A green group is surprised The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page has decided to let the group publish a pro-climate action advertisement — for a hefty price.
The Partnership for Responsible Growth, a small, relatively unknown environmental group based in Washington, asked The WSJ in May if it could run 12 ads championing a tax on fuel producers. It planned on placing the ads in the Journal’s editorial pages, which are often hostile toward environmentalists and anti-fossil fuel activists.
The leading business journal passed on the first ad, which had “Exxon’s CEO says fossil fuels are raising temperatures and sea levels,” in its headline, followed by, “Why won’t the Wall Street Journal?”
So, maybe the first ad was a little too salty. The Journal’s advertising department rejected it, according to the environmental group.
The paper accepted the other 11 advertisements — the newspaper charged the group $36,528 for the WSJ-bashing ad while subsequent ads were charged $27,309 each, according to internal documents provided by the group.
WSJ spokeswoman Colleen Schwartz said that any group or company seeking to take on the Journal should expect to pay this amount.
“We’re not really trying to convert or attack the paper,” George Frampton, the co-founder and chief executive of the group, told reporters.
He added: “We’re trying to reach out to a business audience in a medium that never tells them the science is basically settled and that this is a national-security and economic problem . . . I’d say if the Journal won’t cover it, we’ll pay to have them cover it.”
Meanwhile, scientists and environmentalists asked President Barack Obama last year to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to investigate and prosecute groups that “have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, as a means to forestall America’s response to climate change.”
RICO was a law originally designed to bring to heel mobsters like Al Capone and Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, but scientists now plan on wielding it against global warming skeptics, or those who do not abide by the so-called “consensus” on global warming. The scientists pushing RICO statutes claim skeptics use a misinformation campaign to confuse the public on global warming.
“The actions of these organizations have been extensively documented in peer-reviewed academic research and in recent books,” the scientists wrote.
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