An Exxon lobbyist thought he was in a job interview. Instead, it was recorded
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
Lobbyists are just another form of salesperson or relationship manager outside of conventional sales. Like hiring PR firms (another form of influence sales), they claim to have done shit they actually didn't do. They may have been there at the time it happened but their causal impact was nowhere near what they claim. Even when not exaggerating to get a job, these people wildly over-estimate their own impact.
The headline would more accurately be: "Candidate in competitive job interview for role in influence-sales exaggerates accomplishments and confidently over-promises future results."
(Edit to add: I was in a public company. There was no shortage of candidates (both people and firms) willing to at least imply they would or could do some fairly shady shit. We would thank them for their time and never call them back. While they may collect their fee or paycheck, my boss can go to jail and, at best, I'll only get insta-fired for even participating in the selection process, losing all my unvested options, no one-year severance/benefits.
The downside cost of even being near shady shit in a high-profile successful public company is personally catastrophic in the millions of dollars and a reputation hit to the company that wipes billions off our market cap overnight - and it only has to be the slightest bit true. Sure, you might get away with sleazy shit and get ahead one time. BUT it's not a reliably repeatable pattern and big public companies are built on real revenue and results over time. It's no different than PR. There are sleazy media outlets and/or journalists who can be unfairly influenced for $$$ but they tend to be minor league and not very valuable. At most, spending a lot on effective lobbying or PR gets you access to make your case. And often, you can spend a ton and not even get that much.)
That's a legitimate strategy by activist organizations.
>there’s the PETA Principle: the more controversial something is, the more it gets talked about.
>A rape that obviously happened? Shove it in people’s face and they’ll admit it’s an outrage, just as they’ll admit factory farming is an outrage. But they’re not going to talk about it much. There are a zillion outrages every day, you’re going to need more than that to draw people out of their shells.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage...
> “There’s only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” … Oscar Wilde
Maybe. But you’d better be sure you would still feel that way if the ‘activist organisation’ is espousing views you find abhorrent.
I believe the actual issue with Project Veritas is the highly deceptive edits they make to their targets' statements, not that they falsely identified themselves to get their targets to talk. It's totally consistent to be opposed to the former and not the latter.
Also, your statement is a non sequitur. It's like responding someone who says it's fine to be a vegetarian by saying they must be fine with Hilter and his genocides (since he was a vegetarian too). Sometimes you can trip people up with statements like that, but it's dumb, doesn't prove anything, and makes you look like an ass.
I drew a pertinent distinction, which you seem to be ignoring. Or are you confusing me for another commenter? I made no statement previous to the one you replied to.
Did Greenpeace edit this interview to do something like give a false impression of what this guy actually told them? That's what Project Veritas often does. For instance, here's a conservative news outlet dissecting the kind of deceptions they engage in: https://www.theblaze.com/news/2011/03/10/does-raw-video-of-n.... The article outlines a lot of deceptive edits in one video, but some of them are particularly egregious, e.g.:
> So after saying that the MEAC website advocates the “acceptance of Sharia,” the video cuts to the NPR exec saying, “Really? That’s what they said?” The cadence is jovial and upbeat and the narration moves on. The implication is that the NPR exec is aware and perhaps amused or approving of the MEAC mission statement. But when you look at the raw video you realize he was actually recounting an unrelated and innocuous issue about confusion over names in the restaurant reservation.
I mean, that's not too far off from this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_yJ4QhrAaM&t=57s
Should this be illegal? Not generally.
Should it be more transparent who lobbies for what? Absolutely. In my opinion meeting notes of politicians / lobbyist ought to be a matter of public record.
Also: is lobbying for policies that directly cause environmental damage and kill people morally corrupt and evil. Yes.
Whether or not these are things he has done, they are things he (and the company) are trying to do.
I'm upset, not surprised. Does evil suddenly become totally OK and cool just because I know it exists? Of course not.
> or even very controversial here
Hard disagree. The greenwashing faction makes a very big deal of having genuine positive intentions. They got caught in a lie. They got caught so hard that they had to acknowledge the controversy and double down on their position. We have an attack and a counterattack -- blood is running hot. Not only is it controversial, it's maximally controversial.
