Corporate America’s new scam: Industry P.R. firm poses as think tank!

[OregonBlue]

http://www.salon.com/2013/11/13/corporate_americas_new_scam_industry_p_r_firm_poses_as_think_tank/

When scholars at University of California, Berkeley, recently released a study finding that low wages in the fast food industry cost taxpayers $7 billion every year in social supports to subsidize salaries of low-income workers, they ran into a respectable-sounding opponent. The professors had argued that the minimum wage should be increased to relieve the burden on taxpayers who underwrite supersize restaurant industry profits.

But as the bona fide academic study rolled out, multiple media outlets ran comments criticizing the report’s numbers and methodology from the scholarly sounding “Employment Policies Institute.” The Austin Business Journal characterized EPI as a think tank “which studies employment growth,” while the Miami Herald ran a quote from Michael Saltsman, whom the paper named as EPI’s “research director.”

For his part, Saltsman ran aggressive Op-Eds against any minimum wage increase in papers such as the the Missoulian, where he was described as EPI’s “research fellow.” In an Op-Ed he wrote for the Washington Post, his title was listed as EPI’s “research director” but with a notation that EPI “receives funding from restaurants, among other sources.” But even this partial disclosure provides a disservice to readers in the nation’s capital.

In fact, the Employment Policies Institute operates from the same office suite as Berman and Co., a public relations firm owned by Richard Berman. This is not an opinion; it’s a fact anyone can verify by viewing EPI and Berman and Co.’s websites. In such a depressed media environment — where there are four public relations flacks for every reporter, compared to a 1-to-1 ratio in the 1960s – it is not surprising that a P.R. company could successfully rebrand itself as a think tank and capitalize on an acronym held by an actual think tank, the Economic Policy Institute, with 20 staff and 36 respected research associates.

Good article. It's amazing how easily "reporters" are fooled. Either that or they are just plain lazy!!

[Scuba]

1. Fooled, lazy, or ....

... complicit.

[Laelth]

2. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[starroute]

3. Trust Berman to come up with a new kind of sleaze

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Berman

Richard B. Berman (born 1942) is a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer, public relations executive, and lobbyist. Through his public affairs firm Berman and Company, Berman runs several industry-funded non-profit organizations such as the Center for Consumer Freedom and the Center for Union Facts. Berman's organizations have run numerous media campaigns on the issues of obesity, smoking, mad cow disease, taxes, the national debt, drinking and driving, as well as the minimum wage. 60 Minutes has called him "the booze and food industries' weapon of mass destruction," labor union activist Richard Bensinger gave him the nickname "Dr. Evil," and Michael Kranish of the Boston Globe has dubbed him a “pioneer” in the “realm of opinion molding.” . . .

Organizations founded and managed by Berman include:

The Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), originally named the Guest Choice Network (GCN). CCF serves as an advocate for restaurants, meat, dairy, food processors, and alcohol. The group was formed in 1995 with funding from tobacco giant Phillip Morris. . . .

The Center for Union Facts (CUF), which argues that unions are corrupt and bad for workers. They have run full-page ads in major print media outlets (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post) blaming trade unions for the bankruptcies of American industries. The CUF website purports that it is the largest online database of labor-union reporting on salaries, budgets, and political spending. Recently, they have produced TV ads alleging intimidation by trade unions.


http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rick_Berman

Although Berman used to fly under the media radar, by now he is well-known and widely regarded as an industry shill, having been the subject of a 60 Minutes piece in 2007 that dubbed him “Dr. Evil,” a public takedown on the Rachel Maddow Show, and years of research documenting his close ties to industries looking for a well paid hired gun to defend the indefensible. He has attacked respected scientists and scholars, food safety experts, and even Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).

Despite this documented lack of credibility, Berman continues to work through a variety of research-for-hire front groups to remain relevant by creating a façade of academic respectability for extreme policies that many mainstream companies, scientists, and voters have rejected. . . .

For several years, Berman has been fighting efforts by the voter registration/community organizing group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to raise the minimum wage at the state and federal levels. To assist with his efforts, Berman created a Web site, www.rottenacorn.com, slamming the group. Contact information on RottenACORN.com directs readers to the Employment Policies Institute, a Berman front group which shares the same address as Berman's lobbying business, Berman & Company.

In the fall of 2008, prior to the general election, a full-page, anti-ACORN ad appeared in the New York Times that accused ACORN of a list of abuses that would make the group appear hypocritical: intimidating and firing its own employees when they try to unionize, misappropriating millions of dollars from taxpayer-funded government grants and advocating minimum wage hikes while paying its own employees less than minimum wage. The ad did not indicate what person or organization had funded it. In an October 29, 2008 article, the investigative journalism group ProPublica revealed that the ad and the Web site "RottenACORN.com" are funded by Rick Berman's Employment Policies Institute, which has among its clients, the American Beverage Institute, a trade group for bars and restaurants.

[Blue_Tires]

4. Doesn't surprise me

a whole lot of foundations, think tanks, advocacy groups, etc. with official-sounding names and clean, well-tailored websites exist on paper only (or at the most, have maybe two people in an office with a phone that is always 'busy')