The Mark 2010

Advocacy groups claim to have the public’s interest at heart, but how do we know which of these self-styled experts are credible?

Wild salmon in British Columbia are facing extinction. Electromagnetic radiation from high voltage power lines is causing childhood cancer. Vaccines cause autism in children.

What are we to make of these statements?

All are taken from news stories; all were made by so-called experts from advocacy groups working on behalf of the public good; all are sensational and emotional.

From Frankenfood demonstrations, complete with a Grim Reaper, to a former Beatle lying on an ice floe nose to nose with a seal pup, advocacy groups are skilled at promoting their causes. And while the use of an emotional argument to pique the public’s attention in important issues need not be a problem, it does raise questions.

Are advocacy groups manipulating the media? Are journalists probing the claims of activist groups with the same scrutiny as is applied to business and industry? If not, should they be?

Non-governmental organizations today are a powerful force. They have credibility that businesses lack. A recent study by Edelman, the worlds largest independent public relations firm, showed that NGOs are more trusted than businesses, governments, and the media – a position of prominence that has been steadily building since 2001.

And it’s become big business. There are more than 3,000 so-called nonprofit environmental groups in the U.S. today, most of which take in over $1 million annually according to John Perazzo in FrontPageMag.Com. In one recent year, Greenpeace International took in $35 million, the National Audubon Society $79 million, the National Wildlife Federation $102 million, the Sierra Club $74 million, the Nature Conservancy $972 million, and the World Wildlife Fund $118 million. In addition, each of these groups holds assets ranging from $16.3 million to $2.9 billion. Perazzo concludes that “no trade association on earth possesses the financial resources and political influence of the environmental lobby.”

Many advocacy groups are perceptive manipulators of public opinion. They view the media as a conduit for information and often approach news outlets with stories of conflict and controversy, and which appear to be backed by research or expert opinion. Journalists – driven by deadlines, editorial pressure, and the push to entertain rather than inform – sometimes run with the story without applying the same scrutiny to the claims of advocacy groups that they would apply to business, industry, or government.

In the United States, one group particularly frustrated with the work of these self-styled experts is the 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatricians. Over the past year, new outbreaks of measles, whooping cough and other vaccine-preventable diseases have occurred because parents are opting not to vaccinate their kids.

Jenny McCarthy, the actress and spokesperson for the anti-vaccine campaign, is a frequent guest on popular American television shows. She claims that vaccines are responsible for her son’s autism. This former Playboy Bunny, who dropped out of nursing school in 1993, has made vaccinating your children unpopular.

David T. Tayloe, president of the American Academy of Pediatricians, said in a recent interview, “she has no medical or scientific credentials. It disturbs us that she's given all these opportunities to make her pitch about vaccines on Oprah or Larry King or U. S. News or whatever. We have to scramble to get equal time – and who wants to see a gray-haired pediatrician talking about a serious topic like childhood vaccines when she's out there blasting the academy and blasting the federal government?"

There is no question that there have been instances where advocacy groups have exposed unacceptable practices and helped to galvanize opinion on, and sustain interest in, issues worthy of public debate. But when these groups offer scientific evidence or “experts” to explain the story, journalists should be wary. The credentials of experts should be examined and potential conflicts probed.

Another example is my industry – salmon farming. Although salmon farmers in British Columbia operate in the most stringently regulated environment of all producing countries, produce the province’s largest agricultural export, and generate jobs and opportunities for thousands of people (mostly in coastal communities), Alexandra Morton, a prominent anti-salmon farming advocate, insists that the practice should not be allowed in B.C. waters.

Most recently she has claimed that sea lice spread from salmon have placed wild pink salmon populations “on a trajectory toward rapid local extinction” and that “a 99 per cent collapse in pink salmon population abundance is expected in four salmon generations.” This claim is made – and widely reported – despite more than 20 years of scientific evidence that indicates pink salmon populations, while cyclical, are healthy.

Activist groups often bristle at calls for accountability but if they are to retain their position of public trust they should, at least, be able to meet the same standards of scrutiny applied to industry. And for journalists who often see themselves as the guardians of the public interest, it seems prudent to be wary of being manipulated, even by those who appear to walk on the side of the public good rather than the side of corporate self-interest.