Amazon Watch: Chevron Asked to Disclose Relationship to Pat Murphy

Environmental Group Asserts Oil Giant Paying Writers to Pose as
Journalists as Part of Public Relations Campaign
SAN FRANCISCO--(Business Wire)--
The environmental group Amazon Watch today called on Chevron and
the San Francisco-based writer Pat Murphy to divulge their financial
relationship in light of disclosures that Murphy's website accepts
fees for editorial control of news articles written under Murphy's
byline.

"Chevron's public relations office and Pat Murphy appear to be
engaged in an online deception," said Mitch Anderson, an Amazon Watch
official. "Murphy writes pro-Chevron articles under the masthead of a
commercial blog cleverly designed to look like a newspaper."

The disclosure comes at an awkward time for Chevron, which on
Monday begins a trial in San Francisco federal court on charges it
helped the Nigerian military shoot and kill unarmed villagers who had
taken over an oil platform in an act of civil disobedience. Murphy was
slated to cover the trial as a self-styled "independent" journalist
with a press pass from the San Francisco Police Department.

Murphy's website, the San Francisco Sentinel, has the look and
feel of an online newspaper and does not make it clear that it accepts
fees for control of editorial content. For several months Murphy has
been posting a steady stream of commentary and misleading facts to
discredit indigenous groups suing Chevron for environmental
contamination in Ecuador without disclosing he is being paid.

Murphy has also written pro-Chevron blogs regarding the Nigerian
lawsuit that are riddled with inaccuracies and obfuscations, and
largely repeat the talking points prepared by the company's public
relations department.

Although the San Francisco Sentinel is relatively insignificant in
the Bay Area - it ranked 171,939 in popularity among websites this
week compared to 851 for the San Francisco Chronicle - Murphy's blogs
on the Ecuador case are "google-bombed" to the top of search engines
above negative articles about Chevron by more established
publications. There are a number of companies that can be hired to
manipulate Google search results in this fashion.

In a statement released Wednesday reacting to the revelation,
Murphy did not deny he has accepted fees from Chevron or any of its
outside public relations firms. He did deny that he currently works
for Don Solem and Associates, a Bay Area public relations firm which
lists Chevron as a client. Murphy's website boasted that he had worked
for Solem in the past.

An independent court expert in Ecuador earlier this year assessed
damages in the Ecuador case at $16.3 billion for the clean-up of what
some experts call the "Amazon Chernobyl". Chevron has since launched
an intensive public relations and lobbying war to avoid paying any
judgment, including pressuring the U.S. Congress to deny trade
preferences for Ecuador and attacking the highly respected Goldman
Foundation for awarding environmental prizes to Amazon villagers who
brought the lawsuit.

None of Chevron's efforts to avoid paying the judgment seem to be
bearing fruit, as Congress recently extended Ecuador's trade
preferences despite Chevron's lobbying and the Goldman Foundation
basically ignored the company. In Murphy's case, Chevron's strategy
apparently has backfired.

In light of the revelations, Anderson called on Chevron's General
Manager for Public Affairs, Donald Samson, to "come clean" and
disclose whether Chevron or any of its outside public relations firms
have made payments to the San Francisco Sentinel or any other
journalist. The practice of blogging or writing articles on behalf of
clients without disclosing payments is considered highly unethical.

"Neither Chevron nor any other responsible company should have a
policy of paying journalists or bloggers and then failing to disclose
it," said Anderson.

Samson recently has become a public voice for Chevron on the
Ecuador case as the profile of the environmental disaster has risen in
the news media. He has signed several letters to the editor, including
one apologizing for a comment made by a Chevron lobbyist to Newsweek
that "little countries" like Ecuador should not be allowed to "screw
around" with big companies like Chevron.

In the meantime, small links on the Sentinel website soliciting
"fee-based" coverage were removed just hours after a press release was
sent Wednesday to journalists calling attention to the practice. This
was an apparent attempt by Murphy to maintain the facade of
journalistic integrity, said Kevin Koenig, an Amazon Watch organizer.

Koenig said his organization was contacting Google to alert them
to Chevron's manipulations of their search results. He also called on
the San Francisco Police Department to revoke Murphy's press pass
given that he is paid for his articles.

Questions about Murphy's objectivity have been raised before. In
2005, the former co-owner of the San Francisco Sentinel, Luke Thomas,
charged that Murphy moved "away from objective news reporting into
sponsor-supported journalism" and that he secretly sought financial
sponsorship from the Committee on Jobs, a lobbying group for large
businesses in San Francisco.

A final decision on the Ecuador case is expected in 2009.

About Amazon Watch

Amazon Watch's mission is to work with indigenous and
environmental organizations in the Amazon Basin to defend the
environment and advance indigenous peoples' rights in the face of
large-scale industrial development-oil and gas pipelines, power lines,
roads, and other mega-projects.

Amazon Watch
Mitch Anderson, 415-487-9600 or 415-342-4783

Copyright Business Wire 2008