November/December 2006 Issue

Spin Cycle

Examples of corporate social responsibility that confuse selflessness with self-promotion.

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It’s no accident that corporate social responsibility campaigns are often handled by the marketing department. A few notable examples of CSR that confuse selflessness with self-promotion:

Laying Astroturf
Spin: Project Evergreen promotes the environmental benefits of green spaces.
Reality: Funded by Dow, TruGreen, and other chemical companies, the alliance campaigns behind the scenes against regulating lawn pesticides and water use.

An Uncomfortable Fit
Spin: American Apparel hypes its humane working conditions. “You don’t have to fuck the Third World up the ass…or the Canadian and American workers to do business,” boasts CEO Dov Charney.
Reality: The National Labor Relations Board has slapped the hip T-shirt maker for union-busting. Charney is facing two sexual-harassment suits.

Spin the Bottle
Spin: Beer magnate Pete Coors appeared in TV ads, explaining, “When we at Coors say, ’21 means 21,’ believe me, it’s no joke. We’ll wait for your business.”
Reality: Coors—recently arrested for DUI—has lobbied to lower the drinking age. Underage drinkers make up at least 17.5 percent of the booze industry’s sales.

Not-So-Green Acres
Spin: Acres for America preserves an acre of wilderness for every acre of land with a Wal-Mart on it.
Reality: Much of the preserved land is in rural areas far from the valuable suburban real estate the big-box chain builds on.

I Can’t Quit You
Spin: In TV ads for its QuitAssist program, Philip Morris offers to “help smokers who have decided to quit be successful.”
Reality: Since 1998, nicotine levels in cigarettes most popular with kids and minorities, including PM’s Marlboros, have risen 10 percent.

Empty Glass
Spin: Sutter Home Winery pledges $1 to breast cancer research for every bottle of its white zinfandel sold.
Reality: Alcohol has been linked to breast cancer. Consumers must send in a seal to secure each $1 donation. Winery caps total giving at $100,000.

Send in the Clown
Spin: Last year Ronald McDonald started touring schools as a health ambassador.
Reality: Need we say more?

Waiting to Exhale
Spin: A recent TV ad warned, “Some politicians want to label carbon dioxide a pollutant…. Carbon dioxide: They call it pollution. We call it life.”
Reality: The spot was made by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a global warming-denying think tank that has taken $1.9 million from ExxonMobil since 2000.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

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