Speaker 1: Welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westervelt. This week, a
Speaker 1: really important study was released from a frequent voice on Drilled,
Speaker 1: Robert Rule, visiting scholar at Brown University, an environmental sociologist.
Speaker 1: Rule looked at the rule of PR firms in blocking
Speaker 1: climate action, a subject we've covered a.
Speaker 2: Lot in this podcast, and what he found.
Speaker 1: When he looked at which firms the utilities, and coal
Speaker 1: companies and oil and gas companies were using was somewhat surprising.
Speaker 1: Only one firm showed up in the top three across
Speaker 1: all categories, Edelman PR. Which is interesting because back in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, Edelman made this big announcement on the heels
Speaker 1: of several executives leaving the firm that it was no
Speaker 1: longer going to engage in greenwashing, that it was no
Speaker 1: longer going to work for coal companies at all, and
Speaker 1: that it was going to commit itself to being a
Speaker 1: responsible actor on climate. Well, the data that Rule found
Speaker 1: does not back that up. If you haven't listened to
Speaker 1: season three of this podcast, I would recommend going back
Speaker 1: and doing that. We did a deep dive on all
Speaker 1: of the various PR folks involved in helping to block
Speaker 1: climate action, including We also just recently did an episode
Speaker 1: of our other podcast, rig on Edelman and their role
Speaker 1: in particularly astroturfing, this strategy where companies or industries will
Speaker 1: create front groups that seem like grassroots groups, but are
Speaker 1: in fact paid for by.
Speaker 2: A company or industry group.
Speaker 1: We're going to bring you that story today after the break,
Speaker 1: and next week a conversation with Bob Boule and former
Speaker 1: Edelman VP Christine Arena.
Speaker 2: Hope you've enjoy today's.
Speaker 1: Episode and come back next week.
Speaker 3: For that conversation.
Speaker 2: It's simple, supply and demand. More abundant energy means more
Speaker 2: affordable energy.
Speaker 4: Producing more American oil and natural gas will help keep
Speaker 4: energy bills in check.
Speaker 3: Who doesn't want that. I'm rich and I'm an energy voter.
Speaker 2: If you can afford a tesla, then this message won't
Speaker 2: really matter to you.
Speaker 3: His name is Don Smith. I've been with Walmart for
Speaker 3: their years twenty.
Speaker 2: Eight years, seventeen and a half years, six and a
Speaker 2: half years, seventeen years.
Speaker 3: Been here eleven years and just eleven Just love my job.
Speaker 2: If these commercials are to be believed, hundreds of Americans
Speaker 2: are out there rallying around the causes of protecting energy
Speaker 2: companies automakers and big box retailers from regulation. Wow, those
Speaker 2: plucky little guys protecting those vulnerable behemoths of US industry.
Speaker 2: As like this tend to appear when legislation or unions
Speaker 2: threaten the profits of big companies. They claim to be messages.
Speaker 3: From grassroots groups.
Speaker 2: Like Energy Citizens or the California Driver's Alliance, or from
Speaker 2: employees that just love Walmart so much they want to
Speaker 2: sing it from the rooftops, But they're actually paid for
Speaker 2: by industry trade groups or specific companies.
Speaker 5: They give these fake front groups these names that sound
Speaker 5: they're like perfectly innocuous names, like the California Driver's Alliance
Speaker 5: or the Washington Consumers for Sound Fuel Policy.
Speaker 2: This is Christine Arena. She knows a lot about this
Speaker 2: tactic because she used to be a VP at a
Speaker 2: PR firm that's famous for using it.
Speaker 5: There are hundreds of them, are usually secretly run by
Speaker 5: lobbying organizations, like though two I just mentioned are actually
Speaker 5: run by the Western States Petroleum Association, which is a
Speaker 5: top lobbyist for the oil industry. The Western States Petroleum
Speaker 5: Association is in turn funded by members including BP Shell,
Speaker 5: ex OnMobile, Chevron, and Occidental, among others. So it's fake activism,
Speaker 5: it's corporate money posing as activism, and it's designed to
Speaker 5: undo all of the progress that real activism makes.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Rigged Up podcast about the war for
Speaker 2: hearts and minds and activism right here on us soil.
