"Too often, the line between editorial content and Exxon advertising is being crossed in a paper that won a Pulitzer for its climate coverage."

"The Washington Post exemplifies the best of climate journalism, as reflected in the Pulitzer Prize awarded to a team for the paper's 2020 coverage. The same goes for The New York Times (where I spent 21 years as a reporter and online commentator).

But both media institutions, more than ever, need to update their practices and policies when it comes to supporting all that great journalism through fossil-industry advertising.

The general issue is not new, as you'll read below. But a new trouble sign emerged as I clicked back to a couple of Post columns on paths to effective climate action. Both were interspersed with online ads designed to resemble highlighted article excerpts - sharply and deceptively blurring the line between editorial content and paid fossil advertising.

Here's one, floating in a 2020 opinion article by the journalist Lucia Graves and Ezra Markowitz, an associate professor of environmental decision-making at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, focused on (yes) the intersection of persuasive communication and public engagement with science and environmental sustainability. In midstream there's a classic pull-quote-style boldface quotation of a statement by an Exxon scientist."

Andrew Revkin reports for Sustain What October 18, 2021. [2]

SEE ALSO:

Op-Ed: "Fossil Fuel Branded Content Is a Form of Climate Denial and Propaganda" (Teen Vogue) [3]