The New York Times has a great story about Chevron hiring a former CNN reporter to produce a “news” report to counter a 60 Minutes segment on the oil company’s contamination of the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador.
On May 3, 60 Minutes ran a story on the $27 billion lawsuit against Chevron for environmental damage, featuring footage of the rainforest and interviews with the Ecuadorean judge handling the case and a Chevron manager. Chevron hired Gene Randall, a former CNN correspondent, to tell its own version of the story, featuring the Chevron manager and five professors who are consultants to the oil company, but no plaintiffs involved in the case.
The two videos are below. First, the 60 Minutes segment, and second, the Chevron video, where you can see the “journalistic integrity” of Chevron and Randall in all its glory:
