27 Examples of Journalists Failing to Disclose Sources as Funded by Monsanto

Following a Columbia Journalism Review article on whether science journalists should accept money from corporate interests and whether there is adequate disclosure of sources' corporate ties and conflicts of interest, U.S. Right to Know reviewed recent articles to assess how often journalists and columnists quote academic sources without stating that they are funded by the agrichemical giant Monsanto.
Our review found 27 articles quoting (or authored by) university professors after they received Monsanto funding, but without disclosing that funding.
This is a collapse of journalistic standards. When reporters quote sources about food issues such as GMOs or organic food, readers deserve to know if the sources have been funded by Monsanto or have other conflicts of interest.
The principal effect of failing to reveal these conflicts of interest is to unfairly enhance the credibility of Monsanto-funded academics and their support of GMOs and criticism of organic food, while detracting from the credibility of consumer advocates.
Our review found that many top media outlets quoted either University of Florida Professor Kevin Folta or University of Illinois Professor Emeritus Bruce Chassy without disclosing that the professors received funding from Monsanto. According to documents published by the New York Times, Professor Folta received Monsanto funding in August 2014 and Professor Chassy in October 2011, if not before.
Many of these journalistic failures occurred at influential news outlets: newspapers such as the New York Times, Washington Post and Chicago Tribune; science publications such as Nature, Science Insider and Discover; magazines such as the New Yorker, Wired and The Atlantic; as well as broadcast outlets like ABC and NPR.
Following is a list of news articles quoting (or authored by) Professors Folta and Chassy—after they received their Monsanto funding—but failing to disclose that they had received the Monsanto funding.
- New York Times: "Taking on the Food Industry, One Blog Post at a Time." By Courtney Rubin, March 13. (Also ran in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune).
- New York Times: "Foes of Modified Corn Find Support in a Study." By Andrew Pollack, Sept. 19, 2012.
- Washington Post: "Kraft Mac & Cheese Just Got Duller. You Can Thank (Or Blame) 'The Food Babe'." By Michael E. Miller, April 21. (Also ran in the Chicago Tribune).
- Washington Post: "Proof He's the Science Guy: Bill Nye Is Changing His Mind About GMOs." By Puneet Kollipara, March 3.
- Nature: "GM-Crop Opponents Expand Probe Into Ties Between Scientists and Industry." By Keith Kloor, Aug. 6.
- NPR: "Is The Food Babe A Fearmonger? Scientists Are Speaking Out." By Maria Godoy, Feb. 10.
- New Yorker: "The Operator." By Michael Specter, Feb. 4, 2013.
- The Atlantic: "The Food Babe: Enemy of Chemicals." By James Hamblin, Feb. 11.
- Wired: "Anti-GMO Activist Seeks to Expose Scientists Emails with Big Ag." By Alan Levinovitz, Feb. 23.
- ABC News: "Scientists Developing Hypo-Allergenic Apples." By Gillian Mohney, March 22, 2013.
- Science Insider: "Agricultural Researchers Rattled by Demands for Documents from Group Opposed to GM Foods." By Keith Kloor, Feb. 11.
- Columbia Journalism Review: "Why Scientists Often Hate Records Requests." By Anna Clark, Feb. 25.
- Discover: "Open Letter to Bill Nye from a Plant Scientist." By Keith Kloor, Nov. 10, 2014.
- Discover: "How to Balance Transparency with Academic Freedom?" By Keith Kloor, Feb. 27.
- Discover: "Anti-GMO Group Seeks Emails from University Scientists." By Keith Kloor, Feb. 11.
- Forbes: "Zombie Retracted Séralini GMO Maize Rat Study Republished To Hostile Scientist Reactions." By Jon Entine, June 24, 2014.
- Forbes: "Did The New Yorker Botch Puff Piece On Frog Scientist Tyrone Hayes, Turning Rogue into Beleaguered Hero?" By Jon Entine, March 10, 2014.
- Forbes: "You Can Put Lipstick On A Pig (Study), But It Still Stinks." By Bruce M. Chassy and Henry I. Miller, July 17, 2013.
- Forbes: "Anti-GMO Scientist Gilles-Eric Seralini, Activist Jeffrey Smith Withdraw from Food Biotech Debate." By Jon Entine, May 29, 2013.
- Forbes: "Malpractice On Dr. Oz: Pop Health Expert Hosts Anti-GM Food Rant; Scientists Push Back." By Jon Entine, Oct. 19, 2012.
- Forbes: "Scientists Smell a Rat In Fraudulent Genetic Engineering Study." By Henry I. Miller and Bruce Chassy, Sept. 25, 2012.
- Forbes: "The Science of Things That Aren't So." By Bruce Chassy and Henry I. Miller, Feb. 22, 2012.
- Des Moines Register: "Consumers Are Misled About Organic Safety." By John Block, Oct. 10, 2014.
- Gainesville Sun: "Genetically Modified Foods Face Hurdles." By Jeff Schweers, June 29, 2014.
- Peoria Journal Star: "Hybrid Crops That Used to Offer Resistance to Rootworm No Match for Mother Nature." By Steve Tarter, June 21, 2014.
- Gawker: "The 'Food Babe' Blogger Is Full of Shit." By Yvette d'Entremont, April 6.
- Louis Post-Dispatch: "California Labeling Fight May Raise Food Prices for All of Us." By David Nicklaus, Aug. 19, 2012.
This is merely one example of two professors who were not identified as received funding from Monsanto and yet these two professors received major traction in the media as “independent" experts on GMOs and organics. The only reason the professors admitted to receiving Monsanto funding was due to emails uncovered by Freedom of Information Act requests filed by U.S. Right to Know, a consumer group.