Speaker 2: I'm Amy Westervelt. And today's trick is astroturfing.
Speaker 1: Ah.
Speaker 2: Yes, astroturfing. When grassroots don't exist, a plastic version will
Speaker 2: do very nicely. One of the PR firms most associated
Speaker 2: with astroturfing is Arena's former employer, Edelman PR. It was
Speaker 2: started back in nineteen fifty two in Chicago by Daniel Edelman,
Speaker 2: a former journalist who had spent World War Two working
Speaker 2: in psychological warfare for the US Army. Here he is
Speaker 2: much later in life describing that gig.
Speaker 6: Working at drug and doing the psychological warfare thing was
Speaker 6: fascinating because we were upsetting the claims made by the Germans.
Speaker 7: It's all lies.
Speaker 3: I mean, we had to disclaim them, yep.
Speaker 2: And then he came home and put those skills to
Speaker 2: work on behalf of US industry against the American public.
Speaker 2: Edelman's son, Richard took over as CEO in nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 2: and one of his first moves was to make a
Speaker 2: really big show of how the firm was no longer
Speaker 2: going to work with tobacco companies, a noble move after
Speaker 2: his dad had spent decades helping the industry push the
Speaker 2: idea that secondhand smoke was no big deal. It must
Speaker 2: be weird joining the family business when the family business
Speaker 2: is propaganda. In a strategy he crafted for R. J.
Speaker 2: Reynolds in nineteen seventy seven, Daniel Edelman Datleman, if you like,
Speaker 2: recommends a civility campaign for smokers as a way to
Speaker 2: push the idea that smokers care about non smokers, that
Speaker 2: they're not just trying to be assholes imposing their cigarettes
Speaker 2: on the public.
Speaker 3: He writes a program directed at our own constituency, the
Speaker 3: Smoker makes the greatest sense to us. Example, a code
Speaker 3: of conduct for smokers publicized in all the traditional ways,
Speaker 3: a smoker's etiquette handbook distributed in smoking sections of trains, airplanes,
Speaker 3: et cetera. Restaurant tabletops on smoking etiquette, awards to courtesy smokers,
Speaker 3: contests to develop the dos and dots of civility in smoking.
Speaker 3: The possibilities are limitless. We need to develop various ways
Speaker 3: such a campaign and be pursued intelligently and effectively. It
Speaker 3: also seems to us that within the framework of a
Speaker 3: campaign of this sort, we have the best opportunity and
Speaker 3: the most congenial way of communicating our case that there
Speaker 3: is no real evidence that inhaling someone else's cigarette smoke
Speaker 3: causes any health problems.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety eight, after Big to B had lost
Speaker 2: multiple lawsuits and been hauled in front of Congress and
Speaker 2: investigated by the Department of Justice, Richard Edelman said, no, sir,
Speaker 2: we will no longer work for these guys. Richard Edelman
Speaker 2: may have sworn off tobacco, but he made up for
Speaker 2: it with a voracious appetite for oil, or at least
Speaker 2: the money of oil companies who were more than eager
Speaker 2: to pay him for bringing that Edelman family magic to
Speaker 2: their industry. Christina A Rena joined Edelman in twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: leading the business and social practice. She thought she'd be
Speaker 2: helping the firm do good work for organizations that were
Speaker 2: doing genuinely good things for the environment, but she quickly
Speaker 2: realized that she'd just been hired to do greenwashing. In
Speaker 2: the summer of twenty fourteen, Edelman created an astroturfing master
Speaker 2: plan designed to sway public opinion on trans Canada's Keystone
Speaker 2: Excel pipeline. It did, just not in the way they'd hoped.
Speaker 2: In November that year, the astroturfing plan was leaked to
Speaker 2: the press, embarrassing and Edelman enjoyed another moment in the spotlight.
Speaker 2: By the end of twenty fourteen, Arena knew she had
Speaker 2: to leave. In twenty fifteen, the Guardian caught wind of
Speaker 2: Arena's departure, along with three other Edelman executives, who all
Speaker 2: left the firm over its work with Big Oil. The
Speaker 2: Guardian published an article on that, and it got quite
Speaker 2: a bit of attention. So once again Edelman took a
Speaker 2: brave stand, promising to do better in the future. The
Speaker 2: firm vowed to stop promoting climate denial and to stop
Speaker 2: working with the coal industry period. It also committed to
Speaker 2: no more greenwashing or astroturfing, which is weird because in
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen they submitted an entry for a pr Award
Speaker 2: for a campaign they created for Shell that well, it
Speaker 2: sure looks a lot like greenwashing. In their award submission,
Speaker 2: Edelman said their campaign was meant to quote.
