NPR's PR for BP

As commenters note in the Q Tips section below, on Thursday morning NPR ran a piece about BP and the oil spill which asserted that the only real problem for BP - related to last year's oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico - was how it handled its public relations.

Elizabeth Shogren (featured in the graphic above) delivers NPR's public service commercial for BP. Her entire story is anchored on Glenn DaGian who is portrayed as a local Louisianan, whose roots and dedication are to the land and people of Louisiana. Shogren tells us that when meeting with people of southern Louisiana, "His accent told them he shared their roots." Late in the piece Shogren explains that though "BP's image is still in tatters, [r]etiree Glenn DaGian wants to help BP rescue it by pushing the company to do more to restore the Gulf Coast." She ends the report with this laugher: "DaGian says BP will start doing the right thing, or he'll become the company's biggest critic." That would be a change; what NPR and Shogren fail to mention is that DaGian's first loyalty is as a longtime paid liar lobbyist for BP - and it's unclear if he is still employed in that capacity or not.

Shogren's piece is chocked full of statements about how presentation, not substance was the greatest problem for BP:

• [Shogren]"But DaGian's efforts were eclipsed by the company's PR missteps."
• [DaGian] "It seemed like every day he [Hayward] was making a new gaff. He didn't understand the animal that is the media. He didn't understand the public's perception of a foreigner in south Louisiana."
• [Shogren] "people familiar with BP's crisis control effort and outside experts say, early on, BP didn't have a PR strategy."
• [Shogren] "And BP insiders say the company's social media ramp-up helped counteract earlier PR failures."

It's interesting that given the ongoing tragedy of the BP oil disaster, NPR chooses to hone in on PR. Actual news organizations like Al Jazeera and even ABC have decided that getting horribly ill and dying from BP's reckless greed are important current stories. Not NPR. In fact, you can search NPR for any recent on-air stories about sickness in the Gulf and find nothing.

Equally disgraceful is the fact that NPR does nothing in this PR puff piece to put BP's criminal and deadly safety record in perspective. It's no surprise, just days after the BP blowout occurred, DemocracyNow! was reporting on BP's horrible safety record, while the NYT soon followed suit, and shortly thereafter ABC presented a major feature on the subject. NPR never presented a significant report on BP's record, but did mention it in a July 2010 story that contrasted Exxon's far better record with BP's. BP's record was so disgusting that a magazine like Fast Company felt motivated to put it in a nifty little graphic for perspective. Amazingly, if you look at that search of NPR, you will see a piece from June 2010 noting that Tony Hayward was doing great things for safety at BP when that pesky Gulf disaster thwarted his progress:

[NPR's Jim Zarroli] "Hayward also tried to address BP's poor safety record. The company had pleaded guilty to clean-air violations following an explosion and fire that killed 15 workers in Texas. But Armstrong says the company actually got through 2009 with no major safety violations."

[Iain Armstrong] "I know this might sound crazy, but there actually is a much stronger culture towards safety. When you consider the track record in 2005 to 2008, it was a phenomenal change."

In that puff piece, all NPR reveals about Iain Armstrong is that he "is an analyst at Brewin Dolphin, an investment management firm in London." What they don't mention is that, according to this January 2010 Reuters article, "

Brewin Dolphin's top three energy holdings are Shell, which accounts for about 3 percent of its total investments, BP, which represents around 2.5 percent, and BG Group which is still only around 1 percent of its investments but growing."

The Reuters article also notes that back in Jan. 2010, Mr. Armstrong "also likes BG Group (BG.L) due to its fast upstream growth and BP (BP.L) after its recent cost-cutting programme."

If you want any truth about the energy corporations and their role in ruining the environment or pushing for war, then you'll have to look somewhere else besides NPR where war for oil is dismissed out of hand, and "Fracking" is advertised as a clean source for future energy needs. To regular readers of this blog, that will come as no surprise, but to some woefully informed liberals it might come as a bit of a shock.

Fourth Estate Finds Third Way

(you can buy the original here)

Mara Liasson's statement on last Tuesday's ATC caught my attention. She was reflecting on Joe Biden's statements made at the time that the Obama/Democratic gift to the insurance industry was signed into law:

"The final girder in the great liberal project - Biden knew what he was talking about. The health care bill will be the last great middle class entitlement, says Jim Kessler of the policy think-tank Third Way."

