The Media And The Message

British newspaper The Guardian has had direct experience of lobbying efforts by Monsanto. The Guardian’s first articles on biotechnology appeared in the paper about a decade ago, when science correspondents were flown to the States for ring-side seats on the new technology. It’s a subject to which the paper has continued to give in-depth coverage ever since.

“There’s no aspect of life which isn’t touched by something as fundamental as what they’re trying to do,” says John Vidal, The Guardian’s environment editor.

In response to The Guardian’s coverage, Monsanto frequently telephones and writes to the paper, and corporate representatives have met with editors to discuss the issue.

“My tack was that the role of The Guardian is to question anybody – anybody who has power or influence,” says Vidal, describing his first meeting with Monsanto. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s politics or business, if you are fundamentally changing something, or have enormous influence on something, it is our duty to question by whose authority do you do these things.”

Early last July, Monsanto requested a further discussion, this time with chief editor Alan Rusbridger. Vidal and others were also present at the meeting.

“They basically united us,” Vidal recalls, “because they insulted us by saying that we were one-sided, by saying that the media was not on their side and they weren’t getting a fair hearing and they were being unfairly criticised, and generally not being appreciated for what they said they were trying to do, which was to feed the world etc. And we didn’t take this particularly seriously. And they got extremely upset – they were banging the table, and it was a full and forceful discussion.”

The meeting with three Monsanto people lasted more than three hours

“It was frank, it was heated, it was certainly explosive at times. And I think they left realising they hadn’t made enormous progress in their softening up of the media,” continues Vidal.

“The way they seem to be working is identifying their critics at quite early stages, and then going to see them. They apologised, effectively, saying we got Europe wrong, we didn’t understand the whole thing about food safety in Europe. But underneath it is a sort of iron fist, and I think the subtext is that they’re a little worried, because they don’t seem to have the public on their side, and they need the public on their side to be able to achieve what they want to achieve commercially, and the media very obviously is a very important part of that.”

In large ads in British papers during July and August, Monsanto have urged the British public that the corporation is a benefactor to society, because its technology promises to solve world hunger.

“But it’s a very simplistic argument which they seem to be promoting,” comments Vidal. “It’s not very sophisticated, it’s rather crude, and very evasive when it comes to motives and stuff like that. I think once pressed, they don’t believe in much debate, and the fact that the press might not agree they found rather embarrassing, and during the meeting they didn’t seem to win any points on those particular scores.”

Is it unusual for corporations to request a meeting with The Guardian’s editor?

Says Vidal: “I’ve never known corporate people go straight to an editor before. I’ve known them to go to individual correspondents – that happens all the time, and they go to section editors – but I’ve never known a full-on visit to an editor to support a corporate point of view. That is most unusual.”

Did you feel pressurised by the meeting?

“No, because I think that the technology which they’re using and the methods by which they’re doing it raise so many genuine questions that it’s not a question of taking sides, it’s just a question of being a good journalist, and holding what they say up to the light. So it wasn’t a threat. One gets quite used to being lobbied.

“They were saying that they wanted debate within the newspaper. I don’t know if they realised the level of debate which was already there, and the different areas it was coming from. Because biotechnology raises so many different questions, any sort of journalist could end up questioning them, and I don’t think they’d appreciated that.

“And then of course over the last couple of months they’ve had all kinds of setbacks as more and more different groups in Britain have started questioning them and calling for a moratorium. They seem to have united everybody, from die-hard activists through to the Country and Landowners’ Association and the Town Women’s Guilds and the Aids groups and environment groups, the development groups, a lot of scientists – it’s a complete circle of people who are steamed up about what is going on.”

Is that unification of groups picking up momentum all the time?

“I think it is. I’ve no idea where it’s going to go, but certainly there’s a good head of steam, and I can’t think of any groups which don’t have a point of view on it. Everybody is being extremely wary of it – consumer groups, safety groups, farm groups. More than any other subject I think I’ve ever known, it has united all the bodies. The only other subject I can think of which has aroused such broad distrust and disquiet is nuclear power, or nuclear weapons, or anything based on the nuclear issues, which again touched everybody. That was fifteen years ago.

“So here you’re getting a sort of gathering of people which is very, very cautious, and I think most people are saying let’s slow down, and public opinion is very much on that side as well.

“Monsanto is taking very much the lead on this, but behind Monsanto are a whole lot of other companies who are basically keeping their heads down, and Monsanto have been taking all the flack, but now attention is being directed at other companies as well.

“The Guardian isn’t dogmatically against biotechnology, and in certain areas you can argue very well for it, but it’s where the technology is going to go, how it’s going to be regulated, who’s going to regulate it, the environmental, social and economic effects, the effects it’ll have in developing countries . . . It’s these really fundamental questions which are gone over. And I think Monsanto are slightly demonising us, and faintly accusing us of being biased. But it’s not intended that way at all; anybody who comes and says they’re going to change the world, we’ll say by what right, or how dare you, and it’s up to them to come up with the answers, not for them to be accusing us because we’re doing our job.”