So, The New Republic has added a new blog to its roster: the Environment & Energy blog, which is sponsored, nay “powered,” by BP. (Quips blogger Andrew Daniller: “I assumed their whole magazine was sponsored by military contractors.”) Maybe this is where the blogosphere is headed, magazines selling off their real estate like major league ballparks, to the highest bidder. And we’re all for creative ways to bring in revenue to support the cause, but there’s a qualitative difference between running BP ads in a magazine and having the BP logo emblazoned on all energy and environment content—i.e. all the content that could relate to BP. Certainly the sponsorship raises issues of editorial-advertising line-blurring, potential self-censorship, the deterioration of journalistic self-respect, etc.
The company formerly known as British Petroleum (it now prefers “beyond petroleum”), despite furious rebranding efforts, has a typically abysmal environmental record: “Although BP put $500 million into solar power between 2000 and 2005, it spent $8.4 billion exploring and producing petroleum in 2004 alone.” And BP at one time lobbied hard to open ANWR to drilling. Then again, so did TNR, asserting in 2002 that the plan to drill in the wildlife refuge “would almost certainly cause little environmental damage.”
So what are environmentally- and ethically-minded TNR staffers to do? It’s already a bit late for a preemptive strike against the sponsorship (like the one last year at the Memphis Commercial Appeal, where gutsy reporters rebelled and sunk a management-hatched plan to allow FedEx to sponsor a series on world business). BP must see the TNR blog as a relatively safe forum, one where it won’t face persistent, searing criticism. So why not test BP’s assumption? Why not scrutinize and heap journalistic abuse on BP and Big Oil till they can’t take it anymore? TNR staffer Bradford Plumer engaged BP a bit today, calling out the company for “shamefully working behind the scenes in Congress to oppose strong climate legislation.” That’s a start.
—Justin Elliott