Well, that was a doozy. And Jim Kessler of this "Third Way" think tank didn't let up:

"With the passage of health care reform, the 80-year Democratic quest to build the best possible safety net is essentially over. And the Democratic Party has to shift from being a party primarily concerned with economic security and dividing up the pie to one that is primarily concerned with economic growth and expanding the pie."

Did you get that? The party's over folks. You know all that redistribution of wealth that the Democrats have been fighting for all these years (hee...hee...) and that glorious safety net (hee...hee...) - those namby-pamby days are over! Too bad there wasn't a journalist around to remind Mr. Third Way that the pie has been growing and growing - it's just that one segment of the population has been eating the biggest pieces.

I wondered about this creepy "Third Way" tank of thinksters. Who are they and why are they getting so much airtime on NPR? No surprise: Third Way is a basic "Blue Dog" corporate-lovin' Democratic think tank - which explains why it has found such a warm welcome at NPR - and, with Obama's appointment of Third Way William Daley, it's star is on the rise.

This infatuation with Third Way seemed so typical of NPR's love of the corporate center that I wasn't going to bother posting about it until the tragedy of the massacre in Arizona broke, and NPR weighed in with it's personal connections to Representative Giffords.

On Weekend Edition Sunday, Scott Simon - lauded Representative Giffords and revealed,

"Our families are friends. We don't talk a lot about politics when we get together as much as kids and parents, great quesadillas, and all the new movies we never get a chance to see. We swap jokes and dreams."

It struck me as odd that a reporter would be close friends with the government officials they are supposed to be scrutinizing - and show no qualms in revealing that information. But Simon is always eager to show his caring, emotional side...and this was an obviously an opportunity he couldn't pass up. Then, on Sunday's ATC Andrea Seabrook had this interchange with Guy Raz:

[Raz] "Andrea, I hope you don't mind, but I'd like to ask you to step out of your reporter's shoes for a moment and just talk about Gabrielle Giffords. So many people seemed to love this person on both sides of the aisle, and you've come to know her pretty well yourself, haven't you?"

[Seabrook] "Yes...Gabrielle Giffords is a wonderful woman. Aside from her politics, we members of the press up here often work with these members of Congress and their staff so closely that we come to think of these people as colleagues. And often, we care more...about how a person is as a person than we do about their politics."

This is truly astounding. Representative Giffords may be a wonderful person, but you begin to suspect that NPR reporters think the Fourth Estate is a social club where they get to be friends with the powerful, instead of an institution that should keep a check on power (though that institution may be so far gone as to be dead). Hearing these unabashed declarations of friendship and collegiality made me wonder how many other officials (military, corporate, and governmental) NPR reporters count among their friends - and how these friendships affect the news that finds its way onto the air.

And that brings me back to Third Way and the tragedy of the assassination attempt on Rep. Giffords. I thought her name seemed familiar, and then it dawned on me that when I was researching the Third Way think tank earlier in the week - I had seen her name and picture on the Third Way website: she's one of the honorary co-chairs of Third Way. Seems like the Beltway social club is a small world after all...

Shilling for Shale, Fronting for Fracking, What a Gas...Naturally

(graphic was featured on NPR's website)

As commenters have noted, Tom Gjelten and Peter Overby brought NPR ME listeners a three part commercial from their sponsor ANGA. It's worthwhile to take a look at the comments beneath each story's web link (Part I, Part II, and Part III) and click on "Most Recommended." Let's just say shale ain't the only thing getting drilled... For example, part II of the series had Gjelten claiming that most of the drilling and fracking is done by "mom and pop" operations. An NPR listener wrote

"Another poorly researched piece. The main companies working the Marcellus Shale in NE Pennsylvania include: Chesapeake (7,600 employees), Hess (13,500 employees), and of course Schlumberger (87,000 employees). Fortuna Energy is a subsidiary of Talisman (2,388 employees). These companies have global reach and oil as well as natural gas interests. Cabot (notorious for environmental violations and fracturing fluid chemical spills around Dimock, PA) has 560 employees - again, no 'mom and pop' operation."

On the infomercial sidebars that accompany the NPR stories you can see the following:

The perversely named American Clean Skies Foundation is a front organization for the same mom and pop Chesapeake Energy corporation mentioned by the listener [if in doubt, click on the "About US" tab on the "Clean Skies" page, and look at the chairman, Aubrey McClendon of Chesapeake Energy Corporation!] Oh, and that friendly sounding, Ground Water Council, is the organization of STATE ground water regulators, which are the very organizations that gas drillers want to deal with to get around federal environmental rules!