How often does it happen that journalists present other academics funded by food or agrichemical companies as “independent" sources and without disclosing their corporate funding?
One remedy for this problem is that when journalists write about food, that they carefully ask their sources whether they have any conflicts of interest, where they get their funding from and whether they receive any funding from food or agrichemical companies like Monsanto or their PR front groups.
That, however, may not be enough. Professor Kevin Folta received Monsanto funding, yet repeatedly denied ties to or funding from Monsanto. Reporters—and readers—should be aware that such deceit by Monsanto-funded academics has recently occurred and be on their guard against it.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
EPA Asks Court to Revoke Approval of New Weed Killer for Genetically Engineered Crops
Costco and Red Lobster Say No to GMO Salmon
Monsanto's Roundup: The Whole Toxic Enchilada
Christie Brinkley Slams Monsanto and GMOs, Says 'We're Guinea Pigs'
A tornado tore through a city north of Birmingham, Alabama, Monday night, killing one person and injuring at least 30.
- Tornadoes and Climate Change: What Does the Science Say ... ›
- Tornadoes Hit Unusually Wide Swaths of U.S., Alarming Climate ... ›
- 23 Dead as Tornado Pummels Lee County, AL in Further Sign ... ›
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
By David Konisky
On his first day in office President Joe Biden started signing executive orders to reverse Trump administration policies. One sweeping directive calls for stronger action to protect public health and the environment and hold polluters accountable, including those who "disproportionately harm communities of color and low-income communities."
Michael S. Regan, President Biden's nominee to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, grew up near a coal-burning power plant in North Carolina and has pledged to "enact an environmental justice framework that empowers people in all communities." NCDEQ
Trending
By Katherine Kornei
Clear-cutting a forest is relatively easy—just pick a tree and start chopping. But there are benefits to more sophisticated forest management. One technique—which involves repeatedly harvesting smaller trees every 30 or so years but leaving an upper story of larger trees for longer periods (60, 90, or 120 years)—ensures a steady supply of both firewood and construction timber.
A Pattern in the Rings
<p>The <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/coppice-standards-0" target="_blank">coppice-with-standards</a> management practice produces a two-story forest, said <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bernhard_Muigg" target="_blank">Bernhard Muigg</a>, a dendrochronologist at the University of Freiburg in Germany. "You have an upper story of single trees that are allowed to grow for several understory generations."</p><p>That arrangement imprints a characteristic tree ring pattern in a forest's upper story trees (the "standards"): thick rings indicative of heavy growth, which show up at regular intervals as the surrounding smaller trees are cut down. "The trees are growing faster," said Muigg. "You can really see it with your naked eye."</p><p>Muigg and his collaborators characterized that <a href="https://ltrr.arizona.edu/about/treerings" target="_blank">dendrochronological pattern</a> in 161 oak trees growing in central Germany, one of the few remaining sites in Europe with actively managed coppice-with-standards forests. They found up to nine cycles of heavy growth in the trees, the oldest of which was planted in 1761. The researchers then turned to a historical data set — more than 2,000 oak <a href="https://eos.org/articles/podcast-discovering-europes-history-through-its-timbers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">timbers from buildings and archaeological sites</a> in Germany and France dating from between 300 and 2015 — to look for a similar pattern.</p>A Gap of 500 Years
<p>The team found wood with the characteristic coppice-with-standards tree ring pattern dating to as early as the 6th century. That was a surprise, Muigg and his colleagues concluded, because the first mention of this forest management practice in historical documents occurred only roughly 500 years later, in the 13th century.</p><p>It's probable that forest management practices were not well documented prior to the High Middle Ages (1000–1250), the researchers suggested. "Forests are mainly mentioned in the context of royal hunting interests or donations," said Muigg. Dendrochronological studies are particularly important because they can reveal information not captured by a sparse historical record, he added.</p><p>These results were <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-78933-8" target="_blank">published in December in <em>Scientific Reports</em></a>.</p><p>"It's nice to see the longevity and the history of coppice-with-standards," said <a href="https://www.teagasc.ie/contact/staff-directory/s/ian-short/" target="_blank">Ian Short</a>, a forestry researcher at Teagasc, the Agriculture and Food Development Authority in Ireland, not involved in the research. This technique is valuable because it promotes conservation and habitat biodiversity, Short said. "In the next 10 or 20 years, I think we'll see more coppice-with-standards coming back into production."</p><p>In the future, Muigg and his collaborators hope to analyze a larger sample of historic timbers to trace how the coppice-with-standards practice spread throughout Europe. It will be interesting to understand where this technique originated and how it propagated, said Muigg, and there are plenty of old pieces of wood waiting to be analyzed. "There [are] tons of dendrochronological data."</p><p><em><a href="mailto:katherine.kornei@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Katherine Kornei</a> is a freelance science journalist covering Earth and space science. Her bylines frequently appear in Eos, Science, and The New York Times. Katherine holds a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of California, Los Angeles.</em></p><p><em>This story originally appeared in <a href="https://eos.org/articles/tree-rings-reveal-how-ancient-forests-were-managed" target="_blank">Eos</a></em> <em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>Earth's ice is melting 57 percent faster than in the 1990s and the world has lost more than 28 trillion tons of ice since 1994, research published Monday in The Cryosphere shows.
By Jewel Fraser
Noreen Nunez lives in a middle-class neighborhood that rises up a hillside in Trinidad's Tunapuna-Piarco region.