How P.R. pro 'infiltrated' Tennessean's op-ed page

Alt-weekly Nashville Scene offers a cautionary tale today about the pitfalls of publishing opinion pieces written by faraway sources. The story involves The Tennessean.

"Over the past year," Nashville Scene's Matt Pulle writes, "the daily's opinion page has published at least five op-eds written by various employees of Richard Berman, a notorious PR executive who helps tip policy debates in favor of companies like Coca-Cola and Tyson Foods. Whether criticizing minimum-wage legislation or mocking the Humane Society, these op-eds usually adopt anti-regulatory positions that help Berman's business partners."

Pulle continues: "But those motives aren't readily transparent to the reader. That's because the Tennessean only prints a bare-bones disclaimer that identifies the author as part of a sober-sounding nonprofit or trade association. There's no mention that Berman himself orchestrates those nonprofits to attack his clients' critics -- a slippery tactic that has been profiled in 60 Minutes and The New York Times." (Link to NYT story.)

Earlier: How "Ellie Light" tricked dozens of newspapers, including Ohio's Chillicothe Gazette

Chillicothe | How 'Ellie Light' tricked the Gazette

Barely two weeks ago, Managing Editor Mike Throne wrote a column about steps that Gannett's Chillicothe Gazette took to prevent editorial "astroturfing.'' That's when readers bombard papers electronically with identical letters across the country, hoping to publish as many as possible.

Throne returned to the subject yesterday, in a column about how the paper got tricked into publishing one of the "Ellie Light" pro-President Obama letters -- despite extra steps taken by the small paper to safeguard its letters page. Those steps included conducting a Google search on the letter's contents to see if it had already appeared elsewhere.

"Yes, the irony of having a letter to the editor situation blow up in your face just days after saying the newspaper is following new procedures isn’t lost on me," he writes. "It’s embarrassing and regrettable. But if we hadn’t followed those procedures, I’d feel a lot worse. In this case we did follow them and were lied to about the local nature of the opinion and the address used. In short, we were duped."

The Gazette isn't alone, of course -- despite taking the extraordinary and laudable steps Throne details in his column. Indeed, at least 18 Gannett papers and websites published one of the Light letters, among more than 70 other media outlets across the country.

Throne also reveals that the Obama letter wasn't Light's first attempt: "On Jan. 13," he says, "we also received a second letter from 'Ellie Light' regarding generosity to the people of Haiti and how to make sure your donation gets to those who really need it."

I wonder how many of those got published across the nation?

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[Image: detail of the Gazette's homepage]