5. Pravda, U.S.A. - the Age of GOP Propaganda

5.2 Astroturf Media

Media bias may not be intentional and I suspect that it is probably more often unintentional than intentional. However, the lack of intent does not mean that bias does not exist. One aspect where the American mainstream media's possibly unintentional bias reveals itself is in how the media propagates the kind of propaganda also known as astroturf. 

Sharon Beder has stated the conventional definition of astroturf (bold text is my emphasis):

Artificially created grassroots coalitions are referred to in the industry as 'astroturf' (after a synthetic grass product). Astroturf is a "grassroots program that involves the instant manufacturing of public support for a point of view in which either uninformed activists are recruited or means of deception are used to recruit them."(FN11) According to Consumer Reports magazine, those engaging in this sort of work can earn up to $500 "for every citizen they mobilize for a corporate client's cause."(FN12)

Astroturf is also generated in other ways. In this page, I have provided numerous examples that scratch the surface of what is a huge operation -- an operation that is dominated far more by wealthy, business-friendly/business-funded conservative groups than by the usually (but not always) more cash-strapped progressive or liberal groups (that usually try to keep businesses accountable and protect consumers). As I have shown at ICM and as others have others have shown, conservative (and often corporate-funded) groups more commonly indulge in misleading and deceptive advertising or claims. Additionally, astroturf letter writing campaigns tend to be dominated more by conservatives than progressives/liberals - and even when the media expose such astroturf (usually late in the game) they often resort to false "balance" by merely claiming both sides do it or by implying somehow that both sides do it to the same degree - without producing evidence. When the media makes such inaccurate claims or does not step in to independently assess the accuracy of the claims by the (astroturf) groups that it is reporting on, that are allowed to advertise on it, or whose letters and op-eds are featured in its pages, it skews more conservative than liberal with its tolerance for astroturf (either in news articles, op-eds, letters, or ads).

To give you a sense of how widespread the use of astroturf is, this entry in Wikipedia is a good introduction:

In one case, documented in All the President's Men, the Committee to Re-Elect the President orchestrated several campaigns of "public support" for decisions made by President Nixon in the period preceding the 1972 election, including telegrams to the White House and an apparently independent advertisement placed in the New York Times.

Other examples of alleged astroturfing include a 1991 campaign by PR firm Kloberg where apparently leaked internal documents claimed to have placed dozens of letters to the editor as well as op-eds and articles praising Mobutu's regime in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).

In 2001, the software company Microsoft was linked to an astroturfing scandal when hundreds of similar letters were sent to newspapers voicing disagreement with the U.S. Department of Justice and its antitrust suit against Microsoft. Many of the letters were revealed to be "written" by deceased citizens or residents of nonexistent towns.

USA Next, a seniors' organization which supports the privatization of Social Security, has also been accused of being an astroturf group funded by corporate interests, especially pharmaceutical companies.

...
Historical

At the turn of the 20th century, it was common to have newspapers in major American cities sponsored by local political parties. Some were open about this practice, but many of these relationships were hidden under the guise of journalism. Other examples include political "clubs" which front for voter fraud and intimidation, letter-writing campaigns organized by local ward bosses, and some union-organized political activities.

A similar manipulation of public opinion was used in the Soviet Union when political decisions were preceded by massive campaigns of orchestrated 'letters from workers' (pisma trudyashchisya) which were quoted and published in newspapers and radio.

In the following, I provide a little more information on the most common types of astroturf seen today.

5.2.1 Astroturf propagation in news coverage and ads

5.2.2 Astroturf propagation in op-eds

5.2.3 Astroturf propagation in letters

5.2.1 Astroturf propagation in news coverage and ads

The magnitude of astroturfing is obviously a function of available funding. Considering that conservative organizations/front groups receive far more funding than progressive organizations/front groups, it is not unreasonable to conclude that the former tend to dominate the astroturfing industry. Thus, the lack of transparency in the media on who's behind a certain organization and who funds the organization (industry, in particular) would significantly benefit conservative groups - an advantage that is solidified by the fact that right-leaning groups are more commonly associated with spreading misleading or false information on a variety of issues. Even when the media tries to bring more transparency to the funders behind organizations, a significant portion of media exposure comes from advertisements where they don't exert much control over transparency.

To understand the magnitude of astroturfing that is prevalent in the media today, let's start with Beder's article, 'Public Relations' Role in Manufacturing Artificial Grass Roots Coalitions', Public Relations Quarterly 43(2), Summer 98, pp. 21-3. Significant portions are reproduced below, with bold text being my emphasis (except sub-headings):

When a corporation wants to oppose environmental regulations, or support an environmentally damaging development, it may do so openly and in its own name. But it is far more effective to have a group of citizens or experts -- and preferably a coalition of such groups -- which can publicly promote the outcomes desired by the corporation while claiming to represent the public interest. When such groups do not already exist, the modern corporation can pay a public relations firm to create them.
    The use of such 'front groups' enables corporations to take part in public debates and government hearings behind a cover of community concern. These front groups lobby governments to legislate in the corporate interest, to oppose environmental regulations, and to introduce policies that enhance corporate profitability. Front groups also campaign to change public opinion, so that the markets for corporate goods are not threatened and the efforts of environmental groups are defused. Merrill Rose, executive, vice president of the public relations firm Porter/Novelli, advises companies:

Put your words in someone else's mouth... There will be times when the position you advocate, no matter how well framed and supported, will not be accepted by the public simply because you are who you are. Any institution with a vested commercial interest in the outcome of an issue has a natural credibility barrier to overcome with the public, and often with the media.(FN1)

    The names of corporate front groups are carefully chosen to mask the real interests behind them but they can usually be identified by their funding sources, membership and who controls them. Some front groups are quite blatant, working out of the offices of public relations firms and having staff of those firms on their boards of directors. For example, the Council for Solid Waste Solutions shares office space with the Society of the Plastic Industry Inc., and the Oregon Lands Coalition works out of the offices of the Association of Oregon Industries.(FN2)
    Corporate front groups have flourished in the United States, with several large companies donating money to more than one front group. In 1991 Dow Chemical was contributing to ten front groups, including the Alliance to Keep Americans Working, the Alliance for Responsible CFC Policy, the American Council on Science and Health, Citizens for a Sound Economy and the Council for Solid Waste Solutions. According to Mark Megalli and Andy Friedman in their report on corporate front groups in America, oil companies Chevron and Exxon were each contributing to nine such groups. Other companies which donate to multiple groups include Mobil, DuPont, Amoco, Ford, Philip Morris, Pfizer, Monsanto and Procter and Gamble.(FN3) These large corporations "stand to profit handsomely by linking their goals with what they hope to define as a grassroots populist movement."(FN4)
    The use of front groups to represent industry interests in the name of concerned citizens is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the past, businesses lobbied governments directly and put out press releases in their own names or those of their trade associations. The rise of citizen and public interest groups, including environmental groups, has reflected a growing scepticism among the public about statements made by businesses:

Thus, if Burger King were to report that a Whopper is nutritious, informed consumers would probably shrug in disbelief.... And if the Nutrasweet Company were to insist that the artificial sweetener aspartame has no side effects, consumers might not be inclined to believe them, either.... But if the 'American Council on Science and Health' and its panel of 200 'expert' scientists reported that Whoppers were not so bad, consumers might actually listen.... And if the 'Calorie Control Council' reported that aspartame is not really dangerous, weight-conscious consumers might continue dumping the artificial sweetener in their coffee every morning without concerns.(FN5)

