News

As numerous editorial boards across the country continue to criticize the #ExxonKnew campaign, calling the legal basis “flimsy” and the effort itself a “dangerous arrogation of power,” the LA Times is pretty much the only outlet to come to the campaign’s defense.  Case in point: an editorial offered up just this morning complaining about House Science Committee chairman Lamar Smith’s decision to seek additional information from the attorneys general and environmental groups at the center of the campaign.

What the LA Times doesn’t mention in the editorial, however, is that the series it published last year, written by the Columbia School of Journalism, was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) – the same group bankrolling every organization involved in the broader climate RICO campaign. The editorial specifically cites these Columbia stories, yet leaves out these important facts.

Of course, when the Columbia stories were originally published, the LA Times also didn’t feel the need to disclose that they were funded by the Rockefellers. Only after EID and various news outlets called the them out did the outlet quietly add a correction noting the funding source – but that occurred several months after the stories were published. Clearly the LA Times hasn’t learned any lessons.

The decision to run the editorial today also represents a particularly acute case of poor timing, landing on the very same day in which news broke on how the state AGs signed a special pact among each other to nullify transparency laws and...