Lots of Opinion, Not Much Disclosure

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The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) have more in common than being major industry lobby groups. Both have hired former Greenpeace activist turned PR consultant Patrick Moore to deflect environmental and public health criticisms.

That's their right, of course, and Moore is free to share his opinions on topics relevant to his paying clients. However, the media outlets that run Moore's columns are failing to inform their readers of his financial interests. Rather than guarding the public interest and ensuring appropriate disclosure of real or potential conflicts of interest, these outlets are allowing their op-ed pages to be used to further greenwash campaigns.

One of Moore's recent columns, published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, defended Georgia Power's controversial proposal to finance new nuclear reactors. Another column, published in the Seattle Times and later picked up by the Washington Times, criticized proposals to require the drug industry to safely dispose of unwanted pharmaceuticals. None of the newspapers disclosed that Moore consults for industries directly impacted by the topics he was addressing.

Newspaper editorial pages have long been a vital space for civic discourse. The op-ed pages (physical or online) are among media outlets' most popular features. People want to read and respond to others' thoughts on hot-button issues. But the PR industry sees these columns as a prime vehicle to advance its clients' interests, often through supposedly-independent figures who are really part of the PR team. Masking the paying client from public view denies readers the information they need to evaluate the argument being presented.

PhRMA flush with cash

In late January 2009, the Seattle Times featured a 670-word column by Moore criticising groups concerned about residual levels of pharmaceuticals in water supplies. Moore focused his criticism on state proposals under discussion in Washington, Oregon and Illinois that would require the pharmaceutical industry to design and fund a "take back" program for unwanted drugs. In his column, Moore complained that “a take-back approach to eliminate such low levels [of drugs] will be enormously costly, difficult to manage, and offer no added benefit to human health or safety.” How exactly he arrived at these conclusions is not apparent but, probably to Moore's relief, op-eds don't require references.

Moore went on to praise the Pharmaceutical Assessment and Transport Evaluation (PhATE) model, a program developed by PhRMA, the peak U.S. drug industry association. Moore also touted the SMARxT Disposal, another program developed by PhRMA in association with the American Pharmacists Association and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Readers of the column were only told that Moore is "an adviser to government and industry ... a co-founder and former leader of Greenpeace, and chair and chief scientist of Greenspirit . in Vancouver, Canada." (A near-identical version of the column was run a month later by the Washington Times, with a slightly different biographical note for Moore.)

I've followed Moore’s career as a PR adviser, and it struck me as odd that Moore, who is usually preoccupied defending the interests of his logging, mining, aquaculture and nuclear energy industry clients, was suddenly taking an interest in drug residues in the environment. A quick check of his PR firm’s website revealed that Greenspirit -- despite itself exhorting clients to communicate their "sustainability message in a transparent" way -- does not disclose its clients. However, one page makes passing mention that Greenspirit has worked on pharmaceutical issues.

In a phone call with my colleague Diane Farsetta, Greenspirit President and CEO Tom Tevlin confirmed that Greenspirit counts pharmaceutical companies among its clients, but refused to provide any further details. Following Farsetta’s brief Spin of the Day on the lack of disclosure, Moore penned an irate comment on the Center for Media and Democracy’s website claiming the item constituted "character assassination." It was a rather bizarre response. As Farsetta pointed out, the whole question could be easily be avoided by Moore simply disclosing that he has paying clients involved in the issues he writes about.

It's easy to understand why Moore’s drug industry client doesn't like the take-back proposal. One proposal, put forward by the Oregon Association of Clean Water Agencies -- representing public wastewater treatment and stormwater management agencies and associated private companies -- would ensure (pdf) "no additional cost to consumers." Instead, the drug industry would be responsible for developing and funding the take-back system.

Moore's enthusiastic plug for the SMARxT disposal program, a scheme developed by PhRMA, was a clue as to who the former environmentalist’s client might be. I contacted PhRMA to ask if they had retained Moore and, after getting bounced around its bureaucracy, I was contacted by Kaelan Hollon, a former Senior Account Manager at Peritus Public Relations who is now PhRMA's Director of Communications and Public Affairs. Hollon did not respond to questions about Moore's role for them. Instead, she suggested that I ask Moore instead. "Patrick typically prefers to answer these questions himself," she wrote in an email to me. Asked whether it would be better if he disclosed his relationship to clients in opinion columns he submitted for publication, Moore was unrepentant. "I have no intention of providing a client list at the end of all my communiqués," he wrote in an email.