This gas series began without any critical reservations whatsoever, touting the shale gas reserves as a nearly limitless supply of clean energy, where the only concern is the economic feasibility of fracking it out of the shale rock. Given the firestorm of criticism evidenced in the comments section under each of the stories, NPR obviously tried to run some hasty last minute, "balancing" operations. They expanded the "series" page to include a May 27th piece more critical of fracking and tacked on a web article also. The final report of the series offers this sad little gassy seep of concern:

"Well, remember, Steve, from one our earlier pieces, to get gas out of shale rock you've got to fracture the rock. They do this by blasting water into it. The concern is that that might cause some contamination of drinking water supplies. There are chemicals that are used in that water."

Would have been nice to include some of those concerned stakeholders in this series, like real journalists do. Apparently that would have ruined the three-day, 20-plus minutes of drill baby drill hype that NPR wanted to frack us with.

NPR skeptical on smart grid

ME and ATC just finished a week-long series on the potential for modernizing the nation's electricity grid. The ten-part series covered a lot of issues, but one message was clear from the first installment by Jeff Brady on Monday:

"It's fairly easy with coal and gas generators. You just fire one up when you need electricity. But solar and wind are far less reliable."

This turned out to be a major underlying message repeated throughout the week.

Christopher Joyce with:

"The grid can't handle all the new solar and wind power the president wants to build to create a greener energy economy."

And

"Despite the promise that these are needed to get more green energy from solar and wind generators, the proposal faces a host of obstacles."

And

"Does everyone really want renewable energy brought in from distant producers over power lines subsidized by the federal government?"

And

"Making the grid smarter and greener will cost a huge amount of money."

And Elizabeth Shogren with:

"There aren't enough transmission lines to carry the electricity from rural areas like his to the big cities where the electricity is needed."

Certainly the modernization of our country's energy infrastructure is a tremendous challenge, but why is NPR so down on the prospect? Part of the problem might be the fact that the reporters overwhelmingly spent their time interviewing representatives of the electric power industry, who just might favor the status quo.

To his credit, Richard Harris on Wednesday pointed out that power companies will profit regardless of whether new transmission lines carry renewable energy or electricity from coal-fired power plants.

"The big push to expand the electric grid into areas rich in renewable energy doesn't guarantee that the new, improved grid will be more climate-friendly."

However, even this misses the point that the nation's electric power supply is dominated by corporations that find the current system extremely profitable, corporations that might value profits over benefits to ratepayers, society, and environment. Although the costs of updating the electricity system would ultimately be borne by the public through rate hikes and taxes, that doesn't mean the changes wouldn't threaten the profits of the industry. In fact, many of these corporations have vast investments in coal-fired power plants that would be financially at risk from any move toward energy conservation and renewable power.

To be certain, it is nice to see NPR reporters show some healthy skepticism. But why does it seem such skepticism is most pronounced (and repeated) at precisely those times that it dovetails with the interests of the status quo?

No! Not the Bar-b-q!

Michele Norris couldn't even get through the intro to the article without diving into the industry talking points:

"A major shift in environmental policy today from the federal government. The EPA declared that greenhouse gases linked to climate change endanger public health and welfare. Scientists and environmentalists have been waiting years to hear that acknowledgment. And the declaration is a big first step toward regulating carbon dioxide. It's also a new restriction on almost every part of the economy."

Well, that seems a little alarmist, considering that it was actually not the point of the federal report released Friday, which didn't really mention regulations. However, it is certainly true that greenhouse gas pollution comes from sources throughout the economy, so let's see where NPR's going with this. The story is narrated by Jeff Brady who reports that:

"The EPA under the Bush administration had been reluctant to make that statement [that greenhouse gases are air pollution] for fear of the economic consequences of the agency regulating everything from new cars to power plants."

I'm pretty sure this is the absolute, most generous way you could ever possibly find to describe the Bush administration's refusal to admit to scientific realities or comply with environmental laws. Brady includes a quote from the environmental organizations who had to sue to force the government to release the suppressed federal report, but the story then quickly turns to the corporate talking points:

"Bill Kovacs with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce shares that concern. He worries the EPA could become a huge regulator involved in every part of American life. 'They would also be regulating office buildings, warehouses, churches...parts of the farm industry. Twenty-five cows produce enough methane to be a regulated entity.'"