    The American Council on Science and Health has received funds from food processing and beverage corporations including Burger King, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, NutraSweet and Nestlé USA, as well as chemical, oil and pharmaceutical companies such as Monsanto, Dow USA, Exxon, Union Carbide and others. Its executive director, portrayed in the mass media as an independent scientist, defends petrochemical companies, the nutritional values of fast foods, and the safety of saccharin, pesticides and growth hormones for dairy cows. She claims that the U.S. government spends far too much on investigating unproven health risks such as dioxin and pesticides because of the public's "unfounded fears of man-made chemicals and their perception of these chemicals as carcinogens."(FN6)
    The American Council on Science and Health is one of many corporate front groups which allow industry-funded experts to pose as independent scientists to promote corporate causes. Chemical and nuclear industry front groups with scientific sounding names publish pamphlets that are 'peer reviewed' by industry scientists rather than papers in established academic journals.(FN7) Megalli and Friedman point out: "Contrary to their names, these groups often disregard compelling scientific evidence to further their viewpoints, arguing that pesticides are not harmful, saccharin is not carcinogenic, or that global warming is a myth. By sounding scientific, they seek to manipulate the public's trust."(FN8)

MANUFACTURING GRASS ROOTS
    Front groups are not the only way in which corporate interests can be portrayed as coinciding with a greater public interest. Public relations firms are becoming proficient at helping their corporate clients convince key politicians that there is broad support for their environmentally damaging activities or their demands for looser environmental regulations. Using specially tailored mailing lists, field officers, telephone banks and the latest in information technology, these firms are able to generate hundreds of telephone calls and/or thousands of pieces of mail to key politicians, creating the impression of wide public support for their client's position.
    This sort of operation was almost unheard of ten years ago, yet in the U.S. today, where "technology makes building volunteer organizations as simple as writing a check," it has become "one of the hottest trends in politics" and an $800 million industry. It is now a part of normal business for corporations and trade associations to employ one of the dozens of companies that specialize in these strategies to run grassroots campaigns for them. Firms and associations utilizing such services include Philip Morris, Georgia Pacific, the Chemical Manufacturers Association, General Electric, American Forest & Paper Association, Chevron, Union Carbide, Procter & Gamble, American Chemical Society, American Plastics Association, Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association, WMX Technologies, Browning Ferris Industries and the Nuclear Energy Institute.(FN9)
    When a group of U.S. electric utility companies wanted to influence the Endangered Species Act, which was being re-authorized to ensure that economic factors were considered when species were listed as endangered, their lawyers advised them to form a broad-based coalition with a grassroots orientation: "Incorporate as a non-profit, develop easy-to-read information packets for Congress and the news media and woo members from virtually all walks of life. Members should include Native American entities, county and local governments, universities, school boards... ." As a result of this advice the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition was formed, one of a "growing roster of industry groups that have discovered grassroots lobbying as a way to influence environmental debates."(FN10)
...
Mario Cooper, senior vice president of PR firm Porter/Novelli, says that the challenge for a grassroots specialists is to create the impression that millions of people support their client's view of a particular issue, so that a politician can't ignore it; this means targeting potential supporters and targeting 'persuadable' politicians. He advises: "Database management companies can provide you with incredibly detailed mailing lists segmented by almost any factor you can imagine."(FN13) Once identified, potential supporters have to be persuaded to agree to endorse the corporate view being promoted.
    Specialists in this form of organizing use opinion research data to "identify the kinds of themes most likely to arouse key constituent groups, then gear their telemarketing pitches around those themes."(FN14) Telephone polls, in particular, enable rapid feedback so that the pitch can be refined: "With phones you're on the phones today, you analyze your results, you can change your script and try a new thing tomorrow. In a three-day program you can make four or five different changes, find out what's really working, what messages really motivate people, and improve your response rates."(FN15) Focus groups also help with targeting messages.
    Demographic information, election results, polling results and lifestyle clusters can all be combined to identify potential supporters by giving information about people's age, income, marital status, gender, ethnic background, the type of car they drive and the type of music they like. These techniques, which were originally developed for marketing products to selected audiences, are now used to identify likely political attitudes and opinions. In this way the coalition builders don't have to waste their time on people who are unlikely to be persuaded, and at the same time can use different arguments for different types of people.
   Jack Bonner of Bonner & Associates is one of the leading specialists providing grassroots support for his clients, who include the Association of International Auto Manufacturers, Chrysler, Dow Chemical, Edison Electric Institute, Ford, General Motors, Exxon, McDonnell Douglas, Monsanto, Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, Philip Morris, US Tobacco Co. and Westinghouse.(FN16) When the amendments to the Clean Air Act were being debated in 1990, Bonner managed to get some large citizen groups, who had no financial interest in the matter, to lobby against amendments which would have required car manufacturers to make their cars more fuel efficient.
    Bonner's firm, working on behalf of the automobile industry, persuaded these citizen groups that the legislation would have meant that large vehicles would not be manufactured. "Bonner's fee, which he coyly described as somewhere between $500,000 and $1 million, was for scouring six states for potential grassroots voices, coaching them on the 'facts' of the issue, paying for the phone calls and plane fares to Washington and hiring the hall for a joint press conference."(FN17)
    The Society for the Plastics Industry hired Bonner after a law was passed in 1987 in Suffolk County, New York, banning some plastic products which were filling up landfills. The law was expected to be the first of many in other parts of the U.S. The Society also challenged the law in the courts. Subsequently the law, which had been approved with a twelve to six vote, was suspended with a twelve to six vote by the same body.(FN18)
    Bonner's Washington D.C. office has three hundred phone lines and a sophisticated computer system. His staff phone people all over the country, looking for citizens who will support corporate agendas. He targets members of Congress who are unsure of how to vote or who need a justification for voting with industry against measures that will protect the environment.

Imagine Bonner's technique multiplied and elaborated in different ways across hundreds of public issues and you may begin to envision the girth of this industry. Some firms produce artfully designed opinion polls, more or less guaranteed to yield results that suggest public support for the industry's position. Some firms specialize in coalition building -- assembling dozens of hundreds of civic organizations and interest groups in behalf of lobbying goals... This is democracy and it costs a fortune.(FN19)

...Edelman PR Worldwide has created such a coalition for Monsanto to oppose the labeling of genetically engineered food. Burson-Marsteller, one of the world's largest public relations firms, also organizes grassroots coalitions and corporate front groups for many of its clients. Since 1985 it has had a team of people in its Washington, D.C. office specializing in designing coalitions to build allies and neutralize opponents. In 1992 Burson-Marsteller created an independent grassroots lobbying unit, Advocacy Communications Team, to counter activists that threaten corporations by organizing "rallies, boycotts and demonstrations outside your plant."(FN23)
    Burson-Marsteller used their grassroots lobbying unit to create the National Smokers Alliance in 1993 on behalf of Philip Morris. The millions supplied by Philip Morris and the advice supplied by Burson-Marsteller's Advocacy Communications Team allowed this 'grassroots' alliance to use full-page advertisements, direct telemarketing and other high-tech campaign techniques to build its membership to a claimed three million by 1995, and to disseminate its prosmoking message. The Alliance's president is the vice president of Burson-Marsteller, and other Burson-Marsteller executives are actively involved in the Alliance.(FN24)
...

[NOTE: See this discussion of a 1997 conference of astroturf groups and would-be astroturfers.]

This American Prospect article by Greg Sargent is a good start:

Last spring, when the anti-fast-food documentary Super Size Me began opening in American theaters, an opinion writer named Richard Berman swung into action. He cranked out a scathing op-ed for the Chicago Sun-Times that blasted the film for "serving up a flawed premise: that we're powerless to stop Big Food from turning us into a nation of fatties."

When legendary TV chef Julia Child died a few months later, Berman saw another opportunity. He wrote a piece for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that used her death as an occasion to debunk the idea that soft drinks are linked to diabetes.