Subsequently, a PhRMA PR person, who requested anonymity, wrote in an email that "PhRMA has a longstanding policy of keeping our arrangements and terms with consultants confidential."

It's not surprising that Greenspirit and PhRMA are reluctant to discuss the details of their relationship. What about the other link in the publication chain -- the Seattle Times? Several emails and phone calls to Editorial Page Editor James F. Vasely were not answered, leaving us none the wiser as to why the paper failed to ensure adequate disclosure.

For his part, Moore stated in an email to me that for every "article, op-ed and letter" that he writes, he submits the following biographical note "in bold": "An advisor to government and industry, Dr. Patrick Moore was a co-founder and long-time leader of Greenpeace. He is now Chair and Chief Scientist of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. in Vancouver, Canada." It seems that the Seattle Times, a Hearst Corporation publication, simply reproduced Moore's obtuse disclosure statement, with no questions asked.

Another Moore column that was published on Huffington Post in late 2008 used the same wording. Disturbingly, this suggests that media outlets -- such as the Washington Times, the Vancouver Sun and the Wall Street Journal, to name just a few -- actually strip out Moore's preferred initial clause in his biographical note that he is "an adviser to government and industry."

The Seattle Times Company's website doesn't include its code of ethics, though there is an statement on “Newsroom Policies and Guidelines” dating back to 1999 archived over on the American Society of Newspaper Editors website. The guidelines don't directly address whether or how to disclose opinion columnists' financial interests. However, it seems that the company -- if it still uses the document -- would likely expect the same level of disclosure from columnists as it would from the journalists it employs. The issue is no small matter, given that the Seattle Times boasts a weekday readership of over one million.

Boosting nukes for Georgia Power

A few weeks after Moore touted himself as an expert on pharmaceutical residues, he popped up in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, holding forth on energy project financing.

In an opinion column, Moore enthusiastically backed Georgia Power's lobbying efforts to bill its consumers for up to $2 billion of the $14 billion price tag of two new nuclear reactors proposed for the Vogtle power station. Aside from his usual glib line that nuclear power is "carbon-free" (it isn’t, a point that even the Nuclear Energy Institute concedes), Moore’s advocacy went to the issues of nuclear power’s Achilles heel: capital cost and financing.

Moore extolled the virtues of what he referred to as a "pay-it-forward" approach to cutting the costs of the proposed reactors. (The more common term for such pre-payment is “construction-work-in-progress” funding.) Under this approach, current customers are billed to help cut the interest costs that the company would have if it had to finance the construction itself. Moore claimed that the “pay-it-forward” approach “appeals to me because of my background in environmental activism. As a co-founder and former international director of Greenpeace, I saw how leaders in other states and nations delayed much-needed investments in long-term energy projects. Then, when economic demand and population growth quickly surpassed energy supplies, they would lurch to the cheapest, most available forms of energy, often most damaging to our air, water and way of life.”

Moore's credentials in power plant financing are wafer thin, as there is no indication that he has never written or undertaken research on the topic previously. Nor is there any suggestion in his column that he has assessed the relative benefits of funding non-nuclear energy options -- or even looked at the risks to consumers.

The “pay-it-forward” approach championed by Georgia Power and Moore is controversial, effectively taxing utility customers for a product they won't receive for years, if ever.

Moreover, the Georgia legislature recently passed a bill that allows Georgia Power to bypass the normal oversight of electricity rates, provided by the Georgia Public Service Commission to protect consumers. This will leave customers even more exposed to any cost overruns which are commonly associated with prolonged and complicated construction projects like nuclear power stations. Even the NEI recently flagged, if somewhat obliquely, that there are significant financial and other risks with comparatively small companies managing the construction of projects which have a $6 billion plus price tag.

Following Moore's column, he was simply described as the "co-chairman of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, supporting increased use of nuclear energy, and a co-founder of Greenpeace." What the paper failed to mention is that the "coalition" was created by the PR firm Hill & Knowlton and is funded by the NEI. Nor did the paper mention that Georgia Power is one of NEI's members (pdf, see page 3).

In response to my inquiries, Atlanta Journal-Constitution Public Editor Matt Kempner explained in an email that "our staff asked whether Moore received any compensation or fees from Georgia Power or Southern Company. We were told that he did not. It was disclosed to us that the Safe Energy Coalition [sic] received funding from the Nuclear Energy Institute. Our commentary editor did not know that Southern was a funder of that organization." Kempner also stated that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution “added to the tag line the phrase 'supporting nuclear energy' to make clear where Moore's organization stands on the issue.”