No! Not 25 cows! In the interest of full disclosure, readers of this blog should know that I often work on regulations related to climate change. And I have never, ever, heard anybody in government, environmental organizations, or industry, ever suggest regulating churches! What does that even mean?

Of course, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a lobbying and PR group for corporations, and these are obviously the talking points they decided might work best to scare Americans about today's report from the government. It is an obvious ploy, and lame. So does the article include a quote from scientist or the authors of the report in response to these scare tactics? Of course not. Instead, NPR uses the exact same talking points from an industry PR flack for the next day in their hourly "news" summary:

"This can clearly impact office buildings, hospitals, schools, your backyard bar-b-q, your weedwacker, everything that impacts our daily lives."

NO!!! First it was 25 cows and now the backyard bar-b-q! I'd better get out there and grill (beef) and weedwack before it's too late. Damn those government reports!

OINK!

I think this little gem of a title from NPR.org (Monday's ATC) gets the corporate wet kiss award. Internet Bandwidth Hogs? I don't think Bewkes could have written it better himself.

Interestingly the feature ends with Siegel stating, "and you can find some links to groups fighting the Time Warner bandwidth cap and other stories on the matter at our website at npr.org/alltech." Somebody help me here. I poked around and seemed to miss those links - anyone see them?

The most obvious link would be to Free Press which is leading the fight against this latest corporate attempt to strangle the Internet. At the link you can sign their petition.

Smooth Operators

FAIR busts the media - including NPR - for its lockdown against reporting on a single-payer health plan for the US. So it was rich to hear Maura Liasson covering President Obama's Forum on Health Reform. Liasson feels no irony in stating "even the White House is careful to say it's open to ANY ideas that meet its goals of controlling costs" while never mentioning the single-payer option. Not only does this idea get no mention, Liasson's whole report is a shameless spin operation by two major players for the Hospital and Health Insurance Industry.

We hear a lot from Chip Kahn who's biography notes that

"Prior to joining the Federation of American Hospitals, he was one of the nation's foremost leaders of the health insurance industry. From 1998 to 2001, while serving as President of the Health Insurance Association of America."

Liasson's report also leans heavily on the comments of Karen Ignagni - president and CEO of - what do you know - the America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). We get to hear Ignani explain how she helped wreck the 1994 Clinton attempt at health care reform because her group was "very concerned about the role of government in that plan" but now - according to Liasson - AHIP "wants to help craft not kill a health reform bill." Isn't that sweet?

Liasson also lets us hear from Rahm Emmanuel who claims that the White House approach puts "everyone at the starting gate together." Seems like it would have been a good time to ask why single-payer representatives were only allowed in at the last minute, and why single-payer has been essentially eliminated from consideration by the administration (and by NPR too).

The one story NPR did on single-payer recently (Dec. 24, 2008) was interesting for how much time it spent trying to distort and dismantle the accepted fact that single-payer is viewed rather favorably by most people in the US. A good deal of that Christmas Eve program was turned over to Robert Blendon who tries to spin one poll into a rejection of single payer. NPR cleverly identified Bob Blendon as "an expert in health care public opinion at the Harvard School of Public HealthHarvard School of Public Health." What they failed to mention is that he's on the board of directors of Assurant, Inc., a corporate powerhouse which provides, among other things, "individual health and small employer group health insurance; group dental insurance." An honest oversight, I'm sure...

Shell Game

(that's Inskeep on the half-shell and Odum blowing)

Inskeep takes on Marvin Odum, Shell Oil's president of operations in the Americas. Yeah, Inskeep was really tough on this guy - he asked him about a House committee investigation into Shell and Interior department improprieties (and the letter Odum received from Rep. Markey); he pointed out that wind (and solar energy) could provide all US energy needs if the commitment were made to the infrastructure needs; he brought up Shell's dismal ethical rankings on Covalence; he even brought up Shell's involvement in human rights abuses in Nigeria. Just kidding.

Really Inskeep had a cozy, comfortable (oily, odious) schmooze session with Odum. Inskeep is just so curious as to how the Shell's Angels are going to deal with rising demands for oil, and if more offshore drilling really will provide enough oil for our needs. If you ever wondered what Inskeep's moral vision of Corporatism is, he lays it out in this interview. He asks Odum,

"...but if you think of us as a leaky ship, let's say, I mean do you worry as a corporate executive, that you'll do some well-intentioned things and you'll have the right motivations, and you'll plug a few leaks in the ship...but in the end the ship is still sinking."

