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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 2/13/16

Washington Post's Food Columnist Goes to Bat for Monsanto -- Again

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Echo chamber effect

Haspel and Professor Hallman from Rutgers travel in similar circles; both spoke at an event last year about public engagement on GMOs hosted by the National Academy of Sciences. Hallman shared a panel with Roger Pielke, Jr., whom Paul Krugman has described as "a known irresponsible skeptic" on climate science. Haspel spoke on a panel with Monsanto's Eric Sachs.

As I wrote in my previous piece, Haspel is fond of using a particular style in her columns: citing sources of a particular ideology who all seem to agree with each other, then emphasizing their points with sweeping statements to the effect that "everybody else thinks so, too."

For example, for her food movement investigation, she writes:

"Is there a food movement? Hallman at Rutgers says there is, but he says 'it is much smaller than is assumed by many in government and the food industry,' and everything I've read and heard indicates that he's right ."

Convenient timing for Monsanto

Haspel's conclusions diminishing the food movement and public support for GMO labeling spun a very helpful tale for Monsanto at a politically crucial moment for one of the company's highest political priorities: stopping GMO labeling.

Monsanto and its allies in the food industry are right now frantically lobbying Congress to pass a bill that would make it illegal for states to require labels on genetically engineered foods -- and thereby nullify Vermont's GMO labeling law, which is set to go into effect this summer.

The Hill (2/3/16) reported this week that the Grocery Manufacturers Association increased their lobbying expenditures by 83 percent last year (to $8.4 million) as the trade group "adopted a more aggressive posture on Capitol Hill in response to the increased activity around the labeling of genetically modified food."

The day after Haspel's column appeared, the Coalition for Safe and Affordable Food -- an industry front group set up by the Grocery Manufacturers Association in the wake of the Monsanto-led fights to stop state ballot initiatives for GMO labeling -- sent out an ICYMI email to reporters touting the column.

"Time is running out. It's critical for Congress to act soon," the Coalition's email began. It claimed that GMO labeling would hurt efforts to feed the world, and urged people to read the Washington Post column that "counteracts the false claims that consumers widely support mandatory labeling" of GMOs.

Covert lobbying?

This is the second time in a few months Haspel has written an almost desperately biased column favoring Monsanto, timed to a politically important moment in the congressional debate about GMOs. (The other, which I wrote about here, was a clumsy attempt at dismissing the significance of a decision by the World Health Organization to classify the herbicide glyphosate -- the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup -- as "probably carcinogenic to humans.")

It is not out of the ordinary, of course, for columnists to take strong positions on issues in hopes of influencing political outcomes. Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, for example, really doesn't want Democrats to nominate Bernie Sanders for president (and the Post editorial board is throwing its weight behind that position, too). Whatever readers think of the viewpoint, they at least understand that this is an opinion designed to influence an outcome. Milbank is acting aboveboard as he winds up his most dramatic spin and takes his best swing at moving the ball in the direction he thinks it should go.

Haspel's columns are more covert. She is not being aboveboard as she bats out industry talking points from industry-aligned or outdated sources to influence Congress against GMO labeling, while claiming she personally supports GMO labeling. Her columns are presented to readers as honest investigations -- her editor Yonan has said Haspel "anchors everything she writes in much, much research."

The integrity of that approach depends on where the research comes from. If you use old, irrelevant polling data and industry PR firms to source a report about the food movement, it is not surprising you would conclude there is no food movement, and so politicians can go ahead and ignore evidence to the contrary.

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