A major focus of the new corporate activism has been to ensure that corporate-funded people are the ones that the media turn to for comment, be they scientists, think tank 'experts' or front group spokespeople. Corporations have become especially adept at making the best use of the talk shows:

In recent years, the dramatic growth of talk radio has been accompanied by an increasingly elaborate and sophisticated apparatus aimed at influencing what is said on the air. Political parties, think tanks, and advocacy groups use so-called burst fax technology to inundate hosts with their talking points. Savvy publicists steer prominent guests to the most sympathetic shows. (Kurtz 1996, p. 291)

In Australia, the 'cash for comment' scandal showed how talk back show hosts are often paid to give a corporate point of view.

A study by Lawrence Soley in his book The News Shapers found that the evening news broadcasts by the three major television networks in the US tended to have a conservative bias because they used ex-government officials, conservative research institute experts and corporate consultants as analysts rather than activists or experts who challenged the conservative view (Cited in Anon 1994). News stories on trade, for example, almost always rely on sources in government and business without questioning the vested interests that these sources might have in the issues (Baker 1994).

A 1989 study, conducted by media monitoring group, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), of the highly regarded US ABC television current affairs show Nightline found that 80 per cent of its US guests were professionals, government officials or corporate representatives. Five percent represented public interest groups and less than two percent represented labour or ethnic groups; 89 per cent were male and 92 per cent were white. The study concluded that "Nightline serves as an electronic soapbox from which white, male, elite representatives of the status quo can present their case." (Lee and Solomon 1990, pp. 26-7)

Even on public television experts used for economic coverage were mainly corporate representatives. For all public television coverage, 18 percent of sources were corporate representatives compared with 6 percent who were activists of all persuasions. Environmentalists made up 0.6 per cent of sources. The researchers concluded: "While there were exceptions.... public television did little to highlight the voices of organised citizens, relegating activists along with members of the general public to the margins of political discourse." Even the documentaries, although having more diversity of voices, still relied on the usual news sources.(Croteau 1993)

FAIR also studied US media coverage of environmental issues from April 1990 to April 1991, including the three main television networks, seven major newspapers and three national newsweeklies—in all almost 900 print articles and over 100 network news stories. It concluded: "Mainstream environmental reporting took its cue not from press-hungry environmentalists, but from the government, corporate and (often non-science) academic establishments." (Spencer 1992, p. 13)

The increasing trend for corporations to use front groups and friendly scientists as their mouthpieces has further distorted media reporting on environmental issues since the media often do not differentiate between corporate front groups and genuine citizens groups and industry-funded scientists are often treated as independent scientists.

Because of the myth of scientific objectivity journalists tend to have an uncritical trust in scientists and few "question the motivation of the scientists whose research is quoted, rarely attributing a study's funding source or institution's political slant" (Ruben 1994). Nor do the mainstream media generally cover the phenomenon of front groups and think tanks and artificially generated grassroots campaigns, which would serve to undermine their operation by exposing the deceit on which they depend.

Corporations are aided in their bid to dominate news sources by the tendency of most journalists to use, as sources, people from the mainstream establishment, whom they believe have more credibility with their audience. Highly placed government and corporate spokespeople are the safest and easiest sources in terms of giving stories legitimacy. When environmentalists are used as sources they tend to be leaders of the 'mainstream' environmental groups that are seen as more moderate. Those without power, prestige and position have difficulty establishing their credibility as a source of news and tend to be marginalised. According to Charlotte Ryan in her book Prime Time Activism:

Using institutional affiliation and famous faces to measure an issue's importance has an interesting overall effect: the criteria implicitly reinforce the stability of government or other powerful institutions while at the same time providing spice via the drama of shifting faces and activities. This is truly novelty without change. (1991, p. 34)

Journalists who have access to highly placed government and corporate sources have to keep them on side by not reporting anything adverse about them or their organisations. Otherwise they risk losing them as sources of information. In return for this loyalty, their sources occasionally give them good stories, leaks and access to special interviews. Unofficial information, or leaks, give the impression of investigative journalism, but are often strategic manoeuvres on the part of those with position or power. "It is a bitter irony of source journalism, ... that the most esteemed journalists are precisely the most servile. For it is by making themselves useful to the powerful that they gain access to the 'best' sources." (Kellner 1990, p. 106)

Contrary to all the hype, journalists who gain renown for breaking torrid stories about the federal government may be among those most enmeshed in a mutually-reinforcing web connecting them with power brokers on the inside. (Lee and Solomon 1990, p. 18)

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References:

Adams, William C. 1992, The role of media relations in risk communication, Public Relations Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 4.

Blyskal, Jeff and Marie Blyskal, 1985, PR: How the Public Relations Industry Writes the News (New York: William Morrow and Co.).

Lee, Martin A. and Norman Solomon, 1990, Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media (New York: Carol Publishing Group).

Nelson, Joyce, 1989, Sultans of Sleeze: Public Relations and the Media (Toronto: Between the Lines).

Walters, Lynne Masel and Timothy N Walters, 1992, Environment of Confidence: Daily Newspaper Use of Press Releases, Public Relations Review, Vol. 18, No. 1.

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