Monsanto payola

Michael Fumento gets dropped.

Posted by David Roberts at 2:05 PM on 13 Jan 2006

Another rightwing pundit has been dropped by a media outlet after it was revealed that he was taking payments from private interests in exchange for columns.

Who was the corporate paymaster this time? Monsanto.

Scripps Howard News Service (SHNS) announced Friday that it severed its relationship with Michael Fumento -- a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute -- for taking payments in 1999 from agribusiness giant Monsanto. The payola was revealed by BusinessWeek Online, which also broke the story that columnist Doug Bandow had accepted bribes from Jack Abramoff. Copley News Service subsequently dropped Bandow.

Incidentally, if any wealthy interests out there are interested in a column about, say, the evils of suburbia, drop me an email and I'll send you my rates.

For story: Monsanto payola
2 Comments | Post a Comment

The funny part

The funny part is that Monsanto's cash--including "ongoing support" for Fumento's emplyer, the Hudson Institute--has bought so little. I've spent a lot of time the past year studying this company, and I had no idea that Michael Fumento--last seen debunking the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s--was flacking for them. I like this bit from the Business Week article:

Fumento also points out that he criticized Monsanto publicly in a 1999 Forbes magazine column, calling the company "chicken-hearted" for caving in to pressure from environmentalists to terminate a seed program.

That's good stuff. With harsh critics like Fumento on the loose, I guess I can go back to just farming.

Victual Reality

by Tom Philpott at 3:59 PM on 13 Jan 2006

Ditto

I am available to bash biofuels for a suitcase full of unmarked twenty dollar bills.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 9:06 PM on 13 Jan 2006

ADVERTISING POLICY

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have an account, log in. If you don't have an account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.