As opposed to everyone else's manipulation of op-eds...? 'Manipulation of opinion by editorial' is kind of the point of 'opinion-editorial' sections. If we go through the NYT op-ed page for the past 5 years, would we find more positive or negative mentions of Google and Facebook?
This kind of thing is rampant in Big Pharma also. Fake grassroots organizations, fake op-Ed’s, constant attacks on anyone who isn’t inline with them, ghost publishing in “prestigious” journals, reputation laundering everywhere, and just straight buying people off. Look at the article from the other day in the bbc about losing someone to cancer conspiracies theories. Good chance that article is planted. The actual title was just false. People die most of the time on treatment for cancer anyways (usually with a lot of pain and side effects of chemo) as people who have lost loved ones know. But the bbc wants to make sure we crack down on misinformation that MAY be killing you. Pure BS. On the other hand you never see articles about how breast cancer screenings in young women actually increase the death rate (proven) or anything critical of Pharma. Anyone who knows anything about these areas knows that the level of corruption and sometimes evil is astounding.
That breast cancer screening leads to higher mortality is a big claim. Any evidence? A web search on this topic seems to show that, at worst, screening has no impact on outcomes.
This article is from a book review about the subject but it has enough in there. The reasoning is pretty simple. Early intervention doesn’t help that much because treatments don’t work. And false positives in diagnosis lead to over treatment which is incredibly dangerous. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3563917/
Can anyone point me towards more general discussion about the topic - where Op-Ed pages are used by influential groups to sway opinions. Looking at individual instances seems like playing whack-a-mole, would be interested in the more general approach to solve the problem.
In my experience this is standard practice in the PR industry and isn’t seen as a problem to solve or viewed as any sort of ethical dilemma.
In the industry these articles would be talked about as a “3rd party op-eds”, and the general practice of finding “3rd party advocates” is a key element of any issues advocacy campaign.
The practice doesn’t stop at op-eds. PR firms or in-house corporate communications teams cultivate a roster of business leaders, academics, politicians, etc that can be called upon to speak on panels at conferences, participate in media interviews, be featured in documentaries and show up in other creative ways.
In the PR world it’s a taken as a given that “your message is most powerful when it comes from a respected third party” so this practice is pervasive and impacts every conference you’ve ever attended, op-Ed pages on a daily basis, and many of the media stories you read.
As for solving it, I’m not aware of any groups dedicated to that cause. Raising awareness is one step — ham-fisted astroturfing made public is embarrassing for a company, but 3rd party advocacy is generally more subtle and not viewed as astroturfing by PR pros.
