Quinn Thomas PA

<h1 class="entry-title">Behind the PR curtain: Oregon firm played part in effort to counter attacks on herbicide</h1>

<div id="Byline"><a href="http://connect.oregonlive.com/user/jmapes/index.html"> </a>By <a class="fn" href="http://connect.oregonlive.com/user/jmapes/posts.html"> Jeff Mapes, The Oregonian </a>

on February 07, 2012 at 4:34 PM</div>

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A Lake Oswego public affairs firm has come under scrutiny for its role in a broad-based public relations effort mounted by a company seeking to dispel criticism that its widely used herbicide, atrazine, is a public health threat.

The firm,<a href="http://www.quinnthomas.com/#/doug-q-badger"> Quinn Thomas Public Affairs</a>, is headed by Doug Badger and Rick Thomas, who are both well known in Republican political circles in the state.

The public relations effort mounted by Syngenta Crop Protection, the subsidiary of a Swiss-based company, was found in company documents obtained through a lawsuit and reported in a l<a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/02/11277/syngenta-prs-weed-killer-spin-machine-investigating-press-and-shaping-news-about">engthy article by the Center for Media and Democracy's PR Watch.

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It's a fascinating look at how the burgeoning public affairs industry works in seeking to influence regulators and shape public attitudes.

In this case, the company put out a <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/images/1/10/Syn_2009_PR_Request_for_Proposal.pdf">solicitation for PR help</a> and then hired the White House Writers Group, which was started by by a group of former presidential speechwriters.  In its proposal to Syngenta, the White House group said it would work with Quinn Thomas.  According to the article:

<blockquote>Quinn Thomas "was specifically touted for its success in 'engaging' lawyers who represent American consumers and in fighting public interest groups through 'aggressive third party activity.' WHWG said Quinn Thomas' tactics had successfully slowed or reversed 'activist momentum.'"

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The article goes on to say that Quinn Thomas hired an Arizona researcher to look into a journalist who wrote several stories for the Huffington Post about concerns that atrazine -- widely used as a weed killer -- was being found in municipal water supplies around the Midwest and was a potential public health threat.

The March, 2010 <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/images/d/d5/Syn_Ivory_Dossier_and_NRC_PANNA_Tides_all.pdf">report delivered to Quinn Thomas </a>said the reporter, Danielle Ivory, had broken several stories about atrazine, "which means her professional reputation and ego are tied to the effectiveness of the attack on the chemical."

The report also questioned her ties with environmental groups through the Tides Foundation.  Tides helped fund the Huffington Post Investigative Fund, which at one point employed Ivory.  It also said she had worked for a "who's who of anti-employer employers," including longtime public broadcasting journalist Bill Moyers and National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Sunday.

(It was not just Ivory who was looking into atrazine.  The New York Times had written in 2009 about <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/us/23water.html?pagewanted=all">concerns that atrazine was potentially dangerous</a> in lower concentrations than previously thought.)

In addition, the PR Watch story said that Quinn Thomas also received a dossier from the same research company on the Natural Resources Defense Council, which <a href="http://www.nrdc.org/media/2009/090824.asp">published a critical report on atrazine</a>.

PR Watch said that the writers group and Quinn Thomas also worked on an "array of tactics" to advance the company's strategy of getting third parties to support of echo the company's point of view.

One tactic was to have Syngenta's chief scientist ghostwrite a chapter on atrazine that could then be included in a book challenging regulatory policies adverse to the company.

In 2011, a book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Scared-Death-Chemophobia-Threatens-Public/dp/057807561X/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328658207&sr=1-1-fkmr0">"Scared to Death: How Chemophobia Threatens the Public Health,"</a> was released.  It was authored by John Entine, a writer at the American Enterprise Institute who the White House Writers Group had contacted.  The book included a chapter defending atrazine.

Rick Thomas, one of the partners at Quinn Thomas, declined to talk about the article, saying that the firm's "general policy is that we do not comment on work that we may do on behalf of our clients."

Thomas did say that the firm does indeed work to help build alliances among like-minded interests to "help push forward on their specific issues."

PR Watch said that White House Writers Group received more than $1 million in billings for the work, but it's not known what Quinn Thomas made from the Syngenta work.

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deriviative too ?

by <a href="http://www.poynter.org/author/smyers/" title="Posts by Steve Myers" rel="author">Steve Myers</a> Published Feb. 7, 2012 1:14 pm Updated Feb. 7, 2012 4:06 pm

<a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/02/11277/syngenta-prs-weed-killer-spin-machine-investigating-press-and-shaping-news-about">PRWatch</a>

In a <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/02/11277/syngenta-prs-weed-killer-spin-machine-investigating-press-and-shaping-news-about">lengthy story</a> published Tuesday, PRWatch describes <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/images/d/d5/Syn_Ivory_Dossier_and_NRC_PANNA_Tides_all.pdf">how a communications and research firm did a little background research</a> on Danielle Ivory while she was reporting <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danielle-ivory">on health risks of the herbicide atrazine</a>. At the time, Ivory was writing for the Huffington Post Investigative Fund; she’s now at Bloomberg. The memo from <a href="http://maverick-strategies.com/about-us/">Maverick Strategies</a> to <a href="http://www.quinnthomas.com/#/overview">Quinn Thomas Public Affairs</a> states:

We have been asked to prepare a rushed bio for Huffington Post Investigative Fund reporter Danielle Ivory for the purpose of assessing her motivations regarding her coverage on Atrazine. … Our key analysis: Ivory has been described as the reporter who “broke the story on the EPA’s Atrazine cover-up,” which means her professional reputation and ego are tied to the effectiveness of the attack on the chemical.

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The memo notes that the liberal <a href="http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/business-news/newspay/94934/huffington-post-investigative-team-a-nonprofit-model-in-the-making/">Tides Center had contributed to the Investigative Fund</a>, and it concludes that Ivory’s work experience was a ”who’s who of anti-employer employers.” It also says that Ivory “lists no degrees in public health, epidemiology, statistics or other relevant credentials.”

PRWatch says the document was unearthed as part of a lawsuit in which water utilities sought to force Syngenta, the company that makes atrazine, to pay them for the cost of filtering the chemical out of drinking water.
Quinn Thomas Public Affairs is a full service public affairs

consulting firm helping businesses, associations, and individuals

leverage public opinion, expand their influence, and ultimately engage

people to advance their vision.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Quinn_Thomas#cite_note-0">[1]</a>

<h2> Leadership</h2>

<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Doug_Q._Badger&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Doug Q. Badger (page does not exist)">Doug Q. Badger</a> - Partner

Rick Thomas - Partner

Rebecca McAuliffe - Principal

<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mike_Burita&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Mike Burita (page does not exist)">Mike Burita</a> - Principal

<h2> Contact</h2>

Quinn Thomas Public Affairs

5 Centerpointe Drive

Suite 400

Lake Oswego

Oregon 97035

tel: 503.639.0389

fax: 503.914.1588

email: info at quinnthomas.com

<h3> Reference</h3>

<ol class="references"><li id="cite_note-0"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Quinn_Thomas#cite_ref-0">↑</a> Quin Thomas,<a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://www.quinnthomas.com/#/home">[1]</a>, home page, accessed January 20, 2012.</li></ol>

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