Bermans Modus Operandi

Berman has a well-worn playbook that he uses again and again. His main tactics are using his nonprofits to attack the credibility of public interest groups and change the debate1 by changing the subject and muddling the facts. Bermans groups push their message to the media in op-eds and press releases and run hyperbolic ads in high-profile publications and during prominent events such as the Super Bowl and the Oscars.2 Bermans groups shoot the messenger to defend business interests. Our offensive strategy is to shoot the messenger, Berman told Chain Leader in 1999 regarding fighting activist groups. Weve got to attack their credibility as spokespersons.3 Asked to clarify his comments while testifying before a House committee in 2002, Berman said, it is a strategy to to reposition people who have a pristine image which is undeserved.4 If thats shooting the messenger, then Im guilty of it, Berman added.5 In 2003, Berman told Agri Marketing, You have to delegitimize activists in the consumers eyes.6 He advises industries to go negative to defend their interests. People remember negative stuff. They dont like hearing it, but they remember it, Berman said at the 2010 Nebraska Farm Bureaus Legislative Conference, according to Nebraska Farm Bureau News. We can use fear and anger it stays with people longer than love and sympathy.7 One way Berman uses fear and anger is through over-thetop derogatory comparisons. Berman and his staffers have compared opponents to terrorists, dictators, segregationists, and criminals.8 BCIs pitch to industry stakeholders is Lose Pretty or Win Ugly. Then-Berman and Company, Inc. (BCI) and Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) research director David Martoskos presentation at the 2010 Ohio Livestock Coalition Annual Meeting & Industry Symposium was titled, Lose Pretty or Win Ugly. The Humane Society of the United States is the single biggest threat to animal agriculture that Americans have ever seen, read the description of Martoskos talk. Join us for a frank discussion about the need for an aggressive, take-no prisoners approach to dealing with wealthy and powerful organizations like HSUS.9

http://www.bermanco.com/; Rick Berman, The Don Imus Debacle Shows The Importance of Managing a Crisis Before It Manages You, Nations Restaurant News, May 28, 2007. 2 Chris Good, The Other Political Super Bowl Ad, The Atlantic, February 8, 2010; Adam Serwer, The PR Man Behind the Oscar Night Anti-Humane Society Slam, Mother Jones, February 28, 2012. 3 Charles Bernstein, The Zealot, Chain Leader, December 1999. 4 Rick Berman testimony, Oversight Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health of the House Committee on Resources, February 12, 2002. 5 Id. 6 Marlys Miller, Oh, What A Tangled Web They Weave: Todays Animal Rights Activists Challenge the Food Systems Passive Stance, Agri Marketing, July 1, 2003. 7 Ag Must Go On Offensive to Counter Animal Rights Movement, Nebraska Farm Bureau News, February 17, 2010. 8 Dan Hanrahan, Opinion: Is Our Use of the Term Sustainability Sustainable?, Beef, July 19, 2012; Josh Eidelson, Center for Union Facts Steps Up $10 Million Ad Campaign Backing Broad Anti-Union Bill, January 24, 2012; Daniel Halper, Chicago Tribune Refuses to Print Anti-Teachers Union Ad, The Weekly Standard, September 13, 2012; HumaneWatch, Is Wayne Pacelle the Bernie Madoff of the Charity World?, available at http://www.humanewatch.org/is-wayne-pacelle-the-bernie-madoff-of-the-charity-world/. 9 Ohio Livestock Coalition flyer, April 8, 2010.

Berman views advocacy for industry as an endless war that must be fought. A PowerPoint presentation Berman prepared for the 2012 Minnesota Agri-Growth Council Annual Meeting & Speakers Conference featured a slide declaring endless war. Another slide in the presentation featured a quote from Al Capone that seems to serve as a motto for Berman: You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.10 According to the Minnesota Agri-Growth Councils newsletter, Berman urged the food industry to go on the offensive against animal rights groups during his presentation.11 We should attack their credibility using ridicule and humor not for what theyve said but for who they are, Berman reportedly said. Berman has told the beer industry that they need to have a relentless offensive campaign in order to change public opinion in the industrys favor.12 Youre in a war, an economic war, Berman told attendees at the 2011 Foodservice at Retail Exchange.13 Bermans groups spam small newspapers with letters to the editor and op-ed pieces. One local newspaper editor, John Stoehr, described in the Columbia Journalism Review how he looked at the Employment Policies Institutes (EmPI) website and found nearly 90 letters to the letter all written by BCI employee Michael Saltsman.14 Many were duplicates that varied only to fit the subject matter of whatever article they were responding to, Stoehr wrote. Such letterto-the-editor spam is common practice at BCI. In 2011, Bermans nonprofits collectively reported to the IRS getting at least 184 op-eds and letters to the editor published.15 According to a CREW analysis, in the first three months of 2013 alone, BCI got at least 49 op-eds and 55 letters to the editor published in news outlets across the country. Berman unashamedly misrepresents scientific findings to defend business. Berman regularly accuses his opponents of using junk science to support their arguments, but in reality, he and his employees have few qualms about misrepresenting science and citing misleading evidence.16 For instance, according to a 1999 Washington Post article, Berman defended the use of the pesticide Alar on apples in one of his Guest Choice newsletters by claiming that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had concluded one would have to eat 50,000 pounds of apples a day over a lifetime to contract cancer from Alar.17 An EPA spokeswoman told the paper that, to her knowledge, the agency never issued that kind of statement. Berman later admitted that the source for his claim was a statement made by Uniroyal, the manufacturer of

