Amazon Defense Coalition: San Francisco Journalist Writing Blogs for Chevron to Discredit Indigenous Groups

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A San Francisco editor and publisher of an online publication that regularly criticizes the lawsuit against Chevron for oil contamination in the Ecuadorian rainforest also works for Chevron’s public relations firm, Don Solem & Associates.

“Pat Murphy masquerades as journalist but he is shilling for Chevron’s public relations firm without disclosure”

Pat Murphy, editor and publisher of the San Francisco Sentinel, provides a steady stream of negative commentary and misleading facts in his online publication about the lawsuit, filed on behalf of 30,000 Ecuadorians who live in the area that Texaco explored and drilled for oil between 1964 and 1990. Chevron bought Texaco in 2001.

Murphy has never disclosed that he works for Chevron. Many of his blogs criticizing the lawsuit are “google bombed” so they appear at the top of search engines above more established media outlets that have covered the landmark class action case.

Murphy, for example, has published a series of long interviews with Chevron’s public relations representatives without providing any information rebutting the assertions, many of which are misleading. For example, Murphy never mentions the 64,000 chemical sampling results from Chevron’s former sites in Ecuador that show levels of toxic contamination and were used as a basis for an independent, court-appointed expert to assess damages at between $7.2 billion and $16.3 billion.

“Pat Murphy masquerades as journalist but he is shilling for Chevron’s public relations firm without disclosure,” said Kevin Koenig, a campaigner with the environmental group Amazon Watch.

On the Sentinel’s web site, Murphy says “his writing skill has been employed by marketing agencies, including Don Solem & Associates”. Solem & Associates lists the Chevron Corporation as one of its clients under the Energy and Public Utilities industry client listing.

Murphy also has a small note on his website saying it is “fee-based”.

Earlier this year, two Ecuadorians who represent the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Chevron won the CNN Hero Award and the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize. At the time, Chevron undertook a campaign to discredit the Ecuadorians – Pablo Fajardo and Luis Yanza -- with top-ranking officials at the Goldman Foundation, saying he had “conned” the Goldman jury.

When that pressure did not work, Chevron turned to the news media – Murphy in particular -- and tried to taint Fajardo and Yanza as people who cared only about money and not about the people of Ecuador.

In court, Chevron has admitted that Texaco dumped 18.5 billion gallons of toxic waste into Amazon waterways and abandoned over 900 waste pits while it operated the oil concession. Tens of thousands of people now live in the middle of the contamination, some directly on top of waste pits Chevron covered with dirt without cleaning out contaminants.

Health problems and cancer rates in the region have skyrocketed in recent years, according to scientific evidence presented by the plaintiffs. Neither Texaco nor Chevron has ever conducted a single health study of the area nor published a map for local residents detailing the sites of its covered waste pits – facts Murphy, not surprisingly, has failed to mention in his blogs.

A final decision in the case is expected in 2009.

About the Amazon Defense Coalition

The Amazon Defense Coalition represents dozens of rainforest communities and five indigenous groups that inhabit Ecuador’s Northern Amazon region. The mission of the Coalition is to protect the environment and secure social justice through grass roots organizing, political advocacy, and litigation.