Industrial agriculture is increasingly adopting the same public relations, lobbying and information tactics long used by Big Oil, investigative journalist Amy Westervelt said on the \u201cReal Organic Podcast.\u201d Those strategies help corporations influence research, media and policy, making it easier to \u201cshape the information that voters are getting,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Journalist\u00a0Amy Westervelt<\/a>\u00a0has spent years documenting how the oil industry used public relations, think tanks and university partnerships to shape public opinion and influence public policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But in a recent interview on the \u201cReal Organic Podcast<\/a>,\u201d Westervelt said she increasingly sees many of those same tactics in industrial agriculture.<\/p> \u201cI am finding so many parallels in the agriculture space,\u201d said Westervelt, host of the investigative podcast \u201cDrilled<\/a>\u201d and author of the forthcoming book, \u201cBrought to You By: Inside Big Oil\u2019s Total Information War.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She said large agricultural companies, like their counterparts in the fossil fuel industry, have established research centers that help generate academic support for policies that benefit industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s like they need a certain amount of \u2026 credible information from academics to be able to make the policy argument for certain things,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout the interview, Westervelt suggested these efforts are part of a broader corporate strategy designed not simply to influence markets, but to shape public debate before\u00a0policy<\/a>\u00a0decisions are ever made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Corporations start to have multiple problems with democracy\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Westervelt traced the origins of modern corporate public relations to the early 20th century, arguing that growing public scrutiny prompted businesses to rethink how they protected their interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCorporations start to have multiple problems with democracy\u201d as new laws, investigative reporting and broader voting rights threatened business interests, she said. That\u2019s when you see \u201cthe birth of corporate PR.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rather than simply selling products, corporations sought to mold public opinion before voters could demand greater oversight, according to Westervelt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese companies need a way to shape the information that voters are getting in a way that will make them more likely to vote against their own interests and in the interests of the corporations that have a lot at stake,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over time, industries refined those tactics, using increasingly sophisticated methods \u201cto try to shape the context that they\u2019re operating in and to deal with \u2026 \u2018creeping democracy,\u2019\u201d Westervelt said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Media \u2018not doing its job\u2019 of holding powerful corporations to account<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Think tanks have become one of industry\u2019s most effective policy tools, according to Westervelt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey train the people who work there to go on TV shows and radio shows to get these particular talking points out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike registered lobbyists, many think tanks operate with little transparency, she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese organizations have loads of money. They have a lot of influence, and they\u2019re not really regulated in any way,\u201d Westervelt said. \u201cThey\u2019re pretty good at hiding who funds them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She said\u00a0corporate<\/a>\u00a0influence doesn\u2019t stop with think tanks. It also extends into universities, where industry\u00a0funding can help shape the research<\/a>\u00a0that later informs public policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While much of her reporting has focused on fossil fuel companies, Westervelt said she increasingly sees similar patterns in industrial agriculture. She described the practice as a form of \u201cpre-lobbying,\u201d in which corporations cultivate the evidence needed to support future policy arguments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As one example, Westervelt described speaking with a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after an oil company funded carbon capture research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Researchers were invited to submit project proposals, but one scientist wanted to study \u201cthe potential health impacts\u201d of\u00a0carbon capture pipelines<\/a>, including \u201cwhat might happen if it leaks,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Westervelt, the principal investigator instead encouraged him to \u201clook for a more positive project.