.
Or maybe he was saying, in effect: 'you're talking to the hand when you spout all that old-school, passé free market fetishization hooey'.
Best,
D
I don't buy any of that stuff. I can go to whole foods and get anything I like. I make my own lunches, and the stuff on the ave is too expensive anyway.
Someone holding a gun to your head to make you buy food on the ave?
This is the funniest part of the whole article:
That's kind of like saying you don't know what their position is on banning petroleum. Milloy could at least try to look honest.
Someone holding a gun to your head to make you buy food on the ave?
I no longer live in Seattle, and when I did I rode my bike up the hill for lunch.
But when you have work sessions and your fellow students go up to the Ave., surely you disparage the MSG, high fructose corn syrup and enriched wheat flour your fellow students force you to consider consuming while you work; that is, when not consumerly choosing to watch corporate Sony TV or playing Sony vids or listening to your i-Tunes on your consumer-chosen Sony .mp3 or the GM-owned studio movie on non-gun chosen Sony DVD...
Best,
D
I think what he meant was "official position" on windfall profits. I'm opposed to taxes on windfall profits as well, and nobody gave me any money.
That St. Petersburg Times article was pretty good, with one exception. When a shill like Steven Milloy puts a noose around his neck with a pathetic rationalization like
They need to kick his ladder away.
Steven Milloy, what's your position on a salary increase for Steven Milloy?
Ben, I'd think that good information is basic to making consumer as well as other important choices. The original article cited is about misrepresenting PR ( a form of advertising) as information. Worse PR is often presented as if it has a sound factual and or scientific basis. The power of PR and advertising to influence consumer decisions where such decisions are not in the consumers best interest is clear. Not all that effective a tool for dealing with the harmful products, practices and by-products of corporations - especially if other tools are weakened or eliminated.