Comments on: Shame on the New York Times for running ExxonMobil’s greenwashing ad once again — they can’t plead ignorance this time, only greed

By: Leland Palmer

Leland Palmer — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:15:42 +0000

It’s less about the greed of individual newspapers, IMO, and more about a controlled corporate press that acts as the propaganda arm of an oligarchic form of government, IMO.

Remember the role of the NYT in cheerleading our way into Iraq. According to Greg Palast, this was all part of two competing plans put together by the Neocons and by the James Baker Institute in Texas.

Blaming the role of the NYT or the Washington Post in our Middle East invasion on incompetence misses the point, IMO. This is not deliberate incompetence, this is deliberately biased coverage promoting the financial interests of an oligarchy.

By: Deep Climate

Deep Climate — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 23:11:53 +0000

Maybe this has already mentioned, but I’ve seen the exactly the same “95% emissions” statement in ExxonMobil ads on CNN in the past couple of days.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:50:47 +0000

I sent my two shekels too. Also, I found this Friedman article from awhile back…

http://select.nytimes.com/ 2007/ 03/ 28/ opinion/ 28friedman.html?_r=1

—”Let’s see, of all the gin joints. Of all the people the Bush team
would let edit its climate reports, we have a guy who first worked for
the oil lobby denying climate change, with no science background, then
went back to work for Exxon. Does it get any more intellectually
corrupt than that? Is there something lower that I’m missing?”

Yes, the same NYT running their ads that are false and deceptive.

By: Alex J

Alex J — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:08:49 +0000

Sent my two cents. Now, I’d still like to see an action group submit their own ad, even on page 2. Something pretty basic, like:

Dear Exxon;

Does today’s car really produce 95% fewer emissions than in 1970 (before the Clean Air Act took effect), or is that just fewer smog-forming emissions? Does Exxon not acknowledge that the release of fossil CO2 (a presently unregulated component of automotive exhaust) constitutes an emission? Or that this has actually increased significantly since 1970?

Then maybe plug something like this in there for them:
http://www.pewclimate.org/ docUploads/ images/ co2-emissions-oil.gif

By: Richard Pauli

Richard Pauli — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:53:43 +0000

This is why the lawsuit Kivalina v Exxon lists the news media as un-named co-defendants.

http://www.noenergytomorrow.org/ 2009/ 04/ alaskan-village-of-kivalina-vs-exxonmobil-et-al.html

And that is why it is not well known. No news media wants to call attention to it.

By: Anna Haynes

Anna Haynes — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:16:43 +0000

Perhaps we could assemble a set of questions for Clark Hoyt? I suspect the pen would be mightier than the complaint.

One question I asked, that didn’t get an answer, is what processes/procedures/safeguards the NYT has in place to protect against – or at least monitor/detect – attempts to influence its editors & journalists via coercion. When I looked at their ethics manual (admittedly some months ago) I saw lots of detail about how to avoid the lure of temptation, but nothing about what one should do if faced with a veiled or not-so-veiled threat.

Maybe I’m being unreasonable in thinking it should be addressed, since nothing like that would ever happen, since real-world people are too ethical to make use of embarrassing private information if they should somehow stumble across it.