Why of course Shell Oil does "well-intentioned things" and has "the right motivations," after all they have the profits to prove it.

From the Peanut Gallery

With the latest salmonella outbreak from the Georgia peanut processing plant being investigated, NPR puts Joanne Silberner on the case with an assist from Renee Montagne.

Montagne asks, "...are foods getting less safe?"

To which Silberner chirpily responds,

"Well, we're changing the way we eat and it's, we're coming up with more and more problems and the inspections can't keep up. I mean the FDA hasn't really picked up on its number of inspectors. It hasn't been funded to do that. They've got much more to inspect; there's food coming from all over the world. You can't be everywhere...."

Is that seriously the best Silberner can come up with - "the inspections can't keep up" and "You can't be everywhere"? Has she heard of DEREGULATION? (It's been in the news a bit lately.) I don't know what alternate universe Silberner and Montagne were living in in the 1980s, but I'm old enough to remember Honest Ron rolling back safety in the food industry with a vengeance (it weren't pretty). And the problem has worsened over the years - and accelerated under the government-killing stewardship of the Bushistas. As the New York Times noted in 2006, "Cutbacks in staff and budgets have reduced the number of food-safety inspections conducted by the F.D.A. to about 3,400 a year — from 35,000 in the 1970s. The number of inspectors at the Agriculture Department has declined to 7,500 from 9,000."

It's not like you have to have a PhD in Food Sciences to figure out that the problem (which Nader again pinpointed almost a year ago) is the greed of the food industry coupled with the gutting of safety regulations and budgets. It's obvious if you are paying attention, as this Atlanta Journal Constitution writer is, or doing any research. But not to NPR's finest.

Silberner tells Montagne that "it's really the new food reality that companies like Kellogg or Keebler, they will buy products from all over, and then put them into their products, then we eat that final product. We no longer eat locally grown foods from a single source; foods are combined." Yeah, like we were all eating locally grown foods just a few short years ago - hmm, was that 50, 75 or 100 years ago that Silberner's recalling?

UPDATE:
Be sure to check out Grumpy Demo's comment on the NPR site. In his comment he also has a link to this great Atlanta Journal Constitution story showing the connections between the peanut boss and deregulation.

The Things They Didn't Carry

Take a look at the RAND Corporation's "National Security" page; it opens with this statement: "RAND conducts a broad array of national security research for the U.S. Department of Defense." Then glance down at the featured research and you'll see "U.S. Should Rethink 'War On Terrorism' Strategy to Deal with Resurgent Al Qaida — Jul. 29, 2008." Take a look at the News Release for this RAND study: as others have noted, it essentially refutes the whole "war on terror" approach of the last seven years.

Now take a look at this July 23rd news release from McDonald's and this follow-up August 8th report from PR Newswire (and subsequent reports in Bloomberg's, USA Today, etc.). The reports all note that McDonald's sales and stocks are doing quite well, thank you very much.

I'd say these two stories are both newsworthy, but -heck - I'll go out on a limb and say that a report from a think tank that does "research for the U.S. Department of Defense" and concludes that the multi-trillion dollar, civil liberty destroying, more than one million killed Global War on Terror is a failure is just a tad more important than the fact that McDonald's sales and stock values have increased [especially due to the success of their breakfast menu]. So let's see how NPR covers these two stories.

On the RAND study NPR has given....NO COVERAGE!

On the McDonald's story, NPR was on it as soon as it hit the news cycle (8/8/08). The NPR story features lots airtime for satisfied customers describing the delights of consuming Egg McMuffins and McGriddles - seriously.

La, da, da, da, da....I'm lovin' it!

WalMarvelous Roundup Ready News

Boy have I ever been stupid. I thought WalMart was only interested in crushing unions, building big, ugly megastores, crushing small businesses and maximizing profits. And I had even more sinister delusions about Monsanto. I thought they were in the business of bullying their way into monopolizing the global seed market, ruining the environment, taking over Latin American agriculture, crushing their critics, and making gobs of money to boot.

Fortunately NPR has come to the aid of these gentle and beleaguered giants (again). Golly, good ole WalMart and Monsanto just want to help the poor Honduran farmer break free from the laws that impoverish and help grow endless supplies of wholesome food so they and their countries can grow prosperous. It's like Jesus and the loaves and fishes! Who knew?

I know WalMart is a corporate sponsor of NPR. If Monsanto isn't, they ought to get on it.