PolluterWatch is serving up a great tongue-in-cheek โmemo to the Koch PR teamโ tonight, noting the obvious blunders from Koch Industriesโ astroturfing and attack squad lately. The Kochtopus keeps revealing just how highly coordinated its media and blogger network is, mysteriously generating defensive and offensive pieces in quick succession at the drop of a billionaireโs hat.
If it werenโt so blatantly obvious in slinging the same mud and honey around the media Koch-o-sphere, perhaps Kochโs ever-ready defender squad might be worthy of compensation? Oh wait, New Media Strategies does get paid by Koch to blatantly and disastrously attempt to edit the Koch profile on Wikipedia.ย
And even if Kochโs friends in media claim to rush to the companyโs defense out of pure ideological zealotry and not for compensation, there are a few instances where that argument fails to impress.ย As PolluterWatch points out, Kochโs PR team recently posted on the companyโs Facebook page about a piece written by Steven Hayward that seemed to support Kochโs anti-science position on climate change and predictably tooted the old Climategate dud.
Head over to PolluterWatch and then ClimateProgress to read about why that didnโt work out so well for the Koch team.
Among the reasons, as PolluterWatch pointsย out:
1986-2009:
Reason Foundation ($2,536,521),
Heritage Foundation ($4,110,571),โจ
Pacific Research Foundation ($1,515,800) and
American Enterprise Institute (only $150,000 from Koch but Exxon gave them $2.8 million).ย
So the total Koch money to Haywardโs groups is $8,312,892.ย Add Exxonโs $4,341,000 and that adds up to a massive $12.65 million of denial punch.ย
PolluterWatch then points out the Koch Facebookย goofs:
During the Wisconsin protests, Kochโs Americans for Prosperity group led the tea party in support of Scott Walker and Koch became a lightning rod for protestors. (Bet that got you going).
Nice work lining up all the bloggers to support Koch – but posting them all in one day on Facebook?ย ย Six posts in just a few hours? 4th March was a busy day for you.ย But seriously, if youโre going to go on the offense, maybe make it a little less obvious?ย
We know you must be paid an awful lot by this client โ are they really getting their moneyโs worth?ย Or did you leave your Facebook strategy up to New Media Services?
But wait, thereโs more.
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