Speaker 3: Raise awareness of Shell's ambition in the UK to create
Speaker 3: more and cleaner energy solutions in a way that appeals
Speaker 3: to millennials, and in doing so, to build Shell's reputation
Speaker 3: in the UK as an innovative energy company.
Speaker 2: They claimed a twenty eight percent increase in people's belief
Speaker 2: that Shell quote works to provide a sustainable energy future
Speaker 2: as a key result of their campaign. Is that green washing,
Speaker 2: you say, persuading the public that a fossil fuel giant
Speaker 2: is a plucky investor in renewables, I say, potato. So yeah.
Speaker 2: One of the precursors to all of that was that
Speaker 2: ad you heard up top from Energy Citizens. Energy Citizens
Speaker 2: is a front group created by Edelman for the American
Speaker 2: Petroleum Institute way back in two thousand and nine. But
Speaker 2: creating groups like that is something Edelman has done over
Speaker 2: and over again for lots of clients in lots of
Speaker 2: different industries.
Speaker 8: Like that creation of bake grassroom support, which came to
Speaker 8: be known as like astroturfing, and Edelman was genius at
Speaker 8: doing that. And that's like rallying, you know, with the
Speaker 8: tobacco companies. That was like state you know, doctors and
Speaker 8: academics and climate changes, like the scientists who take contrary
Speaker 8: and perspectives and anybody who will like prepare it the propaganda.
Speaker 5: I'll use that.
Speaker 8: AstroTurf plan to then influence media, to influence politicians, influence
Speaker 8: regulatory to do.
Speaker 2: The Eedlman created all kinds of astroturfing groups to fight
Speaker 2: environmental regulations. But they didn't just work against environmental regulations.
Speaker 2: They worked against all kinds of other regulations too. We're
Speaker 2: going to hear more about that after the break. Examples
Speaker 2: of Edelman's astroturfing work for oil companies and other big
Speaker 2: polluters abound, But the most over the top example of
Speaker 2: astroturfing they ever did was for Walmart. When I heard
Speaker 2: about it, I had to call up Mary Anna eas Hegler,
Speaker 2: writer and my frequent partner in crime. Okay, I'm going
Speaker 2: to just I'm going to read you a little story
Speaker 2: and we can pause along the way for your reactions
Speaker 2: to this.
Speaker 3: Oh that's so sweet. Story time.
Speaker 2: It's story time with Mary.
Speaker 3: Here we go.
Speaker 1: In April two thousand and six, Jim and I hiked
Speaker 1: the Grand Canyon, Bryce and Slot Canyons in Escalante. During
Speaker 1: our trip, we ended up in Page, Arizona at five am,
Speaker 1: we were up and ready to go.
Speaker 2: Although not much else is in page except of course,
Speaker 2: the Walmart supercenter. We pulled into the parking lot amid
Speaker 2: at least a dozen RVs. Not sure what was up,
Speaker 2: we asked why, and we learned that Walmart allows r
Speaker 2: vs to stay and store parking lots overnight for free.
