Rachel Maddow Takes on Corporate Agribusiness PR. Next Up, the Fight for Food Safety?

Last night Rachel Maddow interviewed the notorious corporate public relations hit man Rick Berman, best known for heading the Center for Consumer Freedom and for starting numerous websites that pose as fact havens while he is most likely being paid by the corporate interests pushing high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, tanning beds, tuna fish and more. Why don't we know who is footing the bill? Because Berman orchestrates a cadre of non-profits to represent corporate political aims, and they do not have to reveal their donors. Maddow pointed this out at the top of the interview, and again after Berman was given the chance to correct the record and chose then to defend trans fats -- leading Maddow to prod him to reveal to her audience at least the fact that someone was paying him to take sides on the issue. It's worth watching, take a look here:

(You can see part 2 of the interview here.)

Last week she also discussed Berman's PR work, and played his group's latest pro-high fructose corn syrup ad, followed by an illumination of many of the other non-profit front groups Berman has set up on the internets to represent corporate interests. Check it out:

(Btw Rachel, "sugar" is not what they are pushing, its corn syrup -- they are trying to get you to confuse the two, but they are different. One is made in a lab out of excess subsidized corn and could be called a realitively novel food while the other is a plant that humans have eaten, albeit less often and in less processed forms, for centuries.)

This is not new. There will always be loopholes in transparency, and there will always be people willing to exploit them for pay. But these attempts to confuse the public are also why it is so difficult to create a more democratic food system in which the poor are no longer forced to eat processed food at their peril, while the rich profit on their waistline expansion. Maddow points this out too -- she leads into the discussion by describing what Berman is doing as "beneath the surface" of American politics, and representative of "what the country is really like and why it can't seem to change in substantive ways."

Indeed, these kinds of misleading PR and lobbying efforts also contribute to the intransigence in Washington. Take for example the unavoidable discussion of food safety, which rears its head every few weeks in light of the latest food recall. First and foremost, we need to have a food system that is safe for all to eat. Yet right now, the USDA doesn't have the muscle to recall contaminated meat from supermarket shelves. Meanwhile, the USDA serves to both regulate and promote the industry, an inherent conflict of interest that keeps Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in a song and dance routine between those that want reform and the industry that wants no reform. As the New York Times reported on Sunday in a front page piece tracing a particular e. coli contaminated hamburger to its victim, a 22-year old dance instructor named Stephanie Smith, who is now paralyzed from the waist down, the USDA is indeed being pulled in two directions:

The meat industry treats much of its practices and the ingredients in ground beef as trade secrets. While the Department of Agriculture has inspectors posted in plants and has access to production records, it also guards those secrets. Federal records released by the department through the Freedom of Information Act blacked out details of Cargill's grinding operation that could be learned only through copies of the documents obtained from other sources. Those documents illustrate the restrained approach to enforcement by a department whose missions include ensuring meat safety and promoting agriculture markets.

Tom Laskawy had this to say about the USDA's role at Grist:

Given the ability of the meat industry to use its influence, access, and power within the USDA to scale back any attempts to affect core issues like livestock farming methods, slaughterhouse line speed, and processors' procurement practices, it's hard to deny that its role as an industry cheerleader has left it hopelessly compromised.

Unfortunately its not just meat at the USDA, either. Check out this report [pdf] by the Center for Science in the Public Interest listing the ten most "dangerous" foods regulated by the FDA including leafy greens, eggs, tuna, oysters and potatoes. The point of the report was not to scare the begezus out of us and get us to boycott these foods, but to show both how pervasive our food safety worries have become and underline the fact that unsafe food is the fallout of our industrial food system.

Enter legislation. A food safety bill passed in July in the House, and a similar bill is being considered in the Senate. But regulation of the livestock industry and structural changes at the USDA are not even on the table. However, this story is not going to go away until we stop the use of band-aids in the food system, and get at some of the root causes of unsafe food.

In telling the truth about Berman's work, Rachel Maddow continues her work pulling back the layers of American politics to expose underhanded and manipulative lobbying tactics to the public. Here is hoping that she and the mainstream media continue to prod this story and give Congress ever more reasons to act to improve food safety. The health of millions of people is on the line.

Originally published on Civil Eats.

Follow Paula Crossfield on Twitter: www.twitter.com/civileater

Comments

[riseaboveit]

wow. i ASPIRE to tell a good story the way Rick Berman does. He's so compelling and facile but Maddow does a nice job nailing him down on his hypocrisy. He's a scary individual who has sold his soul. It's pure evil that he's vending but with a handsome face and attractive smile. I have to go take a shower.

[mom2luke]

I love it Rachel: Harvard study about fish consumption is impeachable source. Harvard study about HFCS/obesity is a scam. Melanie of CREW not revealing her donors is an outrage...­Berman's not revealing the big businesses behind his (fake grass roots ) false propaganda a right of "privacy."
What a jerk. Can't imagine he'll be back to "defend" his defense of the indefensible.

[mom2luke]

ACORN "boogeyman" is right. Finally heard from McCain again in Senate hearing...­what were his "questions" for the Census bureau executive?
"I was so pleased to see that you've TERMINATED your relationship with ACORN, I can't tell you how many constituent calls I've received about this ... what evidence do you have about how much govt money was WASTED on this partnership? "
2 wars, healthcare crisis, polluted food supply....­but ACORN is former presidential candidates issue de jour.
Thank you Rachel for exposing the scam.coms for the scams they are.

[whatsrealanyway]

Berman claims that:
"The average minimum wage workers household income is $50,000" ?????
How does that work?
Minimum wage in California is $8/hour, that adds up to 320 a week or $16,640 a year.

If there's 3 people in a household working minimum wage full time jobs, then yes that adds up to $50k, but try supporting 3 adults plus kids on that kind of income in California. Good Luck.
Maybe Rick Berman should try living on minimum wage for a month.

[OT]

"Life Health" never "Death Health"

Rachel Maddows backhanded shots at Kieth Olbermann are typical Rachel Maddow. To smerk and roll your eyes about paying for a free clinic once a week. In states of the six Democratic senators blocking "Life Health" is sad. These senators want nothing to do with "Life Health". They want to keep it the same with "Death Health". I will not snicker in favor of "Death Health". This world is about living right? I believe in
"Life Health"

[JamesGormley]

Dear Paula,
Hi. Please check out this article:
http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/view/122637
and this link:
http://www.citizens.org/?page_id=40
Many thanks.
---James

[MarilynBB]

I find it so refreshing to see reports that address real issues and expose the fraud and deceit behind them. This is so much more useful information than the constant reporting of murderers and rapists that show their pictures repeatedly.

Keep up the excellent work MSNBC! I enjoy Rachel Maddow and her expressive reporting.

[JeffPoster]

I think we need people like Rachel Maddow and her MSNBC colleagues, Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz, to remind us that the vast right-wing conspiracy still exists, whether in big industry or supposedly "non-profit" organizati­ons(rememb­er, Berman, face to face with Maddow, claimed he paid for the anti-ACORN website, IIRC). The guy should be run out of the country on a Cigarette boat under cover of darkness. So this means he was also responsible for the first wave of pro-high fructose corn syrup advertisements some time back? Hmph!

[Kaviraj]

In some, hypocrisy knows no bounds.