Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington

by Sharyl Attkisson

  Astroturfers also disguise a special interests’ role by forming or co-opting a benevolent-sounding nonprofit or other third party. The nonprofit peddles a “story” that serves its corporate masters, and unwitting journalists report it as news. Or the nonprofit secretly defends the propagandists’ interests without offering to disclose the financial ties.

  One example is the cosmetic industry’s use of the American Cancer Society. I discovered this tie several years ago when reporting on an FDA source’s tip about the suspected link between antiperspirants and breast cancer. The FDA official told me that the agency was contemplating requiring a breast cancer warning on antiperspirants based on several studies suggesting a possible link. But some inside the FDA felt that industry opposition would be insurmountable. It was an inside debate that would interest many in the public.

  As I pursued the story, the cosmetics industry wouldn’t do an interview but referred me to the American Cancer Society, which, they assured me, would defend their interests.

  Indeed, the American Cancer Society was all too happy to agree to appear on camera debunking any idea of a link between antiperspirants and breast cancer. But in my pre-interview with the Cancer Society’s chief doctor, I discovered he hadn’t read—and apparently didn’t know about—the latest peer-reviewed, published studies suggesting a link.

  That’s when I thought to ask the Cancer Society if it got funding from the cosmetics industry. The answer was a very defensive “Yes.” But the charity wouldn’t disclose how much and said they wouldn’t go through with the on-camera interview unless I agreed not to ask about the antiperspirant industry funding.

  I forwarded the studies to the American Cancer Society’s doctor. When he did the on-camera interview with me, he reversed his earlier position that had claimed the antiperspirant–breast cancer link was a “myth.” Instead, he answered my questions by deflecting—repeatedly stating, when asked about the latest antiperspirant studies, that women have more important things to focus on, such as getting regular mammograms.

  I strike even more sensitive spots when I dig into conflicts of interest among the supposed independent forces that promote and defend vaccines. When I ask, the not-for-profit American Academy of Pediatrics won’t disclose how much money it receives from vaccine makers, but I find plenty of examples in the public domain, including a $342,000 payment from vaccine maker Wyeth; a $433,000 contribution from Merck the same year the Academy of Pediatrics endorsed Merck’s controversial HPV vaccine Gardasil; and donations from Sanofi-Aventis, maker of seventeen vaccines, including a five-in-one combo shot added to the childhood vaccine schedule.

  Beyond the exploitation of nonprofits, there’s Wikipedia: astroturf’s dream come true.

  Billed as “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit,” the reality can’t be more different. Anonymous Wikipedia editors acting on behalf of corporate interests co-opt and control pages to forbid or reverse edits that threaten their agenda. Two steps ahead of everyone else, these agenda editors wield the most powerful editing authority, having joined Wikipedia years ago and worked their way to the top of the editing power structure. They skew and delete information, blatantly violating Wikipedia’s own established policies with impunity, always superior to the poor schlubs who believe “anyone can edit” Wikipedia—only to discover they’re blocked from correcting even the simplest factual inaccuracies.

  Some of Wikipedia’s conflicts of interest are exposed by a group called Wikipediocracy.com, which states that it exists to “inoculate the unsuspecting public against the torrent of misinformation, defamation, and general nonsense that issues forth from one of the world’s most frequently visited websites.”

  In September 2012, famed author Philip Roth tried to correct a major fact error in his Wikipedia biography. But Wikipedia’s editors wouldn’t allow it, telling him that he simply was not a credible source. On himself.

  A week later, a far more embarrassing conflict-of-interest scandal came to light. Wikipedia’s dark side was publicly revealed as Wikipedia officials got caught offering a “PR service” that skews and edits pages on behalf of paid, publicity-seeking clients. An ad for one of the Wikipedia officials who allegedly put up his PR editing services for hire states, in part: “A positive Wikipedia article is invaluable [Search Engine Optimization]: it’s almost guaranteed to be a top three Google hit. . . . WE HAVE THE EXPERTISE NEEDED to navigate the complex maze surrounding ‘conflict of interest’ editing on Wikipedia.”

  And then there are the powerful pharmaceutical interests that deftly use Wikipedia to distribute their propaganda and control the message. They maniacally troll specific Wikipedia pages to promulgate positive but sometimes-false information about medicines, vaccines, and their manufacturers; and delete negative but often-true information about the same topics. They unabatedly violate Wikipedia’s own rules and disparage scientists, advocates, and reporters who research medical and vaccine controversies by controlling their Wikipedia biographical pages. Conversely, they scrub all of the controversial information from the biographical pages of those pharmaceutical and research officials whom they are paid to defend. This phenomenon is surely one factor contributing to shameful study results that compared several Wikipedia articles about medical conditions to peer-reviewed research papers, and found that Wikipedia contradicted medical research 90 percent of the time.