10

Berman and Co. PowerPoint presentation, Minnesota Agri-Growth Council Annual Meeting & Speakers Conference, November 13, 2012. 11 In the Trenches Against Radical Animal Rights Activists, Minnesota Agri-Growth Council Newsletter, December 2012. 12 Beer Wholesalers Meet in New Orleans; Emphasis on New Public Affairs Initiative to Boost Beer Industry Image, Modern Brewery Age, September 25, 2000. 13 Mitch Morrison, Protect Your Bottom Line , CSP Daily News, June 29, 2011. 14 John Stoehr, Letter Man, Columbia Journalism Review, December 23, 2011. 15 Center for Consumer Freedom, IRS Form 990, Initial Return 2011, filed November 8, 2012; Employment Policies Institute, IRS Form 990, Initial Return 2011, filed November 12, 2012; Center for Union Facts, IRS Form 990, Initial Return 2011, filed November 12, 2012; American Beverage Institute, IRS Form 990, Initial Return 2011, filed November 12, 2012; Enterprise Freedom Action Committee, IRS Form 990, Initial Return 2011, filed November 12, 2012; Family Coalition, IRS Form 990, Initial Return 2011, filed November 12, 2012. 16 Kevin Corke, Food Industry Fights Back on Obesity Claims, NBC News, July 6, 2005. 17 Carole Sugarman, Picking A Food Fight; Rick Berman Says Hes Defending Your Restaurant Rights, Washington Post, November 10, 1999.

Alar, based on an extrapolation of a mice-feeding study submitted by the EPA.18 For years, Berman pushed back against restaurant smoking bans by claiming that in 1998 the World Health Organization (WHO) had found no significant link between secondhand smoke and lung cancer.19 In fact, the WHO said at the time that its study had been completely misrepresented and passive smoking causes lung cancer.20 After one of Bermans employees, Trice Whitefield, cited the National Weight Control Registry as saying that the one common formula for success among its members is not how little they eat or how often they record their food, but how much they move,21 one of the co-investigators for the registry told the San Francisco Chronicle that Whitefield was misrepresenting the registrys work and it actually showed dietary restraint and monitoring were key to weight loss.22 The arguments made by Bermans groups are not trusted by experts and academics. They make a lot of noise, but nobody in academia takes their arguments seriously, Dr. David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Childrens Hospital in Boston, told the New York Times.23 According to the Times, Katherine M. Flegal, a senior research scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions National Center for Health Statistics, is another scientist who objects to Bermans statistical nit-picking. Bermans CCF claimed that a study co-authored by Flegal proved that concern about obesity was hype, but Flegal said groups like CCF overinterpreted her results. Just because you dont have a risk of excess death doesnt mean youre healthy, Dr. Flegal said.24 Bermans tactics and positions are so outrageous, even his own son has denounced him. David Berman, who is an accomplished poet and songwriter, publicly broke with his father in 2009, calling him a despicable man an exploiter. A scoundrel.25 He props up fast food/soda/factory farming/childhood obesity and diabetes/drunk driving/secondhand smoke, the younger Berman wrote of his father. He attacks animal lovers, ecologists, civil action attorneys, scientists, dieticians, doctors, teachers.

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Id. Rick Berman, Operators Simply Must Not Allow Government to Dictate Policy, Nations Restaurant News, July 20, 1998; Press Release, Guest Choice Network, Montgomery County, Maryland, Plans $750 Fine If Smoking Bothers Neighbors; Guest Choice Network Asks, Whats Next?, November 21, 2001. 20 Press Release, World Health Organization, Passive Smoking Does Cause Lung Cancer, Do Not Let Them Fool You, March 9, 1998. 21 Trice Whitefield, Exercise Beats Diet Diary, San Francisco Chronicle, July 13, 2008. 22 Dick Rogers, Name of Organizations Can Be Deceiving, San Francisco Chronicle, July 20, 2008. 23 Melanie Warner, Striking Back at the Food Police, New York Times, June 12, 2005. 24 Id. 25 Derek Evers, Silver Jew David Berman The Son Of Conservative Lobbyist Richard Berman? Oh, And Hes Quitting Music, Fader, January 23, 2009.