Speaker 2: As we hiked up Bright Angel Trail from Phantom Ranch
Speaker 2: in the Grand Canyon, a new adventure was born. I
Speaker 2: started thinking about all the other amazing things there are
Speaker 2: to see in this vast country of ours, and then
Speaker 2: I started thinking about how Walmart, one in every town,
Speaker 2: practically lets you park overnight for free. The idea just
Speaker 2: sort of came together. We would take vacation from our
Speaker 2: full time jobs and drive across the country in a
Speaker 2: rented RV from city to city, spending the night in
Speaker 2: a different Walmart parking lot every night. And of course
Speaker 2: I'd write an article about it, maybe and maybe able
Speaker 2: to sell a story to an RV magazine with photos
Speaker 2: of rving in America and only staying at Walmart's. Given
Speaker 2: the litigious age we live in, we decided to get
Speaker 2: permission from Walmart to do so. So I called my
Speaker 2: brother who works at Edelman and whose clients include Working
Speaker 2: Families for Walmart, in order to find out if we'd
Speaker 2: be allowed to talk to people and take pictures in
Speaker 2: Walmart parking lots. As a freelance writer, I've learned over
Speaker 2: the years that it's always better to ask about stuff
Speaker 2: like that in advance. They didn't just give us permission,
Speaker 2: they said they would even sponsor the trip. A blog
Speaker 2: seemed like the perfect medium to tell those stories, and
Speaker 2: even more exciting no editors, what writer could say no
Speaker 2: to that? Oh, dear Paul. In all, it was a
Speaker 2: perfect fit. Working Families for Walmart wants to get the
Speaker 2: word out about all the good things Walmart does for people.
Speaker 2: I wanted to make this trip and write about it.
Speaker 2: It just seemed to.
Speaker 3: Work that the end of that story.
Speaker 2: Have you ever heard about the blog Walmarting across America
Speaker 2: dot com?
Speaker 3: I have not at all.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, So this is the final post in that blog.
Speaker 2: It was a project of Edelman PR Company for Walmart,
Speaker 2: and it was started amidst a push among Walmart employees
Speaker 2: to unionize. So Edelman helped them create this group called
Speaker 2: Working Families for Walmart, which is one of the many, many,
Speaker 2: many examples of astroturfing that Edelman has done for various companies.
Speaker 2: And it was kind of presented as like, you know,
Speaker 2: an employee group of people who really didn't want to unionize,
Speaker 2: and that they were just good old fashioned working glass
Speaker 2: Americans who just loved Walmart. And this blog came about,
Speaker 2: like as this whole you know, fight about you reunizing
Speaker 2: was happening, and they would go to all these Walmarts,
Speaker 2: this woman and her husband, they would talk to employees,
Speaker 2: and the employees would just go on and on about
Speaker 2: how much they loved working.
Speaker 3: For I'm sure they dare.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, hair and makeup is like just off parking lot, right, yes.
Speaker 2: Yes. At the time that Walmarting Across America debuted, Walmart
Speaker 2: was paying Edelman some ten million dollars a year to
Speaker 2: improve its reputation. That reputation, of course, was that it
Speaker 2: was cheap with its wages and its benefits. Nothing like
Speaker 2: paying a pr for millions to make you look generous
Speaker 2: instead of just paying your employees. In the aftermath of
Speaker 2: the Walmarting Across America debuckle, Richard Edelman himself went to
Speaker 2: the press with.
Speaker 3: A statement, we regret not being one hundred percent transparent
Speaker 3: about the identity of the bloggers. That was entirely our fault,
Speaker 3: not our clients.
Speaker 2: Okay, sure, But nowhere in there did he say anything
Speaker 2: about Working Families for Walmart, which was just as big
Speaker 2: of a fake. The organization was set up by Walmart,
Speaker 2: and most of its members were Walmart executives, not the
Speaker 2: store clerks. You might imagine when you hear Working Families
Speaker 2: for Walmart. Well, I mean, technically, those executives do work
Speaker 2: for Walmart, and I guess those families must really like
Speaker 2: the sweet paychecks they bring home. Walmart execs can earn
Speaker 2: a thousand times that of an average employee. If I
Speaker 2: were in that family, I'd be very in favor of Walmart.
Speaker 2: The sole goal of Working Families for Walmart seemed to
Speaker 2: be to stop Walmart workers from unionizing, which tracked with
Speaker 2: Walmart's history. When a handful of Walmart butchers at one
Speaker 2: store in Texas came together to bargain with the store
Speaker 2: collectively in two thousand, the company shut down not only
Speaker 2: the meat counter at that store, but all of its
Speaker 2: stores in Texas and five neighboring states, just in case
Speaker 2: any of those rogue butchers had it in mind to
Speaker 2: move to a nearby state. I guess as a business practice,
Speaker 2: taking off and nuking the site from orbit is always
Speaker 2: an option if you're Walmart. Of course, Edelman doesn't have
Speaker 2: a monopoly on astroturfing. The other absolute legend at it
Speaker 2: is Doctor Evil aka Dick Evil. Richard Berman, king of
Speaker 2: the Front Group. He's the Attie is a win guy.