And last month, when a Cleveland hospital garnered national attention for trying to evict its in-house McDonald's, Berman was invited on CNN to critique the move. "I don't see anything wrong with giving people choices," he observed mildly.

Why did these mainstream media outlets air Berman's opinions on such pressing health issues? Is he a doctor? A nutritionist? A health-policy wonk? None of the above. He's a Washington lobbyist.

Berman runs an outfit called the Center for Consumer Freedom, which says it's devoted to defending "the right of adults and parents to choose what they eat, drink, and how they enjoy themselves." From his offices a block from the White House, Berman wages a never-ending public-relations assault on doctors, health advocates, scientists, food researchers, and just about anyone else who highlights the health downsides of eating junk food or being obese.

He also targets groups that want animal-treatment standards for the meat industry, such as PETA, and trial lawyers who want to sue the food industry -- "obesity lawyers licking their chops in search of their next super-sized payday." Such people, Berman notes on the center's Web site, are "food cops, health care enforcers, militant activists, meddling bureaucrats and violent radicals who think they know what's best for you."

However, while Berman presents himself as a defender of consumers against overbearing bureaucrats and health zealots, he's really defending the interests of another group: restaurant chains, food and beverage companies, meat producers, and others who stand to see profits hampered by government regulations, or even by increased health awareness on the part of customers.

Indeed, Berman has carved out a unique -- and very profitable -- niche in Washington's ever more sophisticated PR universe. At a time when the politics of food is going mainstream -- similar to the tobacco wars a generation ago -- he is the food and restaurant industry's No. 1 weapon against those seeking to regulate or shed light on its activities.

Relying on seed money from Philip Morris, Berman launched his group in 1995, with the explicit goal of uniting the tobacco and hospitality industries against the myriad forces of overregulation, particularly those pushing smoking bans in restaurants. But over time, food issues became the organization's focus, and the center's been bankrolled by hefty contributions from the food and restaurant industries. Berman, interestingly, hasn't taken great pains to disguise his funding sources in general. (Why bother? After all, it hasn't disqualified him from appearing on CNN.) He openly describes the group as a "nonprofit coalition supported by restaurants, food companies, and consumers."

To be sure, the center won't share the names of individual or corporate donors. Yet some information has come to light. The organization PR Watch, relying on an internal whistle-blower, has posted a list of the center's backers on its Web site. Among them: meat giants (Tyson Foods and Perdue Farms), soft-drink manufacturers (Coca-Cola), and fast food chains (White Castle, Outback Steakhouse). A center spokesman would only say that the list is "loaded with inaccuracies," but wouldn't say how.

Berman's strategy turns on a simple rhetorical gimmick: By employing the language of consumer freedom, he protects his client industries by demonizing (and, hopefully, discrediting) their critics -- all apparently in service of the hapless consumer. Berman has been explicit about his approach. "Our offensive strategy is to shoot the messenger," he once told Chain Leader Magazine, a trade publication for restaurant chains (whose readership presumably doesn't include too many ordinary consumers). "We've got to attack [activists'] credibility as spokespersons."

Berman’s efforts might not seem all that remarkable in a city where industry-funded "astroturf" groups are so emboldened that many no longer bother concealing funding sources. Yet he stands out, if only for the sheer, unparalleled audacity with which he's straddled his dual roles as consumer "advocate" and industry lobbyist.

Consider that in addition to running the Center for Consumer Freedom, a nonprofit 501(c)(3), Berman also has another day job: He's the founder and president of an influential Washington lobbying firm, Berman & Co. According to press accounts, the firm has performed for-profit lobbying for -- you guessed it -- many of the same industries served by the center: restaurant chains like Outback, Hooters, and Red Lobster (a spokesman declined comment). Berman has also lobbied for the American Beverage Institute, which represents restaurateurs and beverage manufacturers. (On behalf of such clients, he opposed the Americans with Disabilities Act, argued against hikes in the federal minimum wage and helped defeat federal legislation that would have imposed a uniform lower blood-alcohol threshold to mark drunken driving -- all regulatory reforms that threatened the profits of his clients.) It's challenging indeed to sort out where the for-profit lobbying against regulation ends and the nonprofit consumer freedom fighting against regulation begins.

And it gets murkier. Berman's nonprofit center, it turns out, has also been paying handsome sums for research, communications, and other services to none other than ... Berman & Co. In 2002, for example, according to its Internal Revenue Service filing, the Center for Consumer Freedom paid Berman & Co. more than $1 million.

So, to recap: Berman the Defender of Consumers runs a nonprofit that collects donations from industries served by Berman the Corporate Lobbyist -- and also pays lucrative fees to Berman the Corporate Lobbyist for his services. If you managed to follow that, you'll probably agree that Berman has pulled off a pretty impressive piece of lobbying jujitsu -- one that says an awful lot about how things really function at the nexus of government policy, big corporations, and the media.

FTCR (the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights) did a good study:

Ever wonder about those people you see on television ads urging you to vote YES or NO on ballot propositions. . .journalists, elected officials, environmental "leaders," "independent analysts," "minority" groups, taxpayer advocates, etc.?

Chances are, they're being paid to lie to you.

It's all part of the destruction of initiative democracy by big corporations trying to disguise themselves.

California's initiative and referendum process was created by Governor Hiram Johnson in 1911 to provide the public with a powerful tool of direct democracy as an antidote to legislative inaction and corruption induced by special interests. It's one of the most unique features of California politics. Californians are glad for the opportunity to deal with issues directly at the ballot box and proud that California initiatives often propel an issue to national attention. Proposition 13's property tax cut, Proposition 103's insurance reforms, to name two examples, swept the nation once California voters enacted them.

Designed to overcome the power of special interest lobbyists in the state legislature, the "people's" initiative process has increasingly become the province of the special interests themselves, however. With unlimited money to spend, insurance companies, tobacco firms, utilities, Wall Street interests and Silicon Valley investment firms have co-opted the initiative process. It is not uncommon for these corporate campaigns to spend $40 million or more, largely on television and radio advertising.

With all that big money around, it is not surprising that the initiative process has become an extremely lucrative business for a handful of private public relations and consulting firms which specialize in drafting initiatives, collecting signatures to qualify them for the ballot, and campaigning for their passage on behalf of corporate interests.

Money talks in politics, and the more of it, the louder it gets - especially when supporters of citizen initiatives rarely can afford television advertising.

But California voters are rightly suspicious when corporations invade the initiative process - if they find out the truth. When insurance companies (1988's insurance reform battle) or tobacco companies (1994) mounted ballot initiative campaigns - in both cases, to block reform true legislation - voters resoundingly rejected the corporate-sponsored measures, despite a massive imbalance in resources spent by the other side (Insurers spent $80 million in 1988, while Prop. 103 won with $2.9 million. The tobacco industry spent $18 million in 1994 and was defeated by a $4 million educational campaign).

In those campaigns, the public was able to figure out which side was which - and voted accordingly.

So in recent years the corporations and their political consultants have developed a new strategy to fool the public: hire people and organizations to front for the corporations, to provide a "grassroots" cover or pro-citizen disguise for their efforts.

Here's how it works: when consumer advocates sponsor HMO reform, or utility rate reduction proposals, for example, insurance lobbyists or utility executives stay behind the scenes. Instead, they give money to individuals or organizations who then appear in their television ads, press conferences and other events, pretending to be impartial experts, consumer advocates, environmentalists, etc.

The strategy's been called "astroturf" or "corporate camouflage." We call these phony individuals and organizations the "goon squad."

