According to a report released in early December by the Checks & Balances Project, a self-avowed “pro-clean energy watchdog group,” the press routinely quote think tanks that bash clean energy policies and technologies without mentioning that the groups receive significant funding from fossil fuel interests.
From 2007-2011, 10 of those organizations, including the Heartland Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, received a combined total of almost $16.3 million from ExxonMobil and three foundations supported by oil and gas companies, according to the Checks & Balances Project. In the same time period, the organizations were mentioned 1,010 times in articles about energy issues in 58 daily newspapers, as well as the Associated Press and Politico, but the media described their financial ties to the fossil fuels industry only 6 percent of the time.
Most of the time (53 percent), news outlets used only an organization’s name—no more, no less. Occasionally, they would describe the organization’s ideology, with terms like “conservative” (17 percent) or “libertarian” (6 percent) and rarely by its location (3 percent) or function (e.g. “think tank” or “nonpartisan” group) (3 percent).
The outlets that disclosed a group’s industry ties most frequently were the Houston Chronicle (15 percent), The Washington Post (12 percent), and The New York Times (10 percent). Fourteen major metropolitan dailies never mentioned industry ties in stories quoting fossil fuel-funded think tanks, including The Christian Science Monitor, which quoted such groups in 42 stories during the five-year period of the study, and the Orange County Register, which quoted them in 57 stories.
“These think tanks’ ability to move pro-fossil fuels industry messaging is much more effective when they appear to be unbiased or neutral institutes,” said Gabe Elsner, co-director of the Checks & Balances Project. “So there is a need for more disclosure in the media—to be more honest and transparent about their funding. It would be one thing if these groups had hidden their ties in one story, but they hid their ties in nearly 1,000 stories. That starts to seem like planned deception on the part of these groups.”
The problem with accusations like that, of course, is that Checks & Balances is another one of the interest groups doing battle on energy issues, so it, too, has skin in the game, even if that stake is more ideological than financial—and that shows in its report.
The project is funded by the Renew American Prosperity, Inc. (another vaguely titled group), which supports clean energy development. The group gets some money from “a clean-tech attorney,” according to Elsner, but he couldn’t say if it received any from other renewable energy or interests.
“We’re totally open about our funding,” he said. “We’d actually love it if clean energy companies contributed to the Check & Balances Project.”
So, there’s that. But there are also a few issues with the project’s report on the think tanks and the fossil fuels industry. In support of its assertion that those groups have “a more transactional relationship with corporate lobbying interests that donate to them,” offering favorable quotes for support, the report cited a confidential “climate strategy” document that allegedly leaked from the Heartland Institute last February, but Heartland insists it’s a fake and no one has been able to verify its authenticity.
The one instance of poor sourcing doesn’t negate the report’s assertion that there is a “transactional relationship” between think tanks and industry (there’s plenty of other evidence for that) but it reveals a lack of methodological rigor.
Elsner wasn’t sure, for instance, whether or not any of the money that fossil fuel interests gave to think tanks was earmarked for pursuits other than energy policy. “Most of it was general operational support,” he said, but the report doesn’t provide any context about how much of the organizations’ budgets that money accounted for or how it was used.
Thanks for the article.
Lets remember Libs founded BOTH the Libertarian and Green movements.
For info on people using voluntary Libertarian tools on similar and other issues worldwide, please see the non-partisan Libertarian International Organization @ http://www.Libertarian-International.org ....
#1 Posted by robert rich, CJR on Sat 22 Dec 2012 at 07:39 AM
"The problem with accusation like that, of course, is that Checks & Balances is another one of the interest groups doing battle on energy issues, so it, too, has skin in the game, even if that stake is more ideological than financial—and that shows in its report.
The project is funded by the Renew American Prosperity, Inc. (another vaguely titled group), which supports clean energy development. The group gets some money from “a clean-tech attorney,” according to Elsner, but he couldn’t say if it received any from other renewable energy or interests."
What's the problem? Checks and Balances did a report showing that media are leaving out their industry connections when they comment on a story affecting that industry (ps Heartland and AEI are 75% of the time activist garbage so why would media be interested in their opinion unless they were tasked with getting intellectual balance, at which point you should counter balance using activists like Greenpeace, not thinkers like Brookings).
If journalists reported on Checks and Balances and didn't mention their connections, then you'd have a problem - a problem with journalists not mentioning those connections. I don't see why you'd have a problem with the accusation unless you see a flaw in the research.
And if your flaw is that "AEI got money from EXXON to talk about the Middle East, it could be arguing about climate change in its spare time" I just think you should mention that money is fungible and you can give a bunch of money to an organization to talk about one thing while giving them plenty of incentive to discuss another which happens to benefit their patron.
#2 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 22 Dec 2012 at 01:59 PM
Merry Holidays!
Money usually finds and funds views that already exist. And they do it on all sides of all issues. So it's not like "views for hire". And there is no question that the press is far more critical of corporate $ funding sympathetic groups, than enviro sources funding enviro friendly sources, which should make those views equally suspect, except they FEEL better than those evil greedy for-profit companies.
D
#3 Posted by david ropeik, CJR on Sun 23 Dec 2012 at 02:12 PM
Isn't another core problems here that "journalism" isn't what most media outlets are doing, but entertainment. Even the best of the supposedly "all things considered" type of broadcasters are passing on rumors and spin, constantly grabbing the "new angles" pundits offer, reformulated word meanings that shock, false rumors that seem exciting, i.e. endless chains of "gossip".
I think it's "just what happens" when the producers of every media outlet are driven by the "bottom line" of "ratings". We all get swindled, swept up in the media frenzy by very fuzzy stories portrayed as genuine. The only thing new, of course, is the pretense that journalists can avoid that.
Maybe it'd be better to accept that the media is naturally gong to get caught up in trying to impress their audiences with the hot story of the moment for which there is no back-up at all. What we need is a way of doing that more dispassionately, and questioningly, without the pretense of being above it all.
#4 Posted by Jessie Henshaw, CJR on Mon 24 Dec 2012 at 07:05 AM
" ... press routinely quote think tanks .. without mentioning that the groups receive significant funding from fossil fuel interests. ... "
And this proves....... what?
I'd instead suggest for the Columbia Journalism Review that such writing is one of the more egregious examples of incomplete reporting because essentially no effort that I've ever seen attempts to find out for certain if such 'significant' funding was simply donated to skeptics and organizations associated with them because the industries just AGREE with what the skeptics say about pre-existing doubt about the idea of man-caused clobal warming.
The insinuation is that such funding buys corrupted climate science assessments. What journalists in general seem to be in denial about is that such insinuations, in the complete absence of any proof to back them up - would have been torn to shreds under the journalism standards of the Washington Post's Ben Bradlee, and he likely would have read the riot act to any reporter pushing such an accusation in the manner we've all seen over the last 16+ years.
The accusation comes from a single highly questionable source. No need to trust me on this, you can trace it for yourselves.
#5 Posted by Russell C, CJR on Wed 26 Dec 2012 at 02:42 PM