In a January 8 article about President-elect Barack Obama’s emphasis on alternative energy production in his economic stimulus speech that day, Reuters wrote: “Not everyone cheered Obama’s plan. Private companies could use domestic energy resources like oil and coal to create jobs without the hefty price tag for taxpayers, said Thomas Pyle of the Institute for Energy Research, in a statement.” Reuters further quoted Pyle’s assertion that “[t]he road to economic recovery will be paved with private sector investment, not government-sponsored asphalt.” But the Reuters article did not note the Institute for Energy Research’s own ties to “[p]rivate companies” with interests in “domestic energy resources like oil.” In fact, the Institute’s funders include the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, the president of which is an executive vice president of Koch Industries, whose subsidiaries “have been in the petroleum business since 1940.” Further, Reuters previously reported that Exxon Mobil Corp. has funded the group. Indeed, according to a September 14, 2008, Washington Post article, the Institute is “funded by the oil industry.”
http://mediamatters.org/items/200901090013?f=h_latest
There’s nothing unusual about this example. The establishment and funding of such front groups by industry (tobacco, energy, weapons, etc) is a is a standard PR function for which they budget. Of course, the Hell’s Angels also budget for police-band radio receivers and cell phone scramblers.
What’s ugly is the amorality of marketing goods or services which are harmful. And, in the case of Reuters here, a reporter not taking the five minutes needed to peer into the google machine.
