The Liars Behind Media Manipulation
The Liars Behind Media Manipulation
How Activists Pose as Journalists to Deceive the Public
See the French translation
Why do most media articles on innovative, research industries paint them as lying, corrupt and irresponsible? If half of the coverage published in news groups like the New York Times, Washington Post or the Guardian were true, then all industries, all corporations should be banned. And that is the very intention of the activist campaigners who deceptively pose as journalists to relentlessly write these scathing attacks, published without editorial scrutiny and amplified via their NGO social media networks. They are shaping the narrative on behalf of the interest groups funding their campaigns and the public is being deceived by these lying hypocrites into believing it is news. This is a cancer that is killing our media and it is tolerated on the daily.
The Firebreak has seen documents demonstrating the way these activists pretend to be journalists, the way they try to deceive and the way they try to twist information to make it fit their little narratives of hate. After this initial exposé, I will follow the publications of these anti-industry activists as they launch a fear campaign out of thin air, sharing how they openly lie, spread needless fears and demonstrate a complete absence of integrity. I will also examine the motivations behind the interest groups funding these activists pretending to be journalists, how they try to hide the funding sources and how the media groups are complicit in these operations.
It all started with an email last month.
The Opportunity of Omission
Margot Gibbs has made a number of critical omissions that any professional reporter would know goes against all journalistic integrity standards.
She did not include any information on her organization, accreditation and contracting client for this project (giving only a general link to an opaque website). Lighthouse Reports is not in fact a media group but an NGO funded by a wide array of politically active foundations.
Margot rather conveniently omitted the interest group who contracted Lighthouse Reports for this work. They write reports for coordinating clients like the anti-industry attack NGOs, Greenpeace and Corporate Europe Observatory. This is important for the person under investigation to be aware of the underlying bias and campaign motivations behind the research.
Ms Gibbs did not share the pre-set agenda for the meeting and what was in fact a well-funded, year-long “investigation” based on multiple Freedom of Information Act requests (where Lighthouse Reports was seeking to expose alleged corporate chemical industry PR influence over government agencies).
She did not include any information on the funding for this “investigative report”. If they are working with researchers in the US, Europe and Africa, and are willing to travel a good distance for an interview, then it is clear they have a lot of money. Lighthouse Reports also engaged Le Monde’s Stéphane Foucart for this report, and it is widely known that it would likely cost a pretty penny for him to do anything for anyone other than himself. We will get into the interest groups behind the funding of this investigation in a later article.
Transparency is important in the media world and Margot Gibbs showed no respect for that in this introductory email.
A Litany of Lies
Margot Gibbs has made a number of bald-faced lies that any professional reporter would know goes against all journalistic integrity standards.
She referred to Carey Gillam as a journalist. Carey presently works for the US activist lobby NGO, the Environmental Working Group where she is involved in their anti-pesticide and chemophobia campaigns. Prior to that, she was a researcher at the anti-industry NGO, US Right to Know, where she colluded with US tort law firms suing Monsanto on glyphosate cases. She has not been a professional journalist since 2015 when she lost her job with Reuters after writing multiple articles spreading activist and litigator false claims about Monsanto, GMOs and pesticides that were harshly criticized by the academic community for being “invalid, biased and alarmist.”.
Margot tried to reinforce this deception by copying Carey into the email using her guardian.com email address. Ms Gillam has contributed articles in the past to the Guardian that have been funded by interest groups (via guardian.org), but she is not a Guardian correspondent. I have seen four emails with Carey’s guardian.com email account, so the fact that Ms Gillam did not correct it implies that she herself was complicit in this lie.
Imagine if the recipient of this email did not know that Carey Gillam was, in fact, bought and paid for by an activist NGO funded by the multi-billion-dollar organic marketing groups and class action litigators who reap hundreds of millions in profits and fees from anti-GMO and pesticide claims her NGO promotes. Gillam and EWG have repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to say and do whatever it takes to ban biotech seeds and crop protection products. If this is the deceptive approach that reporters from the Lighthouse Reports take in reaching out to people they seek to interview, should we believe anything this organization would publish? They are an ethical trainwreck with no concept of journalistic integrity.
Truth is important in the media world and Margot Gibbs showed no respect for that in this introductory email.
