I'm not feeling too comfortable with activist cash as a source...
Activist Cash
Berman's specialty as a lobbyist is what he calls "shooting the messenger": attacking activists who criticize his clients. PR Watch first exposed Berman & Co. in our First Quarter 2001 issue, detailing his work for the restaurant, tavern and alcoholic beverage industries. Since then, we have uncovered new information documenting his ties to Philip Morris.
Although ConsumerFreedom.org isn't saying who funded its attack advertisement against Greenpeace, Philip Morris is a distinct possibility. The tobacco giant is also now the largest food company in the United States. Greenpeace is one of the international leaders in the fight for safety and environmental testing of genetically engineered foods, and recently Greenpeace targeted Philip Morris Kraft for its sales of such products.
Sourcewatch reviews ActivistCash
"Companies—especially 'powerful' public ones—are required to keep their operations transparent and regularly make public their financial records. Activist groups, even though most receive non-profit status and must file with the IRS, have been reluctant to let anyone see their records." Yet neither Strassel nor ActivistCash.com are able to cite any examples of activist groups "being reluctant to let anyone see their records." In fact, all of the information that appears on ActivistCash was provided to Berman's researchers by the activist groups themselves (with the exception of some false information that we detail below). As for the claim that corporations regularly make public their financial records, this is only true of publicly-traded corporations, and as the recent Enron scandal demonstrates, even this information can sometimes be limited and misleading. Moreover, corporations rarely disclose the details of their spending on PR campaigns designed to influence public opinion. Case in point: the ActivistCash.com itself does not provide any information about its corporate sponsors - nor do any of the other corporate front groups run by Rick Berman, the Washington, DC lobbyist who runs ActivistCash. |