> I've participated in the process of hiring high-end firms to do lobbying work.
> The headline would more accurately
No, your proposal is not more accurate, but it is more in line with company interests. It works overtime to draw attention away from the inferences that can be drawn from the evidence (i.e. that the greenwashing is a lie and that companies are actively involved in self-interested efforts to curtail environmental efforts) and makes every effort to push the blame down to the individual level. How convenient.
Nice try.
> I'm upset, not surprised. Does evil suddenly become totally OK and cool just because I know it exists? Of course not.
Also, nothing surprising [to someone who's "participated in the process of hiring high-end firms to do lobbying work"] != nothing surprising [to the general public].
Also, it's annoying when someone deflects a statement (implicit or otherwise) about what ought to be with a statement about what is.
So, not in the abstract, what can you, the tech savvy HN reader, and the rest of us, do about this kind of stuff? I know that taking a study like this and amplifying it's signal is one positive, actionable thing (I've forwarded the article to a group of folks I know have active presence in places where it could matter). I'm curious as to what you all do to fight against [ shitty lobbyists, busted democracy, climate change ] that might be unintuitive to others?
Specifically, I'm not asking whether these things are worth fighting for. There's enough discussion about that. Just for those of us who see the problems; wat do?
"In cities and states across the country, citizens are using a piece of model legislation called the American Anti-Corruption Act to root out conflicts of interest and corruption where they live. Time and again, history has seen laws passed at the city and state level make it all the way to Washington and turn into federal law.
Local Anti-Corruption Acts and Resolutions build momentum towards national reform, since politicians running an anti-corruption platform seed Congress with representatives, not pre-purchased by special interests."
I remember reading Republic, Lost years ago. it's good to see action plans around that material.
> In the United Kingdom, all parties are required to be notified and give consent regarding recordings. The only exceptions are if the person making the recording can guarantee that it won’t be shared with third parties, and that it is being recorded either to collect evidence/prevent possible crime or to prove regulatory compliance.
Several USA states have "all party consent" laws as well. Namely California, Florida, and some others. So where were the Greenpeace people located, and where was McCoy located? Because this sounds like a felony to me.
> Industry codes for British broadcasters and newspaper are more permissive than U.S. publications, according to Glenda Cooper, a senior journalism lecturer at City, University of London. Intrusions such as an undercover recording can be seen as a last resort for information deemed to be in the public interest. "It is seen as part of the investigative journalist’s tool kit, if it can be justified,” she said. “It’s not the first thing that you do."
Does Greenpeace get to decide what's legal and what's not in the UK? I don't really care about this one way or another, I'm just interested in the legality of this recording and subsequent release in the first place.
[0] https://getvoip.com/blog/2020/07/14/call-recording-laws/
Really odd thing to focus on.
Likely OK, but also maybe illegal.
Fair?
“Instead it was a secretly recorded Zoom call.” provokes the image that they thought they were at an (in person) job interview, while it was actually a Zoom call. Irritating, because the job interview would also have been on Zoom. They weren’t surprised to find themselves in a Zoom call.
In this case, Democracy Dies Behind Paywall. Adding WashingtonPost.com to my [manual] filtering process
allow me to buy one issue, or one story or 50 tokens or something.
But between two papers, one national broadcaster that costs me n x $100, Netflix, Spotify, supporting Amnesty and Médecins Sans Frontières, my family and my church there isn't room for everyone who want me to subscribe.
The problem with that idea is:
1) it doesn't result in a predictable revenue stream (required for good investigative journalism), and...
2) it incentives click-bait and outrage-bait more than anything else.
Yes. And as I wrote above I don't expect anyone to get rich from it if done according to how I thought it would work.
As for avoiding click bait, what blendle did was to offer refunds. I think they later reversed that policy, and I think that was the point I gave them up (also Linux magazines and other stuff I wanted to read never showed up).
Still, for someone wanting to be running a decent company, not a unicorn factory I think there is a niche:
I actively read very much, even from journalists I deeply disagree with, and I'd rather spend $2 extra a day on good writing than coffe (for instance).
I don't disagree, but it's hilarious because The Washington Post is one of the biggest darkness merchants there is.