The tag line does make it clear what the coalition's policy stance is -- which is self-evident from the column anyway -- but the central issue is the disclosure of financial ties between Moore, the "coalition" and the nuclear power industry. The newspaper admits it knew of NEI's funding, but inexplicably chose not to inform readers of it. Instead, it opted for an oblique statement that would leave anyone not already familiar with the industry's PR machinations in the dark. Nor did the paper bother to check itself, to see whether Georgia Power is an NEI member.

It may be tempting to chalk these oversights up to simple glitches that occur when harried staff are under deadline pressures, especially in these days of downsized newsrooms. But the frequency with which Moore's clients aren't disclosed by him or by media outlets is a larger, and longer-standing, problem.

More than two years ago, shortly after Moore's "coalition" was launched, Hill and Knowlton's Frank Mankiewicz insisted in a letter to the Columbia Journalism Review that Moore “has been completely transparent about funding sources and relationships with the Nuclear Energy Institute and the public relations firm of Hill & Knowlton." But, according to Kempner, the Seattle Times only discovered the NEI connection when it asked -- not from any information Moore or his PR buddies provided initially.

Such lack of disclosure seems to permeate the media work of the coalition. Recently, John Keeley issued a media release on behalf of the coalition announcing that Moore would be appearing before a joint committee of the Wisconsin state legislature, to advocate overturning the state's ban on new nuclear plants. The release did not mention NEI's role in the coalition, or that Keeley is NEI's Media Relations Manager. Indeed, only three out of twenty nine of the coalition's media releases explicitly mention the role of the NEI as the group's sponsor. All three of those that do mention NEI as the coalition's funder date back to 2006.

Patrick Moore isn't alone. He's just one of way too many PR people and think tank "experts" who make use of the free space on the opinion pages of mainstream publications and websites to push their clients' agendas. It would be nice if such conflicted columnists disclosed their financial ties voluntarily. However, such candor would cost them PR effectiveness. Their clients rely on them being seemingly independent commentators behind which they can hide.

As voluntary disclosure is all too rare, we rely on media outlets to ask probing questions and insist on full disclosure. What about it, opinion page editors, and print, radio and television reporters?


Bob Burton is the managing editor of SourceWatch.

Many of the links in the above article are to articles on SourceWatch, the Center for Media and Democracy's collaborative online encyclopedia (which has special sections on climate change and nuclear issues). You can help update, expand and improve these or any of the other SourceWatch profiles of people, issues and groups shaping the public agenda. It's free to sign up, and we'd love to have you join us.

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Re:

It was a rather bizarre response. As Farsetta pointed out, the whole question could be easily be avoided by Moore simply disclosing that he has paying clients involved in the issues he writes about.

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What Patrick Moore Wrote

I was recently asked what it was that I had asked Moore and what his response had been. Below are my March 24, 2009 email to Moore and his response on March 25.

Dear Patrick

I am working on a blog post regarding disclosure standards relating to opinion columns and am keen to incorporate a comment from you on the issue.

Some of the examples I was going to mention was your column for the Seattle Times http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008651132_opinc21moore.html (and the later version published in the Washington Times) and another in the Atlanta Journal Constitution (http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2009/02/24/mooreed0224.html )

1) Seattle Times/Washington Times

I just wanted to follow up on the comment you posted (http://www.prwatch.org/node/8149#comment-3629 ) on the PRWatch website in response to a Spin of the Day http://www.prwatch.org/node/8149

a) Do you agree that it would have been better if you disclosed in the text of those columns or in the brief bio note that you were a consultant to PhRMA? If not, why not?

2) I understand from the AJC that they asked you about who funded the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition and you indicated that the NEI did but they didn't include that in the bio tag.

Again, wouldn't it be better if you pro actively included that disclosure in the text you submit to media outlets?

With thanks

Bob Burton
--------

Bob,

You question the way in which I “disclose” my involvement with (shudder) industry, the maker of most useful material things.

Under every article, op-ed and letter that I write on advocacy for sustainable practices and technologies I footnote in bold font:

“An advisor to government and industry, Dr. Patrick Moore was a co-founder and long-time leader of Greenpeace. He is now Chair and Chief Scientist of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. in Vancouver, Canada.”

This is my disclaimer and my “disclosure”, meaning to disrobe in public I suppose.

I can’t help it if the newspaper or other media outlet decides not to include the disclaimer. Goodness knows I would like to have a veto over the headline they assign to my writings at times.

