Environmental Media Services
1320 18th Street, NW,
Suite 500,
Washington,
DC
20036
Phone 202-463-6670 |
Fax 202-463-6671 |
Email ems@ems.org
Connections
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American Corn Growers Association
Environmental Media Services (EMS) and the American Corn Growers Association (ACGA) are both members of the “Bolinas Group,” a consortium of environmental and anti-technology groups. Bolinas groups work together to cripple food technology by lobbying governments for “warning” labels designed to scare consumers. They also have access to millions in funding via members of the Environmental Grantmakers Association. In addition, both EMS and ACGA are among the institutional sponsors of CropChoice.com, a web site devote to anti-food-technology propaganda. EMS has also arranged and promoted news conferences at which ACGA officers delivered speeches. One such event -- held in Washington in September 1999 -- featured ACGA board member Dan McGuire. The press release referred reporters to Stacia Tipton, an employee of Fenton Communications (EMS’s parent company).
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Center for Food Safety
The Center for Food Safety is one of seven organizations that make up the “GE Food Alert” coalition, a group of anti-biotech nonprofits assembled by Washington PR firm Fenton Communications (which also owns and operates Environmental Media Services).
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Center for Science in the Public Interest
Art Silverman is the Senior Vice President and Creative Director at Fenton Communications, the Washington PR firm that uses Environmental Media Services as a media “front” for its paying clients. Prior to joining Fenton, Silverman was the communications director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). While at CSPI, Silverman was best known for labeling fettucine alfredo a “heart attack on a plate.”
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Chefs Collaborative
Nearly every major national project initiated by the Chefs Collaborative (CC) is promoted by Environmental Media Services (EMS). Examples include the needless “Give Swordfish a break” campaign, the 2002 boycott on Caspian Sea caviar, and the “natural” food industry-funded “Keep Nature Natural” campaign. None of this should come as a great surprise, considering that CC pushes organic foods and EMS is a project of Fenton Communications, a Washington, DC public relations firm that counts organic food marketers among its paying clients.
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Environmental Working Group
Environmental Media Services, a whole-cloth creation of leftist PR guru David Fenton, often provides the media spin for the Environmental Working Group, a Fenton client. So it’s no surprise that EWG president Kenneth Cook was given a seat on the EMS board in February 2002 (EMS creator David Fenton already sits on the EWG board). Environmental Media Services has held over a half-dozen news conferences on EWG’s behalf over the years. One notable example had EWG’s Ken Cook and mad-cow scaremonger John Stabuer (of the Center for Media and Democracy) sharing a podium as meat-safety “experts” in 1998, shortly after the Oprah Winfrey mad-cow-libel suit was dismissed. In 1995 EMS engineered an endorsement by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) of a ridiculous EWG report that claimed commercial baby food caused “grave cancer risks.”
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Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Aside from Environmental Media Services, perhaps the most notable anti-biotech creation to come out of Washington, DC public relations firm Fenton Communications is something called the “GE Food Alert.” This is a Fenton-created coalition of 7 different nonprofit groups including (among others) the Center for Food Safety, Organic Consumers Association, and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP). The project is designed to be a clearinghouse for all sorts of protest “actions” against genetically improved foods, and for the junk science that both inspires them and benefits David Fenton’s clients. The entire effort is hosted on Internet web servers that are registered to IATP in Minneapolis.
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Natural Resources Defense Council
SeaWeb’s wholly unnecessary “Give Swordfish a Break!” campaign, conceived and directed by Fenton Communications, was originally designed as a cooperative campaign with the Natural Resources Defense Council (SeaWeb and NRDC are still Fenton clients). In its typical role as media “front” group, Environmental Media Services heavily promoted the swordfish boycott on behalf of both NRDC and SeaWeb for two years, ending with a hollow declaration of victory in August 2000.
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Organic Consumers Association
The Organic Consumers Association is one of seven organizations that make up the Fenton Communications-run “GE Food Alert” coalition, a group of anti-biotech nonprofits that use the www.gefoodalert.org web site to collaborate on strategies and “actions” designed to scare consumers about consuming genetically improved foods. Fenton Communications also uses Environmental Media Services as a “front group” to promote these anti-biotech activities.
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SeaWeb
The strategy for SeaWeb’s ill-advised and unnecessary “Give Swordfish a Break!” campaign was conceived by account executives at Fenton Communications (SeaWeb is still a Fenton client). In its typical role as media “front” group, Environmental Media Services heavily promoted the swordfish boycott for two years before declaring “victory” in 2000.
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Sierra Club
Environmental Media Services (EMS) is the green arm of Fenton Communications, a Washington, DC public relations firm known for perpetrating the 1989 "Alar on apples" food-scare hoax, and for representing the Marxist governments of Nicaragua and Angola. Former Sierra Club media relations director, Daniel Silverman, is now Senior Vice President of Fenton Communications. Not surprisingly, Fenton lists Sierra Club as one of its many green clients. EMS puts the media spin on Sierra Club's issues.
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Tides Foundation & Tides Center
Environmental Media Services (EMS) was until recently a “project” of the Tides Center. Tides ran its day-to-day business operations, including payroll and tax matters, and allowed EMS to “piggyback” on its tax exemption. This is a legally questionable practice in which Tides regularly engages for its over 350 “projects.” In 2001 EMS was spun off and obtained its own tax exemption -- its business operations are now handles by employees of Fenton Communications, a high-powered DC public relations firm known for its leftist sympathies, and for its “food scare” and “health scare” campaigns.
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Union of Concerned Scientists
The Union of Concerned Scientists has been a prime beneficiary of Environmental Media Services (EMS) and its slick PR work. UCS often participates in press conferences organized by EMS, including those on highly politicized issues like the nomination of Gail Norton as Secretary of the Interior, the Kyoto “global warming” treaty, and President George W. Bush’s energy plan. UCS “experts” are commonly quoted in EMS press releases. And EMS is also a driving force behind the Genetic Engineering Action Network, of which UCS is a charter member.
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Waterkeeper Alliance
The Water Keeper Alliance grew out of the Hudson Riverkeepers, an organization founded by fisherman and outdoors columnist Robert H. Boyle. Although Boyle walked out on his brainchild in 1999 following Robert Kennedy’s insistence upon hiring a convicted felon (found guilty of crimes against the environment) as the group’s chief scientific analyst, he (Boyle) has shown no indication that he plans to leave his post on the board of directors of Environmental Media Services.
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Profile:
Environmental Media Services
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