Speaker 2: From episode three, You don't need to get people to
Speaker 2: like you. All you have to do is create enough
Speaker 2: uncertainty that they won't act against you. Remember back in
Speaker 2: episode one when we heard from the Doctor with the
Speaker 2: Center for Accountability in Science and he was talking about
Speaker 2: antibiotics and meat.
Speaker 4: Choosing a burrito or a foot long sub labeled antibiotic
Speaker 4: free might make you feel like you're making a healthier choice,
Speaker 4: but in reality, you're simply paying more for a label.
Speaker 4: To learn more, visit accountablescience dot com.
Speaker 2: That's a Berman group. He also runs the perfectly innocuous
Speaker 2: sounding Environmental Policy Alliance, which is the official publisher of a.
Speaker 9: Site called Big Green Radicals that highlights the bad behavior
Speaker 9: of environmental groups some real eco extremists like the Sierra Club.
Speaker 2: The money for that site came from the right wing
Speaker 2: Bradley Foundation and initially went to another Berman group, the
Speaker 2: Center for Consumer Freedom. That group must have gotten too
Speaker 2: much bad press, because in recent years Berman scrapped it
Speaker 2: and renamed it the Center for Organizational Research and Education.
Speaker 2: Big Green Radicals was an environment focused spinoff of a
Speaker 2: previous project that Berman had done for Bradley called activistcash
Speaker 2: dot Com. And then, of course, Berman also runs the
Speaker 2: Center for Union Facts Surprise Surprise, and anti union site.
Speaker 2: If you're getting lost in this maze of slightly boring
Speaker 2: sounding innocuous names, guess what. That's the point He's hoping
Speaker 2: you lose track of all the money he's throwing at
Speaker 2: these fake pressure groups. One of Berman's many claims to
Speaker 2: infamy is his work going after those radicals at Mothers
Speaker 2: Against Drunk Driving on behalf of the restaurant and bar industry,
Speaker 2: and those hippies at the Humane Society on behalf of
Speaker 2: the industrial Meet guys, here's an ad for the website
Speaker 2: humane Watch, a watchdog site that Berman runs to highlight
Speaker 2: the nefarious ways of the Humane Society.
Speaker 5: Would you give money to a charity that was involved
Speaker 5: in a multimillion dollar racketeering lawsuit.
Speaker 1: Would you donate to a charity that was being investigated
Speaker 1: by an attorney general?
Speaker 7: Would you write a check to an animal charity that
Speaker 7: moved fifty million dollars to offshore counts instead of using
Speaker 7: it to help animals?
Speaker 9: Would you support a humane society that actually ran zero
Speaker 9: pet shelters?
Speaker 8: Would you?
Speaker 2: Would you?
Speaker 3: Would you? Would you?
Speaker 2: But he's got more serious sounding groups too, the Employment
Speaker 2: Policies Institute Foundation, for example. Okay, actually the use of
Speaker 2: both institute and foundation there in an attempt to sound
Speaker 2: serious and objective is goofy and hilarious. Classic Berman. The
Speaker 2: Department for Academic Studies, It's amazing. He really can't help himself.
Speaker 2: But that organization looks, on the face of it like
Speaker 2: a pretty standard DC policy you think tank, and it
Speaker 2: is in fact part of a cluster of nonprofits funded
Speaker 2: by the Bradley Foundation. They're an ultra conservative group that
Speaker 2: spends more money than the Kochs, a huge funding source
Speaker 2: for anti environmental campaigns. The Bradley Foundation pushes very specific
Speaker 2: pro business policies, and in this case, a group of
Speaker 2: Berman led efforts, the Center for Union Facts and the
Speaker 2: Center for Consumer Freedom, and the Employment policies Institute Foundation
Speaker 2: all focused on one thing, getting rid of labor unions.
Speaker 2: Here's Berman defending his right not to disclose who's funding
Speaker 2: which groups on Rachel Maddow back in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 7: I start a lot of these myself because I believe
Speaker 7: in them, and then I go to people and I say, listen,
Speaker 7: this is what I'm doing. If you, if your beliefs
Speaker 7: are consistent with mine, will you help me get this
Speaker 7: thing out of it? So who does anything to put
Speaker 7: a website up?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: But who on the acorn?