It's a national phenomenon, which we expose in this detailed report that names all the names. Click below to read more about:

David Horowitz
"Consumer Reporter" Gets $136,000 from Utility Companies, Credit Card and Long Distance Companies

Voter Revolt
How Political Consultants Are Selling A Non-Profit's Reputation for over $5,000,000 from Insurance Companies and Silicon Valley Business Interests

Andrew Tobias
State Farmer

Planning and Conservation League
"Environmental Group" Supports Utility Companies' Bailout of Nuclear Power for $70,000

Walter Zelman
Mr. HMO

Greenlining Institute
San Francisco "Minority" Organization Sides With Utilities In Exchange for $330,000 from Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison between 1996 and 1997; Receives Major Funding From Insurance Companies and Other Corporations, As Well.

Jeffrey O'Connell
University of Virginia professor supports insurance industry, and it supports him.

University of Wisconsin's "Auto Accident Compensation Project"
Academic aura for insurance propaganda organ.

Philip Howard
The Truth About Philip Howard's "Common Good"

Also read Public Citizen's report providing additional examples.

SourceWatch is another good source on understanding astroturf:

Unlike genuine grassroots activism which tends to be money-poor but people-rich, astroturf campaigns are typically people-poor but cash-rich. Funded heavily by corporate largesse, they use sophisticated computer databases, telephone banks and hired organizers to rope less-informed activists into sending letters to their elected officials or engaging in other actions that create the appearance of grassroots support for their client's cause.

William Greider's 1992 book, Who Will Tell the People, described an astroturf campaign run by Bonner & Associates as a "boiler room" operation with "300 phone lines and a sophisticated computer system, resembling the phone banks employed in election campaigns. Articulate young people sit in little booths every day, dialing around America on a variety of public issues, searching for 'white hat' citizens who can be persuaded to endorse the political objectives of Mobil Oil, Dow Chemical, Citicorp, Ohio Bell, Miller Brewing, US Tobacco, the Chemical Manufacturers Association, the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association and dozens of other clients. This kind of political recruiting is expensive but not difficult. ... Imagine Bonner's technique multiplied and elaborated in different ways across hundreds of public issues and you may begin to envision the girth of this industry. ... This is democracy and it costs a fortune."

Astroturf techniques have been used to:

• block the transfer of federal licenses that WorldCom uses for its long distance and Internet services by Issue Dynamics Inc. using non-profit groups like the United Church of Christ
• defeat the Clinton administration's proposed health care reform, through a front group called "Rx Partners" created by the Beckel Cowan PR firm, and the Coalition for Health Insurance Choices, created by public relations consultant Blair Childs
• harass environmentalists through the Wise Use movement
• loosen automobile fuel efficience standards
• support clear-cutting American forests, through a front group called Citizens to Protect the Pacific Northwest and Northern California Economy
• oppose restrictions on smoking in public places, through a front group called National Smokers Alliance, which was created by Burson-Marsteller
• generate a dossier of newsclips orchestrated by Edelman to assist Microsoft lobbyists persuade U.S. state attorney generals not to join a class action against the company.

Sometimes genuine grassroots organizations are recruited into corporate-funded campaigns. In June 2003, for example, the Gray Panthers participated in protests against WorldCom that were funded largely by the telecommunications company's competitors such as Verizon. According to the Gray Panthers, this reflected a policy decision that the organization made prior to and independently of its funding. However, an article in the Washington Post raised questions about failures to publicly disclose the corporate funding which paid for full-page advertisements that the Gray Panthers took out in several major newspapers that called on the federal government to stop doing business with WorldCom. The ads said they were paid for the Gray Panthers but did not mention that Issue Dynamics Inc. (IDI), a PR firm that specializes in "grassroots PR," had provided most of the $200,000 it cost to place the ads. Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe has declined to say how much the company is paying IDI, and Gray Panthers Executive Director Timothy Fuller has declined to say how much of the funding for its "Corporate Accountability" project comes from IDI. Notwithstanding the egregious nature of WorldCom's corporate crimes, the lack of transparency in these funding arrangements by WorldCom's corporate competitors raises the question of whether the Gray Panthers campaign should be considered genuine grassroots or astroturf.

[SourceWatch has other links to related topics - Front Groups, Industry funded Organizations, and Case Studies]

Laura Flanders reported this example for FAIR's Extra back in 1996 (bold text highlights of sentences is my emphasis):

In the late 1980s, the pressure on silicon breast-implant manufacturers was mounting. After years of private lawsuits in which successful plaintiffs were silenced by gag orders imposed in court, sick women started appearing on television in December 1990, claiming that unscrupulous corporations were knowingly making money from implants that made women ill. As the FDA prepared to hold hearings on the breast implant controversy, Dow Corning Corp. (DCC) and other manufacturers of silicone products got busy.

"The issue of cover-up is going well," Dow Corning CEO Dan Hayes wrote in a 1991 internal memo (provided to FAIR by anti-Dow breast implant activists). "Obviously, this is the largest single issue on our platter because it affects not only the next 2-3 years profitability of DCC, but also ultimately has a big impact on the long-term ethics and believability issues.... What is at risk here is somewhere between $50 million and $500 million."

To counter concern stirred up by public-interest activists like those working with Ralph Nader's Public Citizen Health Research Group, DCC's P.R. campaign linked corporate-friendly science to pseudo-grassroots organizing.

"I have started to intitate surgeon contact," wrote Hayes. "The place we have the biggest hole still missing...is in this whole arena of getting the patient grassroots movement going....I'm very worried."

Dow Corning was in good hands--those of Burson Marsteller, the world's largest public relations firm. Burson-Marsteller has expertise in developing the phony grassroots organizations that professionals call "astroturf": industry-generated "citizens" groups who can be relied upon to lobby government and speak eloquently to media. (See John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton's Toxic Sludge Is Good for You.)

According to a confidential letter excerpted in Stauber and Rampton's PR Watch (First Quarter/96), Burson Marsteller's strategy for DCC involved identifying patients who could be trained as spokespeople, making corporate grants to appropriate organizations, providing "day-to-day media support for the group.... hese women (including celebrities) will be trained and testimony will be written for them to deliver before Congressional committees."

The public relations goal was to get "women angry about having the right to make their own decision about implants taken away from them....We also want to place regional, and if possible, national media stories on the need for keeping this option open."

For those who've followed the breast implant debate, the argument above will sound familiar. One of the most often cited spokespeople for this point of view is Sharon Green, the executive director of the national breast cancer organization Y-ME. Her group participated in a partly DCC-funded "fly in" of women to Washington in the run up to the FDA's 1991 hearings.

In August 1995, Green testified in Congress: "We believe that women must be part of their health care choices and this included accepting the risks associated with those choices....Silicone gel implants provided the easiest, most inexpensive method of breast reconstruction with some of the best cosmetic results, yet they are no longer a viable option for women with breast cancer. What silicone product will be the next to go?"

Two months later, Y-ME's Green made another plug for implants on the Oprah Winfrey Show (9/27/95), arguing that without the implant option, women would be scared to go for mammograms.

The March/April '96 issue of Ms. magazine quoted Green as "the country's most vocal advocate for 'choice' as it concerns silicone implants" and listed Y-ME among the groups to contact "If You Need Help."

What neither Ms. nor Oprah mentioned was that Dow Corning and Bristol Myers Squibb (two of the silicone implant manufacturers) and Plastic Surgeons Associated are among the high-powered (and financially interested) funders of the Y-ME organization.

Media outlets have often failed to investigate the corporate sponsorship of astroturf organizations. Mary Ann Childers,a reporter for CBS in Chicago, went even further. Childers chose to interview Sharon Green for a segment (WBBM-TV, 2/2/96) on contemporary science and breast implants--even though she herself is on the honorary board of Y-ME....