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seemingly small decisions like these can gradually shape which questions get asked \u2014 and which never reach the public, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s so many little things like that happening all the time that are keeping \u2026 really important ideas just out of the \u2026 public square,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Westervelt said those information gaps are reinforced by powerful\u00a0technology platforms<\/a>\u00a0and a\u00a0media<\/a>\u00a0landscape that often fails to challenge corporate influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou do have now tech companies working really in lock step with these big corporations, helping them to drown out everybody else,\u201d she said. \u201cLetting them juice the algorithm, spend a fortune on \u2026 advertising, and really drown out kind of anyone that doesn\u2019t agree with them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, she added, \u201cthe media is not doing its job kind of holding the powerful to account. That\u2019s just not a thing that is rewarded by newsrooms at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Godfather of greenwashing\u2019 invents strategy to distract from corporate pollution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To illustrate how these tactics evolved, Westervelt pointed to the\u00a0chemical industry<\/a>\u2019s response to Rachel Carson\u2019s landmark 1962 book, \u201cSilent Spring<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The book challenged the widespread use of pesticides and raised public concerns about their effects on wildlife, the environment and human health. It also helped spur creation of the\u00a0U.S. Environmental Protection Agency<\/a>\u00a0and passage of major environmental laws, including the\u00a0Cl<\/a>e<\/a>an Water Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was really the first real questioning of \u2026 why we were using all these chemicals so widely, what impact they might have, how little we actually knew about the impact that they might have,\u201d Westervelt said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She said Carson\u2019s work also prompted people to consider \u201cthe impact on \u2026 animals and the environment but also on health and, [in] particular, children\u2019s health.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The industry\u2019s response was swift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chemical companies \u201cwere scared. They were calling it Pearl Harbor for the chemical industry,\u201d Westervelt said. \u201cThe corporate PR guys kind of come to the rescue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She singled out public relations executive\u00a0E. Bruce Harrison<\/a>, whom she called \u201cthe godfather of greenwashing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rather than confronting environmental concerns directly, Harrison developed a strategy that encouraged companies to highlight voluntary environmental initiatives while shifting attention away from government oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf corporations just did certain good environmental things that they could redirect the public\u2019s attention to \u2026 that would take the pressure off of having to have regulation,\u201d Westervelt said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The strategy expanded beyond individual companies as industries united under organizations with environmentally appealing names while collectively opposing new regulations, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cForget any one company doing this. It\u2019s too risky,\u201d Westervelt said, explaining Harrison\u2019s approach. \u201cBut if we all come together and fight against the Clean Air Act \u2026 then it\u2019ll be less bad. And even better if we call ourselves, you know, the\u00a0National Environmental Development Association<\/a>. That sounds good \u2026 like we\u2019re doing really good green things,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe invents this tactic, and it\u2019s very effective,\u201d Westervelt said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Corporate capture gives corporations \u2018overwhelming advantage\u2019 in marketplace of ideas<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Westervelt said the influence campaign extends far beyond public relations firms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe subject of my book is \u2026 the whole kind of capture, the corporate capture of the information ecosystem,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That ecosystem includes \u201cthe PR and the think tanks and the corporate-captured university research and the management consultancies and the lobbyists and the law firms,\u201d all working together, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rather than relying on a single communications strategy, corporations reinforce the same messages across multiple channels simultaneously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey\u2019ll have the think tank that they fund research at. They\u2019ll have the university that they fund research at,\u201d while also funding influencers, podcasts, lobbyists and\u00a0strategic litigation<\/a>, Westervelt said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s this \u2026 ability to attack from kind of all sides that really shapes the context that they\u2019re operating in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That coordinated approach gives multinational corporations influence that rivals \u2014 and even exceeds \u2014 governments, Westervelt said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese companies \u2026 operate at a level that\u2019s actually so much more powerful than any one government because they are in multiple countries and they have a huge amount of power over what happens in multiple countries at once,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That imbalance leaves corporations with an overwhelming advantage in the marketplace of ideas, she argued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is why \u2026 the corporate free speech issue is such a huge problem,\u201d Westervelt said. Corporations have \u201ca megaphone a hundred times the size of any one person\u2019s voice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She warned that such concentrated influence threatens both democracy and individual decision-making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think that\u2019s a big problem for democracy,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a big problem for individual sovereignty, people being able to have the information that they need to make big decisions about their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![](\"https:\/\/www.activistpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/GREEN-85-400x334-1.jpg\"\/)
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