  You may never fully trust what you read on Wikipedia again. Nor should you.

  | SPIN CYCLE

  Besides astroturf, both government and corporations use many other tried-and-true PR strategies to spin the news media and public opinion. Once you learn to recognize them, you’ll come to see that they are utilized far and wide.

  “Know Your Enemy”

  PR officials get to know the reporters on the story and their supervisors. Research them. Lobby them. Look for their weak spots. If they don’t adopt the preferred PR viewpoint, the PR officials launch a campaign to controversialize and discredit them.

  “Mine and Pump Strategy”

  When asked to provide interviews and information for a story, the PR officials stall, claim ignorance of the known facts, and mine and pump the reporter for what information he has.

  “Controversialize”

  The PR officials wait until the story is published to see how much the reporter really knows. Then they launch a propaganda campaign with surrogates and sympathizers in the media to divert from the damaging facts. The officials controversialize the reporter and any whistleblowers or critics to try to turn focus on personalities instead of the evidence. They start a whisper campaign saying that the critics are paranoid and agenda driven.

  “The Inversion Diversion”

  This strategy that works quite well when practiced on the unsuspecting in the media: clever PR officials label damaging information as “propaganda.” They do this by buddying up to reporters and convincing them to dismiss the truth—the damaging information—as spin that’s being advanced by political opponents. Less experienced journalists are easily manipulated and react as scripted, now viewing the damaging information as tainted and not to be trusted.

  I won’t be used as a propaganda tool! the exploited reporters proudly think as they congratulate themselves for being so savvy.

  They’ve effectively been swayed from reporting the reality, having no idea that they’ve succumbed to propaganda, even as they were led to believe they were resisting it.

  “Old News”

  The PR officials delay providing the true facts and information for as long as possible. Then, when the facts finally are revealed, they claim it’s all “old news” and not worthy of a story.

  There are as many variations of these common techniques as there are stories to be spun.

  Here’s an approach often employed by authorities who are defending themselves in a controversy: blanket-deny everything and hope the news media doesn’t come up with proof to re
fute the denials. If they do, modify your position. Say they misunderstood you earlier. Parse wording. Tell them you never meant to deny that particular thing.

  Rinse. Repeat.

  The evolving denials in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Fast and Furious gunwalking scandal are a prime example of this strategy in practice.

  It’s pretty clear to see that the government can’t always be trusted to tell the entire truth. Yet each step of the way in covering Fast and Furious, I was faced with naysayers and colleagues who pointed to the government’s spin—one disproven story after another—as if the latest version were to be believed. As if it put the matter to rest. Obviously, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I were to accept—uncritically, without skepticism, at face value—proclamations from government and others in power as absolute truth.

  | THE DREADED “PUSHBACK”

  Fast and Furious isn’t the only case that some journalists or their managers wrote off simply because the government said the allegations weren’t true.

  “We’re getting some serious pushback [from the government],” concerned-sounding managers might say to one another or to the reporters on the story. The managers think, Oh no! We’d better back off. The story’s wrong because the government says so. Pushback makes them uncomfortable. It makes them nervous.

  I think it should have the opposite effect. If it’s my story generating the pushback, I think, That usually means there’s more to uncover. It makes me want to keep digging.

  “Serious pushback” is mediaspeak for the-accused-parties-are-mounting-a-full-force-campaign-to-stop-or-discredit-a-story. And they often get a big assist from others in the media club. Because there are few things news outlets enjoy more than undermining each other’s big stories.

  In 2000, there’s pushback on the story about Firestone tires and Ford Explorer rollovers. Our CBS affiliates in Houston and Miami were first on the case and had great leads investigating the rash of people injured or killed in Ford Explorer rollovers after their Firestone tires blew out, sometimes at low speeds. Some consumer groups and reporters feel that the government safety agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is in the business of protecting Ford and Firestone rather than being on top of their safety issues. But the agency is ultimately pushed and prodded by consumer complaints and media coverage to investigate the claims.

  My producer, Allyson Ross-Taylor, and I are assigned to look into the allegations and I’m lucky to get some help from 60 Minutes staffers who have already been gathering research. The story is moving too fast to wait for a big 60 Minutes piece so they share their list of contacts. I get up to speed and we begin breaking news.

  It’s 6:28 p.m. one night, just two minutes before the opening of the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. I’m sitting at the tiny newsroom set in the Washington, D.C., bureau waiting to lead the broadcast when I hear the voice of Executive Producer Jim Murphy in my earpiece. He’s in the control room in New York.

  “I just got a fucking fax from Firestone threatening to sue us,” Murphy tells me.

  “For what?” I ask.

  “They say your story’s wrong and unfair,” he replies.

  “Shouldn’t they wait and see the report before they sue?” I ask rhetorically.

  “Just tell me, is your story solid?”

  “Of course,” I tell him confidently. “Definitely.”

  “I thought so,” says Murphy. “Fuck ’em.” The open of the broadcast rolls live and the newscast begins.

  It takes a certain kind of manager to stand up to pushback. I think there are fewer and fewer of them around these days.