Josh Marshall provided another example:

A few more points on Ralph Reed and the entertaining world of "astroturf" political organizing. Lobbying on the Hill is currently regulated under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995. A Capitol Hill reporter tells me that when the bill was being put together, Reed was a key force, perhaps the key force, making sure that "astroturf" work (phony grass-roots organizing) would not be covered under the LDA. This of course was while Reed was still Executive Director of the Christian Coalition.

Reed's frequent partner in "astroturf" work is Tom Synhorst. Let's run through some of his exploits in the "astroturf" biz. Synhorst's main shop is Direct Connect Inc., DCI. DCI did the "astroturf" work for the 'Health Benefits Coalition,' trying to kill the Health Care Bill of Rights back in 1998 (Nat. Journal July 11, '98); DCI also spearheaded various efforts by the tobacco industry and the NRA; it also helped set up Americans for Competitive Technology and Americans for Technology Leadership, two Microsoft front groups agitating against the Justice Department's antitrust suit.

Of course, Reed and Synhorst will always have a special place in my heart for that stand-up work they did ambushing John McCain in South Carolina in 2000 with their nasty, below-the-radar push-polls.

[NOTE: Nicholas Confessore has written in the Washington Monthly about how Tech Central Station is for all practical purposes a corporate/conservative astroturf operation.]

5.2.2 Astroturf propagation in op-eds

Another mechanism by which astroturf is propagated is in op-eds in newspapers. There does not seem to be a whole lot of research (available on the web) on the extent of media bamboozlement by op-ed astroturf - so it is not clear to me whether this is more prevalent on one side or the other. Nevertheless, this is another piece of the astroturf puzzle that requires more examination.   

Josh Marshall mentioned astroturf op-eds in newspapers:

We've already spoken at some length about 'astroturf' organizing. Let's now discuss one of the great unspoken scandals of DC and the newspaper world: Op-Ed payola.

What do I mean? Far more Op-Eds than you realize are bought and paid for. I don't mean by scholar X whose work is funded by corporation Y or union Z. That may be a problem, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about OpEds which are produced in lobbying chop-shops.

First they're written up by people at the lobbying firm. Then the lobbying firm finds some pliable economist, or scientist, ex-congressman or ex-diplomat and offers them, say, $1000 to sign their name to it. Once they get someone to bite they send it off to the papers.

I've talked to folks who ply at this enterprise and it's pretty common. From what I've been told it's very hard, if not impossible, to pull this off with most of the premium dailies. But many regional papers apparently either don't know about this or don't care. And that's where these bought and paid for pieces get placed.

This is one of the fun topics you'll see mentioned in installment two of Great Moments in Foreign Agency. Today we have the Zaire Program 1991, which DC foreign lobbying shop van Kloberg & Associates prepared for then-Zairian dictator Mobutu. (Zaire is now The Democratic Republic of the Congo.) Give the whole dossier a look. But give particular attention to the points highlighted with red arrows.

Via PR Watch, another example from Josh Marshall is here [I have updated the broken URL to "JWI's proposal" - which is the key one of interest here - in his post]:

There've been a number of items in the news of late about the on-going efforts to bring various Balkan war criminals to account.

But let's go back to 1992 and '93.

Back then, one of the contested areas was the part of Croatia called the Krajina. This was essentially an ethnic Serb enclave within the borders of Croatia and as you might imagine this became a volatile crisis point in the fighting between Serbs and Croats. In any case, United Nations peace-keepers were sent into the region in the beginning of 1992 to maintain the peace. And did a reasonably good, though by no means perfect, job at it.

For a while, the matter was thus placed in suspense, until 1995 when then-Croatian President Franjo Tudjman gave the UN Mission an ultimatum to leave. Eventually the Croatians rolled in and retook the region with some quite ugly consequences.

As we noted a couple months ago, Croatia got help laying the groundwork for this rampage from a DC PR and lobbying shop called Jefferson Waterman International. JWI agreed to help the Croatians deal with whatever bad press might ensue from reasserting their ethnic rights in the region.

So how exactly does a lobbying outfit make this sort of pitch to a foreign head of state? How do public relations and war crimes mix? Well, today we're proud to show you.

Click here to see JWI's proposal for yourself. Trust me, it's worth a look.

Here's another report from Jordan Smith in the Austin Chronice:

Under the fearless leadership of Attorney General John Ashcroft, the U.S. Department of Justice has taken to churning out prewritten op-ed pieces in support of mandatory minimum sentencing requirements, which are being pitched to local newspapers bearing the signatures of local U.S. attorneys, reports the Drug Reform Coordination Network. Ashcroft's full-throttle "AstroTurfing" campaign – i.e., a pseudo-grassroots campaign – comes in response to a growing discontent with the man-min sentencing structure, voiced by several federal judges, including Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy – and, more recently, a June 24 Supreme Court decision (Blakley v. Washington), in which the court opined that juries, and not judges, must decide the facts of a case if those facts may result in a longer sentence.

The DOJ's bolstering campaign was outed earlier this month by the advocacy group Families Against Mandatory Minimums and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, after the "model" op-ed turned up in three different newspapers. And last week DRCNet spotted the same piece – which warns that the high court's Blakley decision jeopardizes "the safety of America" – in three Tennessee newspapers, signed by two different U.S. attorneys.

Via Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly, here's William Adler's Washington Post op-ed about astroturf op-eds:

Everyone has quirks. Among mine is an obsession with matters nuclear: weapons, power, waste. I've been writing about little else for several years. So I was intrigued not long ago to run across an opinion piece in my hometown daily, the Austin American-Statesman headlined "Funds for nuclear waste storage should be used for just that."

The March 4 op-ed by Sheldon Landsberger, a University of Texas professor of nuclear engineering, argued trenchantly that the government is fleecing electric-power ratepayers, who for more than two decades have been contributing mandatory fees for the development of a proposed national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Landsberger charged that a portion of the fees earmarked for the Nuclear Waste Fund is diverted to the U.S. Treasury. "Denying the Yucca Mountain project an adequate level of funding," he wrote, "is stealing money from taxpayers who were required to support the waste management project."

Strong words. Familiar ones, too. So familiar that I was sure they were entombed in the towering file of articles on nuclear waste that I, ahem, maintain. I knew I could excavate the words eventually. Or I could Google them. I typed in "Yucca Mountain" and "stealing money"; 0.11 seconds later, I had my cite: A Dec. 9, 2003, op-ed column in the State, the Columbia, S.C., daily. It appeared under the byline of Abdel E. Bayoumi, chairman of the department of mechanical engineering at the University of South Carolina. Wrote Prof. Bayoumi: "Denying the repository project an adequate amount of funding is essentially stealing money from the taxpayers who were required to support the waste management project."

Other sentences were identical, as was the entire last paragraph, but this was no case of garden-variety plagiarism; Landsberger had not appropriated the words of Bayoumi. Instead, as I was about to learn, Landsberger and other engineering professors at universities great and small had been sent op-eds over the past decade or more and asked to sign, seal and deliver them as their own to their local newspapers. The opinion pieces were written not by the academic experts, but originally by a PR agency in Washington, D.C., working on behalf of the nuclear energy industry.

...

"I've written five to 10 [such] articles over the last five years," he said. "They come maybe two or three times a year, particularly when there's a hot-button issue." They came to him? Again, he wouldn't say from whom.

I returned to Bayoumi's column and typed its final sentence, "The government should get on with it," into the LexisNexis newspaper search engine. Up popped the same plaintive wail in a Buffalo (N.Y.) News op-ed published July 26, 1993 -- fully 10 years earlier. (Bayoumi's column featured other lockstep language as well.) Back to the phone. I asked if he had written the piece. He said yes. "All the writing is my own," Bayoumi said. "I have no knowledge of that [Buffalo News] column. I have no idea who did what 10 years ago."

