CCF Continues to Deceive Journalists, Public

OK, so the headline isn't exactly breaking news. The deceptively named Center for Consumer Freedom has been playing dirty since it was created by Richard Berman in 1995 to be a front group for the tobacco industry.

I'm using "CCF" here as a catchall for Berman's 15 front groups. They each have a different name, but their motives and tactics are the same: Protect evil, greedy corporations by any means necessary.

In the most recent case a Berman cohort was interviewed by the Orlando Sentinel, but the paper didn't identify Joe Kefauver as such. Instead he was described as a Democrat who "runs the public affairs consulting company Edgewater Group."

The story was about how an increasing number of Democrats, including Kefauver, are supposedly against the Employee Free Choice Act, which Berman's groups have been fighting.

Harper's Magazine, though, discovered something the Sentinel's business writer failed to. (Yes, I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt.)

What the article didn't mention is that Kefauver has long and close ties to Berman. The most recently available public disclosure forms list Kefauver as both a director of Berman's Center for Consumer Freedom, and as a compensated "director of development" for Berman's Employment Policies Institute Foundation. Berman and Company has also paid Kefauver's firm for consulting services.

Harper's story ends with this piece of advice:

Next time it writes about EFCA the Sentinel might want to look for someone other than a Berman plant as a source.

CCF attacks HSUS

That recommendation would be good to share with the people at Atlanta's WSB-TV (Channel 2). They ran a story yesterday disparaging The Humane Society of the United States. The hook? The HSUS doesn't run local humane societies. That's not news. We know that. They're not misrepresenting themselves.

Of course, the CCF's David Martosko was interviewed. And, as usual, the reporter didn't disclose that the CCF is doing all they can to discredit The HSUS. Instead the story simply identified the CCF as "a national consumer organization."

But the CCF isn't some grass-roots, consumer-run group. It is an industry front group, and industry is scared. With November's passage of Prop 2 in California, the animal ag industry, which funds the CCF, is in turmoil. The HSUS was successful in its attempt to have gestation, battery and veal crates phased out in California, and they are hard at work in other states.

After the story aired, The HSUS responded, saying in part that it's a national organization.

We were formed 55 years ago to end animal cruelty that occurs on a national scale. Local animal organizations serve their communities very well and we encourage people to support them.

Although The HSUS's response didn't mention the CCF, WSBTV.com posted a CCF rebuttal on its Web site.

The level of deception exhibited by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) never ceases to amaze us.

The CCF's feigned outrage is laughable. The level of its deception is limitless.

Update (5/16/09): It appears that WSBTV.com has removed not only the responses from The HSUS and the CCF but also the original story. (Unfortunately you can still see it on YouTube.) I don't know why the news station did this, as older, unrelated stories are still on the site. Perhaps they realized how inaccurate it was?

(Image of Richard Berman courtesy of CBS News.)