http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/33502-in-quest-for-revenue-los-angeles-times-creates-oil-industry-propaganda-website
[links in on-line article]
In Quest for Revenue, Los Angeles Times Creates Oil Industry Propaganda
Website
Tuesday, 03 November 2015 00:00
By Andrew Seifter, Media Matters | News Analysis
As newspapers' ad revenues have fallen over the years, prestigious
publications have been going to increasingly extraordinary lengths to
make up for the financial shortfall. Consider the Los Angeles Times,
which has recently provided prime front page real estate to
advertisements for companies like American Airlines and products like
the Universal Studios film, Minions.
But while these kinds of advertising arrangements aren't particularly
new for the Times, the same cannot be said for a newly-launched oil
industry propaganda website the newspaper created for California
Resources Corporation, an oil and gas spin-off company of Occidental
Petroleum. The website, called poweringcalifornia.com, has raised
concerns despite assurances from the Times that it is produced by a
department of the Times company that is wholly independent of the
reporting and editorial staff.
The Powering California website features a fearmongering video that asks
viewers to "imagine a day without oil" as a young man helplessly watches
many of the products he relies on every day suddenly disappear. The
site's text asserts that because "a majority of products that you use
every day are made from petroleum," a day without oil and natural gas
"would be a huge disruption for you and the people you depend on." It
goes on to allege that a day without oil could even be "life-threatening."
After Western States Petroleum Association President Cathy Reheis-Boyd
promoted the website in an October 27 tweet, it caught the attention of
Clean Energy California, a non-profit organization that worked with
businesses, consumer, health, faith, labor and environmental groups to
pass Senate Bill 350, California's landmark climate change legislation.
Specifically, Clean Energy California asked why the Los Angeles Times
and its parent company, Tribune Publishing, were sponsoring this "oil
propaganda project."
As Politico reported on October 29, the original disclaimer on the
Powering California website identified it as "a joint copyrighted effort
of the Los Angeles Times and the California Resources Corporation":
Following criticism from Clean Energy California and others, the
Times changed the copyright disclaimer to remove mention of itself and
added an additional statement on the Powering California website that read:
Powering California is sponsored content produced by The Los
Angeles Times Content Solutions team for California Resources
Corporation. The Los Angeles Times reporting and editing staffs are not
involved in the production of sponsored content, including Powering
California.
But the updated disclaimer has not settled all of the concerns that have
been raised about a major U.S. newspaper company sponsoring an oil
industry propaganda website.
In an October 30 article, LA Weekly wrote that "[e]ven as the Times was
publishing [a] hard-hitting story" detailing evidence that ExxonMobil
may have purposely deceived its shareholders about climate change
science, "the business side of the paper was presenting a much rosier
view of the oil industry through a sponsored content campaign." Noting
that the Times' editorial board recently suggested that California
legislators had fallen for "oil industry propaganda," LA Weekly observed
that it is "thus a little awkward, or at least ironic, that the Times is
simultaneously getting paid to create promotional material for the oil
industry." (It's worth pointing out that the Times' recent environmental
coverage hasn't all been good; the newspaper also received heavy
criticism from scientists for publishing a deeply flawed article that
disputed the link between California's recent wildfires and climate change.)
LA Weekly concluded by noting that even though it could be argued the
oil industry is helping fund journalism that is sometimes aimed at
"exposing" the oil industry, "some in the environmental community see
this as a troubling sign":
"I understand the concept behind sponsored content, but when it's
being used to defeat climate action by Big Oil, it goes way beyond
Zappos," said Jonathan Parfrey, executive director of Climate Resolve.
"To see the most prestigious paper in the Western U.S. cozying up to
these well-heeled interests is deeply disturbing."
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