I believed him, just as I'd believed Landsberger when he said he was unaware of Bayoumi's column. Nevertheless, I wondered what was really going on.

Eventually it would become clear. Landsberger divulged that he had received the op-eds from a fellow at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Energy Department's nuclear research and development facility in Tennessee. He wouldn't name his correspondent, but he did allow that the man worked with Potomac Communications Group Inc., a Washington-based public relations firm.

A quick visit to Potomac's Web page delivered the news that among its clients is the Nuclear Energy Institute, the mighty industry-funded lobby. On the NEI's Web site is a list of experts whom reporters are encouraged to call for comment or technical assistance with a story. One of those experts is Sheldon Landsberger; another is Theodore M. Besmann, a nuclear engineer at Oak Ridge National Lab.

You're nobody without a Web page, and Ted Besmann is no nobody. His page on the Oak Ridge Web site helpfully mentions that since 1985 he has moonlighted as a consultant to Potomac. Besmann, although not overjoyed to hear from me, acknowledged that Potomac pays him to ghostwrite letters to newspaper editors and to broker op-ed pieces to engineering colleagues around the country. (He also is a prolific correspondent under his own name; The Washington Post, for instance, has published four of his letters, most recently in 2001. His letters identify him as a "researcher" or "head of a research group" at Oak Ridge National Lab, but not as a consultant to the industry.)

I started searching LexisNexis and other databases for op-eds written by academics the NEI touts as experts. I printed out a healthy sampling, grouping them chronologically and by subject area. Searching on key phrases led me to other academics' op-eds. Once sorted, it didn't take a forensic crime lab to determine that one person's literary DNA is all over those articles.

Take the argument that the increased use of nuclear power leads to fewer greenhouse-gas emissions. Op-eds on that subject, for instance, ran between 1997 and 1999 with different bylines in three newspapers. Each writer dismissed the claims of "environmentalists" or "skeptics" that greenhouse-gas emissions "can be reduced" without nuclear power. "They are dreaming," said one op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Dec. 2, 1997. Yes, concurred another in the Record of Northern New Jersey on Jan. 5, 1998: "They are dreaming." And Dallas Morning News readers awoke on April 5, 1999, to learn from Landsberger that those lazy enviros were still in the sack: "They are dreaming," he wrote.

Or take the campaign to locate low-level nuclear waste facilities in various states. Between 1990 and 1996, three academics and a physician writing op-eds in newspapers in four states -- Nebraska, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Texas -- all assured readers that nearby sites would "be among the safest and best-engineered" waste facilities in the country.

Fascinated by all of this, I phoned the news editor at the weekly Austin Chronicle, who told me to lace up my roller skates and get going on a story -- which it published April 16.

The op-eds are ginned up by a prodigious copywriter at Potomac Communications Group named Peter Bernstein, who works out of an office in Alexandria.

As this website points out, many organizations (whose ideologies or goals vary) try to provide examples of a "model op-ed" or "sample op-ed" or "op-ed template". What is less clear is how extensive the use of such op-eds is by newspapers. At this point all that can be said is that the media does get hoodwinked by astroturf op-eds.

5.2.3 Astroturf propagation in letters

Some of you may recall the Bush administration's Iraq-soldier-astroturf campaign, manifested in some cases by fake letters. This site has some of the relevant links.

Dana Milbank noted this in the Washington Post (bold text is my emphasis):

Identical letters to the editor from different soldiers with the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Infantry Regiment appeared in 11 newspapers across the country, Gannett News Service reported on Saturday. The news service reached six soldiers who said they agreed with the letter but had not written it, one who had not signed the letter, and one who didn't even know about the letter.

Lt. Col. Cindy Scott-Johnson, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said that the form letter was similar to the "hometown news release program" and that the Pentagon had raised no objection "that I know of" to the letter, apparently written by 2nd Battalion staff and distributed to soldiers.

USA Today noted (bold text is my emphasis):

An Army battalion commander has taken responsibility for a public-relations campaign that sent hundreds of identical letters to hometown newspapers promoting his soldiers' rebuilding efforts in Iraq.

Lt. Col. Dominic Caraccilo said he wanted to highlight his unit's work and "share that pride with people back home."

Army officials revealed Tuesday that 500 identical form letters were sent to newspapers across the country with different signatures. They said the mass mailing was the wrong way of getting the message out, but they didn't know whether the commander would be disciplined.

"It sounded like a good idea at their level, (but) it's just not the way to do business. They're not going to do that again," said Lt. Col. Bill MacDonald, a spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division, which is leading operations in north-central Iraq.
...
MacDonald said no one was forced to sign the letter, though most did. At least one soldier contacted by Gannett News Service said he never signed the letter that appeared in his hometown newspaper in Charleston, W.Va. Several parents also said they knew their sons had not written the letters that appeared in local newspapers. The letter appeared in at least a dozen newspapers, according to a Gannett News Service search.

More often, the astroturf was caught by lefty bloggers, rather than news media (at least at first). 

Markos Zuniga of Dailykos provided an example of this common practice by the GOP:

The GW04 site has handy templates for letters to the editor. See the top one on the list:

New job figures and other recent economic data show that America's economy is strong and getting stronger - and that the President's jobs and growth plan is working. The Labor Department announced that employers added 288,000 new jobs in April. In total, over 1.1 million jobs have been added since August, with 8 consecutive months of gains.

Now google that entire phrase, and see the results. About 60 newspapers have run that letter, sent by GOP automatons too stupid to vary the wording even a tiny bit.

[Another example here].

A most recent example via DailyKos:

Echidne at Atrios' joint shows us Astroturf in action.

[...]

A fair up or down vote for highly qualified judicial nominees is too important for Republicans to stand by as Democrats sacrifice decades of Senate tradition for partisan gain.

It is also a letter in here, here, here, here and even in this discussion forum! And in many other newspapers, always with different signatures.

The origin of the letter is here. It seems to have been written by Ken Mehlman.

That letter can also be found here.

Newspaper op/ed page editors need to filter this shit out. It's not as if newspapers have credibility to spare.

M. E. Cowan at Failure Is Impossible has got a much larger collection of some of the pro-Bush astroturf letters that appeared in the American mainstream media in the past years. Here's just one example, that also lists how many papers got bamboozled by this.

Getcher Gen-u-ine Leadership Here!

(Note: This letter has been traced to the Republican Party's web site, gopteamleader.com. Note in this screenshot of the web page that "GOP team leaders" are encouraged to submit identically worded letters to several newspapers at the same time — in violation of nearly every newspaper's editorial policy against publishing letters that have been published elsewhere.)

When it comes to the economy, President Bush is demonstrating genuine leadership. The economic growth package he recently proposed takes us in the right direction by accelerating the successful tax cuts of 2001, providing marriage penalty relief and providing incentives for individuals and small businesses to save and invest.

Contrary to the class warfare rhetoric attacking the president's plan, the proposal helps everyone who pays taxes, especially the middle class. This year alone, 92 million taxpayers will receive an immediate tax cut averaging $1,083, and 46 million married couples will get back an average of $1,714. That's not pocket change for a family struggling through uncertain economic times. Combined with the initiatives to help the unemployed, this plan gets people back to work and helps every sector of our economy.