Speaker 6: So nobody ever else ever supported that was out of
Speaker 6: the goodness your heart.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: The problem with that is that I can't prove it
Speaker 6: one way or another because you don't have to disclose it,
Speaker 6: and so I have to take your word on that,
Speaker 6: and I will. There's no reason not to. But in general,
Speaker 6: your strategy is not to say, I, Rick Berman, am
Speaker 6: being paid to tell you that the efforts to stop
Speaker 6: you from eating fish, or stop eating trans fats, or
Speaker 6: or stop smoking cigarettes, whatever they are, I'm being paid
Speaker 6: to tell you that these things are a bad idea.
Speaker 3: I don't want things that I don't believe.
Speaker 6: Okay, but you are being paid to save them as
Speaker 6: well by people who have a vested interest. If you
Speaker 6: admitted that, but somebody would call you doctor evil anymore.
Speaker 6: They just call you a pr guy. The reason that
Speaker 6: you're on the show is because you don't disclose who's
Speaker 6: paying you to say the things that you're saying.
Speaker 7: Well, then you can't have anybody on your show from
Speaker 7: the left or the right who is connected to these
Speaker 7: nonprofit organizations because they won't tell you who's funding them.
Speaker 6: And you think that's wrong.
Speaker 7: I think that they're entitled to do that. They're entitled,
Speaker 7: they're entitled to keep their donors quiet. I think that
Speaker 7: that's up to them.
Speaker 2: Of course, not all astroturfing attempts are as obvious and
Speaker 2: goofy as walmarting across America. I mean, come on, guys,
Speaker 2: through at least one employee and who doesn't just love
Speaker 2: the show out of their Walmart job if you want
Speaker 2: to sell this thing. But if you know what to
Speaker 2: look for, even the more subtle efforts are pretty easy
Speaker 2: to spot. They really play up though we're just normal
Speaker 2: average citizens. Thing in their names and in their messaging
Speaker 2: they talk about saving you average American money, but their
Speaker 2: number one goal actually seems to be saving a company
Speaker 2: or an industry money. They use stock photos of people
Speaker 2: who are supposed to be members of their group in
Speaker 2: their ads. Hilariously, these guys are constantly doing this and
Speaker 2: thinking they're not going to get caught. They always get caught.
Speaker 2: There's no real way to.
Speaker 3: Join the group.
Speaker 2: You can learn more or sign a petition, sometimes even
Speaker 2: show up at a rally, but unlike genuine community groups,
Speaker 2: they're never having meetings unless you're hanging out near the
Speaker 2: Walmart executive washroom in Arkansas. These types of ads really
Speaker 2: ramp up around elections, so keep an eye out for them.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two. That's it for this time. Next time,
Speaker 2: on our final episode of this series, we're going to
Speaker 2: find out why Americans really embraced consumerism after World War Two.
Speaker 2: Come back for that. Thank you for joining us on
Speaker 2: this hair raising journey through the murky history of PR.
Speaker 2: Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to find
Speaker 2: out once and for all who's really pulling the strings.
Speaker 2: Rigged is an original critical frequency production. Lots of documents, photos,
Speaker 2: and other fun facts about the wild world of PR
Speaker 2: are on our website at rigged dot Media. Our producer
Speaker 2: is Martin zaltz Ostwick. He also scored this season. Artwork
Speaker 2: is by Matthew Fleming. Our fact checker is Ashley Braun.
Speaker 2: Our First Amendment attorney is Genie Wheaton of the First
Speaker 2: Amendment Project. Big thanks to Mary Annaise Hegler, who you'll
Speaker 2: hear throughout this series. If you want to hear more
Speaker 2: of me and Mary joking around, check out hot Take,
Speaker 2: the show We Do about climate change. Archival tape in
Speaker 2: this episode is courtesy of the Library of Congress, the
Speaker 2: PR Museum, and Vanderbilt University's TV news Archive. The show
Speaker 2: is reported by me Amy Westerbelt. Thanks for joining us
Speaker 2: and we'll see you next time.