I have no intention of providing a client list at the end of all my communiqués. I make no bones about the fact that I seek involvement in an advisory and advocacy capacity with organizations, companies, associations and all others who I believe are part of the sustainability equation. Granted I am not in synch with all so-called “consensus” opinions on the pop-environmentalist hit parade. I believe that is because I have an understanding of the history and philosophy of science and of the great span of time we must consider in issues such as climate change and energy.

Science is not guided by consensus other than in the popular press. Science is made by individuals who have great insight and who discover basic truths about the universe that come to be adopted as theory. Climate change science, regardless of Al Gore’s pleadings, has not reached the level of E=MC2. Otherwise the proof would be written down on a piece of paper for all to see. Besides, we are in a global cooling trend. I do not profess to know the answer to this issue, as so many who, much wiser that I no doubt, claim to have a crystal-ball view.

I believe in sustainable forestry; cutting trees and using them, replanting and tending, biodiversity conservation, carbon storage in trees, and where effective, using wood instead of concrete, steel and plastic (essential materials in their own right).

I believe that it would have been a good idea to introduce the genetically modified Golden Rice eight years ago when it was invented as that could have prevented blindness in 500,000 children per year with no adverse effects on the environment (World Health Organization).

I believe nuclear energy is safe and clean and that it has more potential than any other source to replace fossil fuel for electricity production to charge our plug-in hybrids and run our geothermal heat pumps along with all the other uses we have for electricity (where available large hydroelectric is also key).

I believe in recycling of everything from plastic water bottles to used nuclear fuel. It should be illegal to put combustible (carbon-based) materials such as paper, wood, and plastic into a landfill. They should be burned in waste-to-energy plants to make electricity like they do in all of Europe.

I believe the Japanese whalers should stop killing whales in the Antarctic Ocean.

I believe that marine aquaculture has the potential to take fishing pressure off wild stocks, to produce healthy protein and oils more efficiently than land-based farming, and to make us all healthier.

So basically Bob, myself and my colleagues work for the people and organizations we support because they fit into our definition of sustainability. You can question our motives all you want but we will take on the debate any time. We do not work for fossil fuels but we might if they could convince us that our job was to advocate for more sustainable fossil fuel use, i.e. conservation for the future.

I appreciate the fact that you are working for a living and that this entails trying to discredit me and all I stand for. Therefore I can hardly expect you to behave as an ally. I would only ask that you consider the possibility that I am an honest, sincere person who would never knowingly tell a lie. I am learning every day of course (aren’t we all?) so may come back with a change of opinion on some topic duly footnoted sometime soon.

Your line of questioning gives away a rather narrow intention. I prefer interviews that deal with substance rather than innuendo, ad hominem attacks, and guilt by association. Can’t imagine why.

So do your best (worst) old chap, it’s water off a duck’s back. I hope you will find an appropriate “comment” for your blog in my musings.

Honors Bachelor of Science in Forestry and Forest Biology, 1969
Ph.D. In Ecology, 1974
Honorary Doctorate of Science, 2005
Recipient, National Award for Nuclear Science and History, 2009

“Outside a dog, a man’s best friend is a good book. Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read”
Groucho Marx

Cheers, Patrick Moore
Greenspirit Strategies Ltd.

Corporate Image Laundering

I am saddened and disgusted by people like Moore and the PR Firms and Think Tanks and the soulless corporations that pay them. I fear we've passed the point of no return.

ps - Should "never" be "ever?
"he has never written or undertaken research on the topic previously"

I am saddened and disgusted

I am saddened and disgusted by people like Moore and the PR Firms and Think Tanks and the soulless corporations that pay them. I fear we've passed the point of no return.

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Selling Out

We used to call it "selling out" - as in selling out our self-respect and our image to corporations for money, something which Dr. Patrick Moore has obviously done long ago. He made a name for himself as an environmentalist, and then he decided he had to make a living somehow and "sold out" that image to be a corporate hump.

This is the worst of betrayals!! Concerned environmentalists everywhere are now under a cloud of doubt, thanks to Dr. Patrick Moore's selling out. Any criticism of industry now has this taint of Dr. Patrick Moore, who was once respected as an environmentalist and is now saying "it is all okay, don't worry about the pollution, man" [i.e. -"so why are you still complaining?"] .

The environmentalist message is now more urgent that ever. The world is heating up from a fossil fuel fever, the toxins are accumulating in every living thing and especially in those at the top of the food chain, and even the economy is dying - we need to DECARBONISE, NATURALISE! [and "De-Dr.Patrick Moore-ise"].