1. Manhattan [KS] Mercury (01/08/03)
2. WHEC-TV Channel 10, Rochester NY (01/08/03)
3. Atlanta Journal-Constitution (01/09/03)
4. Financial Times (01/09/03)
5. International Herald Tribune (01/09/03)
6. Jersey Journal (01/09/03)
7. Merced [CA] Sun-Star (01/09/03)
8. Riverside Press-Enterprise (01/09/03)
9. Tucson Citizen (01/09/03)
10. Lowell [MA] Sun (01/10/03)
11. News Sun [IL] (01/10/03)
12. Palo Alto Weekly (01/10/03)
13. Santa Barbara News Press (01/10/03)
14. Shreveport Times (01/10/03)
15. Muncie Star Press (01/10/03)
16. The Baytown [TX] Sun (1/11/03)
17. Houghton [MI] Daily Mining Gazette (01/11/03)
18. Providence [RI] Journal (01/11/03)
19. Victoria [TX] Advocate (01/11/03)
20. Boston Globe (01/12/03)
21. Columbia Daily Herald (01/12/03)
22. Deseret News [Salt Lake City] (1/12/03)
23. Green Bay [WI] Press Gazette (01/12/03)
24. Honolulu Star-Bulletin (01/12/03)
25. Courier News [IL] (01/13/03)
26. Detroit News (1/13/03)
27. Klamath Falls [OR] Herald and News (01/13/03)
28. Visalia Times-Delta (01/13/03)
29. Colorado Springs Gazette (01/14/03)
30. Columbia [MO] Daily Tribune (01/14/03)
31. Fort Pierce Tribune (01/14/03)
32. Mobile Register (01/14/03)
33. Santa Rosa [CA] Press Democrat (01/14/03)
34. Sonoma [Valley CA] Index Tribune (01/14/03)
35. Wausau [WI] Daily Herald (01/14/03)
36. York [PA] Dispatch (1/14/03)
37. Deseret News [Salt Lake City] (1/15/03) (yes, a repeat)
38. Quincy [MA] Patriot Ledger (01/15/03)
39. Rutland [VT] Herald (01/15/03)
40. Santa Cruz Sentinel (01/15/03)
41. Arizona Daily Star (01/16/03)
42. Covington Kentucky Post (1/16/03)
43. Port Arthur [TX] News (01/16/03)
44. Sheboygan [WI] Press (01/16/03)
45. South Bend Tribune (01/16/03)
46. Detroit News (1/17/03)
47. Fairfield [CT] Citizen (01/17/03)
48. Galveston County Daily News (01/17/03)
49. Hudson-Litchfield News (1/17/03)
50. Santa Barbara News Press (01/17/03) (yes, a repeat)
51. Erie Times-News (1/18/03)
52. Southeast Missourian [Cape Girardeau] (01/18/03)
53. Stuart [FL] News (01/18/03)
54. Times of South Mississippi (01/18/03)
55. Hoosier Times [Bloomington IN] (01/19/03)
56. Hudson Valley Times Herald-Record (01/19/03)
57. Illinois Beacon News (01/19/03)
58. Imperial Valley [CA] Press (01/19/03)
59. Knoxville News-Sentinel (01/19/03)
60. Middletown [NY] Times Herald-Record (01/19/03)
61. Black World Today (01/20/03)
62. Fort Smith [AR] Times Record (1/20/03)
63. Lawrence [MA] Eagle-Tribune (01/20/03)
64. Medford [OR] Mail Tribune (01/20/03)
65. Naples Daily News (01/20/03)
66. Olympian [WA] (1/20/03)
67. Sacramento Bee (1/20/03)
68. Southern Utah Spectrum (1/20/03)
69. Central Kentucky News-Journal (01/21/03)
70. Green Bay [WI]Press Gazette (1/21/03) (yes, a repeat)
71. Moscow [ID] Daily News (01/21/03)
72. Adrian [MI] Daily Telegraph (01/22/03)
73. Baytown [TX] Sun (01/22/03)
74. Farmington [NM] Daily Times (01/22/03)
75. Kankakee Daily Journal (1/22/03)
76. Macon Telegraph (01/22/03)
77. Sonoma Union Democrat (01/22/03)
78. Stuart [FL] News (01/22/03) (yes, a repeat)
79. Times-Press-Recorder [San Luis Obispo County] (01/22/03)
80. Edmond [OK] Evening Sun (01/23/03)
81. Fort Worth Star-Telegram (01/23/03)
82. Savannah Morning News (01/23/03)
83. South Brunswick Post [Dayton NJ] (01/23/03)
84. Toeele Transcript (01/23/03)
85. USA Today (1/23/03)
86. Echo Press [Alexandria MN] (01/24/03)
87. Lynchburg Ledger (01/24/03)
88. Evansville Courier & Press (1/26/03)
89. Skagit Valley [WA] Herald (01/26/03)
90. Nashua Telegraph (01/26/03)
91. Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier (01/26/03)
92. Dubuque Telegraph Herald (1/27/03)
93. Aurora [IL] Beacon News (01/29/03)
94. San Mateo County Times (01/29/03)
95. Hudson Valley Times Herald-Record (01/31/03)
96. Atlanta Journal Constitution (01/31/03) (yes, a repeat)
97. Manchester [CT] Journal Inquirer (01/31/03)
98. Tahoe Daily Tribune (01/31/03)
99. Times Herald-Record [NY] (01/31/03)
100. Grand Rapids [MN] Herald-Review (02/01/03)
101. Grand Island [NE] Independent (02/02/03)
102. Brownsville [TX] Herald (2/4/03)
103. Cincinnati Enquirer (02/04/03)
104. Reno News & Review (02/06/03)
105. Richlands [VA] News-Press (02/07/03)
106. Boston Phoenix (02/13/03)
107. Bennington Banner (02/22/03)
108. Deseret News (03/06/03) (third time!)

Here's another variation of astroturf thanks to an ardent Bush supporter who seems to have learnt the art of deceiving people from his party leadership. Sarah Krupp at Contra Costa Times writes:

Batswala Dala, France Amoore and Tom Shane all have published letters to the editor in Bay Area newspapers. Trouble is, none of the men exist.

Under dozens of pseudonyms, Kyle Vallone has orchestrated the publication of scores of letters to the Times, San Francisco Chronicle and the Tri-Valley Herald during the last decade. A Times investigation found that the San Ramon man submitted more than 100 letters under fictitious identities to the three newspapers. Vallone estimated that he has had a hand in 200 bogus letters published in Northern California newspapers.

Vallone said the idea occurred to him while he was working on a Republican campaign in 1994. He and other workers would write letters on behalf of a candidate and send them to a "tree" of supporters who would sign their names and send them to newspapers. It occurred to him that he could skip a step, make up fictitious identities and send the letters via e-mail. He used free e-mail accounts and various voice-mail systems, his cell phone and home phone numbers to pull off his hoax.

"That probably wasn't the correct thing to do, but we were just having fun. It wasn't like something that we really took seriously," Vallone said.

The newspapers' editors aren't laughing, though.

"Bogus letters have a tremendous effect on the readers," Times Editorial Page editor Dan Hatfield said. "People need to be able to know that the letters to the editor are real people, writing about real issues. They need to be able to believe what they read in the newspaper. The discovery of false letters makes the reader wonder about the veracity of the opinions on our pages."

While the letters may raise ethical questions, making up fake names for publication isn't illegal, according to Contra Costa Deputy District Attorney Jim Sepulveda.

Vallone's letters preached conservative politics or ideologies on topics ranging from boosting missile defense to ousting Gov. Gray Davis. They often provoked readers to write response letters.

As his reputation grew, Vallone said people began to send him letters they had written, but didn't want to be associated with. He said he also acted as a "ghost writer" for friends who weren't adept at writing , and submitted the letters under their names.

In the last four to five years, Vallone said that other campaign workers wrote most of the letters. His helpers weren't aware, though, that he was sending them in with fictitious names, he said.

"The early stuff was all mine and I would use big words, like parsimonious. Then as time went on, I just didn't have the time to write them," he explained.

The Times, Chronicle and Herald have similar letter to the editor verification policies. A writer must provide his or her resident city and phone number. A newspaper employee then calls the writer to verify that they sent it in.

Vallone would call back and pretend to be the letter writer.

