Over at his blog Ezra says he's not convinced of my argument about The New Republic's BP-sponsored blog Environment and Eneregy. The question, as he sees it, is whether this is just an ad or if it implies to readers a level of sponsorship that will limit editorial independence. I disagree.
Certainly, publications aren't responsible for the moral quality of all the people who advertise with them, but the key here is that E&E presumably has a point of view about climate change -- Brad Plumer certainly does. Companies like BP (and, more famously, the "clean coal" industry) are engaged in a massive multi-million dollar effort to sell the public on a lie -- that they're seriously committed to minimizing the environmental impact of their work. They're not. By sponsoring an environmental blog they're trying to convince us that they care about the environment because, hey, they gave money to a blog covering it. The act of sponsorship propagates the lie. It has nothing to do with the editorial independence of the blog. The analogy isn't BP advertising on NPR, it's an insurer campaigning against universal healthcare sponsoring Ezra's blog.
--Sam Boyd