Quite frankly, legitimate journalism doesn’t engage in paid “investigations” from undisclosed donors with clear conflicts of interest to support these donors’ bias and false claims as the premise for their reporting. It doesn’t take too much for observers to conclude that Carey Gillam and Margot Gibbs are not legitimate journalists. But what does this say about the integrity standards at the Guardian?
Clutching at Straws
Beyond integrity issues, the subject of their “investigative report” itself is laughable in how they are trying to create a strawman for further activist hate campaigns. The organization under investigation is a small group that provides news monitoring and research services. In the old days, we called them “News Clippings” - what all managers would find on their desks in the morning, filling them in on what news is important for them for that date. This is a basic part of what used to be called knowledge management, but now is just common sense.
The organization under investigation merely scans the news, sorting the articles into themes and sending off emails to the subscribers (how they finance their organization). Margot Gibbs, in another email, tried to paint the subscribers to this service as “members” (like they are part of some sort of international cabal) which shows how badly misinformed she is (or maybe, once again, just deceptive). I myself am a subscriber to this service in order to try to keep up with all of the news on certain themes (which can get into the thousands of articles), but to be quite honest, the service is depressing. The overwhelming majority of the news they monitor and report is negative toward science and innovation.
So what is the objective of the Lighthouse Report? Are they going to try to portray this news monitoring service as some lobby group? Are they trying to say that sending links to articles in the public domain is trying to change the news (even though as much as 98% is negative to industry)? Are Margot, Carey and Stéphane implying that it is wrong for people to know what these activists are publicly trying to say and do? Or maybe it was just to harass the director of the monitoring service with a relentless list of FOIA requests and trolling of their former employees, clients, and others seeking in vain to dig up dirt.
I cannot see any meaningful story here, but I suspect the mystery organization that has contracted Lighthouse Reports to write their campaign material is only interested in several words: Industry, Monsanto, Lobbying… The hate articles will then fall off of their knives like melted butter.
Postscript: Carey Gillam
Carey lost her job from Reuters in 2015 for good reason. Her journalism was biased and her behavior had been sociopathic. Reuters has to defend its journalistic integrity, a concept that is apparently completely foreign to Ms Gillam. Rather than use this experience to learn from her mistakes, Carey Gillam has devoted the last nine years to exacting vengeance from the company she blames for her dismissal. A truly troubled person.
What is despicable from a journalistic perspective here are the circular tactics Carey Gillam uses to systematically mislead people. She will likely publish several articles on this subject in the Guardian, trying to generate the usual fear and outrage out of absolutely nothing. She will then further amplify these spurious claims via the media outlet of her NGO employer and in her ongoing series of books and “documentary” films promoting the special interest agendas of her funders. Ms Gillam will ground her arguments by citing her own “publication’s” reprints under the Lighthouse Reports, Le Monde and Guardian logos, pretending these are facts supporting her, albeit circular, misleading conspiracy claims.
The public will think this is journalism and that she is presenting factual information. She will not reveal the underhanded tactics she and Margot Gibbs used to gather information or the lies and deception on behalf of the interest groups who are paying her rent thrice over via:
her salary at the Environmental Working Group for whom she lobbies,
the undisclosed sums paid to Lighthouse Reports via dark, donor-advised interest groups hiding behind funds like the Oak Foundation, and
anything the Guardian can give Ms Gillam via one of the multitude of groups that have donated over 200 million dollars to theguardian.org to have them publish dedicated articles related to their campaigns.
Carey doesn’t seem to understand that she cannot be a paid lobbyist for an activist NGO and still call herself a journalist. She is destroying the reputation of journalism and insulting the countless thousands of people who are committed to reporting facts in an unbiased and respectful manner. Carey’s audacity would be like a director in a chemical company trying to claim the title “journalist” while writing articles and claiming to be neutral.
What’s sad is that in contrast to the well-orchestrated media onslaught her articles may generate, too few people will read this Substack account about what is going on behind the curtain and how the public is being deceived by cunning, unethical activist zealots who have no issue with spreading lies and hurting others. My article will be blocked by those who have pre-selected the reality they choose to believe exists and no large media groups will read this before choosing to publish Carey Gillam’s vengeful attack piece without an ounce of editorial scrutiny.
Of course the ultimate hypocrisy is that the articles Carey Gillam has been paid so much to write about, while pretending to be a journalist, are on how industry is the one trying to deceive the media and the public. Carey, on top of everything else, is a delusional hypocrite.