"I am very good (at accents). It was all just a creative thing. I just got to use my brain to create these folks. We would write these letters and I would use my computer skills to make it work," Vallone said. (He is most proud of coming up with the name Batswala Dala.)

Hatfield said the paper has tightened its policy, but there is no way to screen writers intent on breaking the rules.

"Unfortunately, there is not a fail-safe way that I have found. No matter how elaborate the system one designs, there is always some knucklehead out there who wants to ruin it for everyone by proving that he or she can beat it."

Vallone's most recent campaign work was as a co-chair of the letters to the editor for Republican Bill Jones' 2004 senatorial bid.

The Times found eight letters submitted by Vallone during the campaign, seven of which blasted Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and one that praised Jones.

Jones said he had no knowledge of Vallone's letter-writing deception.

...

To make matters worse media coverage of astroturf sometimes resorted to false "balance".

For example, Paul Farhi at the Washington Post wrote:

Reader, beware! Some of America's newspapers have become unwitting conduits for campaign propaganda.

Thanks to some nifty Internet technology, the campaigns of President Bush and John F. Kerry are making it easy for their supporters to pass off the campaigns' talking points as just another concerned citizen's opinion. Pro-Bush or pro-Kerry letters bearing identical language are flooding letters-to-the-editor columns.

But guess what? His article provided ZERO examples of any pro-Kerry astroturf "flooding" newspapers, keeping up with the media's tendency to create false "balance" without providing any evidence. 

Via a Google search, I found this response to Farhi from Maia Cowan via David Neiwert at Orcinus (bold text is my emphasis):

In his August 22 column, Paul Farhi states, "[T]he campaigns of President Bush and John F. Kerry are making it easy for their supporters to pass off the campaigns' talking points as just another concerned citizen's opinion. Pro-Bush or pro-Kerry letters bearing identical language are flooding letters-to-the-editor columns." This statement gives the impression that both campaigns are equally guilty of encouraging supporters to send letters provided by the campaign instead of writing their own letters.

The Bush campaign does provide letters that supporters can cut-and-paste; the "America's economy is strong and getting stronger" letter that Mr. Farhi cited is one example.

Mr. Farhi asserts, "Kerry's campaign has a similar feature that entreats his supporters to 'write' letters as part of his campaign's 'MediaCorps'." The two campaigns, however, have a crucial distinction. Unlike the Bush campaign, the Kerry campaign does not provide entire letters that the supporters can copy instead of writing their own. It provides one-sentence talking points and guidelines for how to write the letters. The site also provides a blank form for composing and sending the letters. Even if letter-writers repeat the talking-point sentence verbatim in their letters, they still have to write the rest of the letter themselves. The MediaCorps discourages sending the same letter to different newspapers by limiting use of the email form to one newspaper per day.

To verify my assumption that Kerry supporters don't churn out Astroturf, I searched the Internet for the MediaCorps talking points. I found exactly one letter that quoted them. Searches for the Bush campaign's form letters, by contrast, turn up dozens of instances.

There's a defining difference between encouraging people to write letters on specific issues and providing entire letters for them to send. It's the difference between respecting the rules and encouraging cheating. It's the difference between encouraging people to do their own thinking, and telling them what to think.

CJR Daily also weighed in similarly.

Cowan's general point is valid. Even if pro-Kerry astroturf exists, it is much smaller than pro-Bush astroturf. This became apparent in another article - by Alice Rowley of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

At the time, papers across the country, including the PG, received letters with this line: "When it comes to the economy, President Bush is demonstrating genuine leadership." We received dozens of these. In his column Dennis explained that people could go to a Web site called gopteamleader.com, register as a team leader, type in a ZIP code to get a listing of newspapers in a given area, select the newspapers that should get the message, then either send a letter that had already been composed or compose their own (talking points conveniently provided).

As the presidential campaigns began, the volume of daily Astroturf steadily increased. It's fair to say that initially the Astroturf correspondence was dominated by conservatives and Bush backers; however, I'd say liberals and Kerry backers are catching up [eRiposte emphasis, but it is no surprise that Rowley failed to cite even a single example of pro-Kerry astroturf in this article]. And what started out as something fairly easy to spot -- because of identical language or even the physical features of the letter -- has morphed into something a little more difficult to detect, probably as organizations promoting these letters realized that newspapers were deleting them.

Michael McGough of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette also wrote about such astroturf. Let's just say no prizes will be awarded for guessing what McGough does. As always, take recourse to false "balance" without providing any evidence!

And I'm sure Republicans do not have a monopoly on Astroturf; go to John Kerry's Web site and you will be exhorted to "contact media" on the Democratic nominee's behalf.

So, asking people to "contact media" is the same as sending astroturf! How absurdly moronic is this?

Dan Gillmor in fact asked right-wing readers to post evidence of pro-Kerry astroturf and no one could find any example. One reader commented as follows:

Posted by: Dave Buster on August 18, 2004 12:49 PM

I googled each one of Kerry's talking points. No dice. I also selected separate phrases to check if they were, in part, appearing on google. Nuthin'.

Shame on Kerry's supporters for not writing their newspapers!

Does this mean, no example exists? No.

For example if you go to right-wing extremist Michelle Malkin's website, she has posted a couple of examples - one from supporters of Moveon.Org regarding the "nuclear option" and another being a link to an Opinion Journal page listing some astroturf letters from Kerry supporters after one of the Presidential debates (using a DNC website). But the list is much smaller compared to the large number of astroturf examples that have been collected by the Left (examples are cited above). 

As Editor and Publisher noted:

The National Conference of Editorial Writers (NCEW) is taking the issue seriously.

On its NCEW e-mail listserv, some 600 subscribers who are mostly editorial page writers and editors, can alert one another of suspicious letters. In fact, this is the most consistent topic on the listserv. Boilerplate letters are sometimes easy to spot by "Googling" selected phrases or sentences.

At least 20 daily newspapers have run form letters recently, including the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle; the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; The Idaho Statesman of Boise; The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle; the Quad City Times of Davenport, Iowa; and The Gainesville (Fla.) Sun.

After The Anchorage Press, an Alaskan weekly, learned that it had unwittingly spread AstroTurf, an editor's note earlier this month responded saying, "We feel used. We feel violated. We were duped!"

The AstroTurf campaign has been mainly waged by the Bush-Cheney campaign, although Kerry's team has put "talking points" on its Web site for supporters to reformulate and send to newspapers.

One editor recently wrote to the NCEW listserv in analyzing a suspicious letter: "I can't say I've seen it verbatim, but I've seen a version so close -- perhaps identical -- that if I were a professor and a student turned this in, I'd fail him for plagiarism."

Another subscriber to the listserv, an editor at a large Texas paper -- who said he had 536 suspicious letters in a file -- observed that he'd witnessed an "interesting" trend: "I'm seeing a lot of anti-Bush letters from the Bush site, meaning, I think, that antis are logging on and using that engine to generate letters."

Many papers this month have run letters from readers who often merely "cut and paste" text from Bush's re-election site. Visitors to the Bush-Cheney site are encouraged to "write your newspaper editors," although it could be more accurately described as "mail your newspaper editors," for their is little or no "writing" required.

As Maia Cowen has stated:

"I deplore the fact that Democratic and liberal organizations are also not merely encouraging their supporters to write letters about specific issues, but actually providing boilerplate text. (Yes, I'm talking about you, MoveOn.org.) If you're going to send a letter, write it yourself. Sending Astroturf is cheating!"

Well said.

The bottomline, however, is that the GOP indulges in this far far more and the media often inadvertently falls for this and only realizes it later. On top of it, articles that actual try to reveal the astroturf for what it is often resort to false "balance" by equating both sides, when one side does it far more.