  Murphy asks me to continue aggressively reporting the Ford-Firestone story. Although pushback continues, we do a report almost every night for more than thirteen weeks. CBS becomes the go-to source for the latest developments in a story that millions of people are following. Eventually, after all of our coverage and the tally reaching at least 271 people dead in Explorer rollovers involving Firestone tires, the tires are recalled. Had we and the rest of the news media succumbed to the pushback back then, the story would have died and the tires would never have been pulled from the market. Had we taken the government’s word at the outset, as some managers would have us do today, we would never have pursued the story.

  Some of the hardest pushback I ever receive comes after Murphy assigns me to look into the reported cover-up of adverse effects of various prescription drugs and military vaccinations. That series of reports leads to me to investigate related stories about childhood vaccinations and their links to harmful side effects, including brain damage and autism. At the time, the Bush administration is marching in lockstep with the pharmaceutical industry in denying problems with the prescription drugs at issue as well as both military and childhood vaccines. It’s one thing for them to want their side of the story told: that’s understandable. But it’s quite another for them to want the stories censored entirely. They’re trying to keep them from airing altogether. They don’t want Americans to know about the many controversies or hear from the scientists doing peer-reviewed, published research that contradicts the official party line.

  Minutes before one of my first stories about childhood vaccinations and autism is to air, a spokesman for a nonprofit group called “Every Child by Two” calls the network in New York. The spokesman evokes the name of former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who co-founded the group.

  The call reaches Murphy, who then calls me on the hotline that rings directly into the Washington bureau newsroom. I’m preparing for my live shot.

  “Why is some group called ‘Every Child by Two’ supposedly fronted by Rosalynn Carter calling me about your story?” Murphy asks.

  “I have no idea,” I reply. I’d never heard of Every Child by Two, which promotes children getting fully vaccinated by age two and rejects the idea of investigating harmful vaccine side effects that could injure the very youngsters they purported to protect. (The dynamic was later explained when I discovered a major vaccine manufacturer, Wyeth, funded the nonprofit and a Wyeth spokesman was listed as the group’s treasurer.) I wondered how they knew we planned to air a story on the news that night.

  “Your story’s solid, right?” Murphy asks.

  “Yes,” I assure him. There’s not a sliver of doubt.

  Resisting the pushback, we air the story as planned and Murphy asks for more. We continue digging into FDA-approved prescription drugs that are allegedly proving problematic from a safety standpoint.

  When we do, hired guns for pharmaceutical interests flood me and CBS News with emails, phone calls, and requests for meetings. They write letters to CBS attorneys. The spokesman for Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson calls the CBS News Washington bureau chief to exert pressure to discredit our stories. Pharmaceutical company lawyers set up secretive meetings with CBS officials in New York. Pharmaceutical interests contact CBS executives to complain.

  At one point, when I’m covering safety concerns about the highly profitable cholesterol drugs known as “statins,” whose makers buy advertising on CBS, Murphy receives what he views as a harsh threat from one of the CBS sales bosses. The manager leaves Murphy a loud, angry voice mail saying that the stories could “really harm business.”

  My producer and I are also receiving direct pressure from news executives in New York who begin unnaturally inserting themselves into the newsgathering and approval process for the pharmaceutical-related stories as they had never done with me before. Even after our scripts go through the normal editorial process and receive approval from the legal department, the executives enter to dissect and question each fact and sentence. We vigorously defend our work and, in one story after another, they end up finding no fault. No legitimate reason to kill the reports. But the process is uncomfortable and grueling; their actions convey a clear, underlying message that’s intended to discourage us.
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  After one particularly thorough examination of one of my scripts, an executive confesses to me in frustration that she’s been given a mission of trying to stop my stories but that they’re so thorough and well reported, she can’t find any reason to.

  Fortunately, Murphy brushes off the heat and we successfully cover news on the pharmaceutical front for several years. He understands that the stories are alienating some in the Bush administration, including officials at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control, as well as the pharmaceutical industry and its many connected special interests. But he doesn’t care.

  “I know what I’m doing,” he tells me in keeping me focused on reporting the controversies at hand. “You’re the bad cop. [Our regular medical beat reporter] can be the good cop and stay on the government’s good side.” He doesn’t mind the pushback. And I don’t care if I piss off the entire government-pharmaceutical complex. So it works out.

  Eventually, our own effectiveness catches up with us. The pushback comes from within.

  One memorable incident happens after I’ve written a script that had received approval from my Washington senior producer, the Evening News executive producer in New York, and our CBS lawyers. It’s a story about a documented danger involving an automaker’s cars. I’m called into the office of the Washington bureau chief, who had never before been involved in my script approval or story reporting process.

  “Why are we doing this story?” she demands.

  “Well, Evening News assigned it to me, and it turned out to be a good story. It’s also an important story,” I answer. “A lot of cars are catching fire and being recalled due to this safety issue.”