A deadline is looming and your breaking news story involves some tricky statistics, so you place a call to the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS), a Washington, DC, organization that works with science journalists to help them convey statistical information more accurately and effectively. STATS puts you in touch with one of its experts, who quickly provides a nontechnical interpretation of what appears to be a baffling set of statistics. You meet your deadline with time to spare, but now there is a nagging worry: Who are the people behind STATS, where do they get their money, and what is their motivation for helping journalists?

These questions have been the subject of an ongoing debate on nasw-talk, an Internet mailing list maintained by the National Association of Science Writers (NASW). NASW members have noted that information about the funding source(s) is not provided on the STATS Web site and that the site lists a number of conservative commentators as members of its advisory board. As a result, some science writers have expressed strong suspicions about the organization's motives. Such skepticism may not be unfounded; corporations or organizations with political agendas often create what sound like grassroots or academic nonprofit organizations in an attempt to influence the news media and promote a particular agenda.

Corporations and organizations with political agendas, frequently working through public relations agencies, have "learned to mimic and copy social activism used by the labor unions and real grassroots groups," says John Stauber, executive director of the Center for Media & Democracy and coauthor of Toxic Sludge Is Good for You!: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry. Such propaganda-for-hire PR groups frequently create phony grassroots organizations to concoct and spin news reports. The term "astroturf" was coined by then-senator Lloyd Bentsen (D - Texas) to distinguish these carefully manufactured advocacy groups from authentic grassroots organizations, which are born of a spontaneous outpouring of sentiment.

Stauber first came into contact with an astroturf organization while working on an effort to block Monsanto from getting marketing approval for bovine growth hormone. "A group of women who described themselves as housewives from a group called Maryland Citizens Consumer Council came to our meetings and expressed an interest in the controversy over bovine growth hormone," Stauber recalls. "Eventually we learned that these 'housewives' were employed by the PR firm Burson-Marsteller to spy on us and provide information about our activities to Monsanto."

Even the most prestigious news organizations may be duped by astroturf. Jane Brody, health and science writer for the New York Times, wrote an article called Health Scares That Weren't So Scary for the August 18, 1998 issue, in which she debunked the link between coffee and pancreatic cancer, the carcinogenic effects of Alar and electromagnetic radiation, and the dangers of bovine growth hormone. That article was simply a rewrite of material provided by the American Council for Science and Health - "a front group for the chemical industry," says Stauber - with no attempt to disclose the source of material or provide balanced coverage. "Pasting together stories is lousy journalism. Jane Brody was lazy," he concludes.

Stauber is most concerned by the influx of what he says are billions of dollars under the banners of organizations with benign-sounding names - money that has succeeded in totally corrupting grassroots citizen involvement in the discussion of health issues and political questions. Such PR "has totally blown out of the water discussion of the need for universal health care. It's a politically dead issue," he states, despite strong continued interest in the public arena.

Corporations, trade associations, political groups, and PR agencies involved in producing astroturf are simply exercising their right to free speech, says Jack Bonner, president of Bonner & Associates, one of the major PR firms engaged in astroturf activities; past clients include the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association and a consortium of automobile manufacturers opposed to the Clean Air Act. "The more participants in the discussion the better," notes Bonner; "as long as they identify themselves, they should be able to engage in the discussion. Frequently people on both sides of an issue engage in this [astroturf] activity. It is the job of the journalist to weigh both sides of an issue."

"We've got to be big boys about this," says Barne Calame, deputy managing editor of the Wall Street Journal. He believes that "lots of people are spinning" and that few sources of information are actually pure. As he sees it, the press's job is to not believe just anything. "I don't think phony grassroots organizations are a problem. The most dangerous time for a journalist is on deadline. The closer to deadline, the more cautious the journalist should be. Remember, there is always tomorrow, time to be thoughtful," he notes.

Calame believes that a greater threat for the Wall Street Journal comes from industries and organizations providing selective information to reporters. "We find some companies and industries come to us with a bunch of documents with information we couldn't get any other way. The reporter gets excited and wants to do the story," he says. Trial lawyers are particularly apt to do this, according to Calame, but the information provided is almost always selective and gives a slanted picture of the situation. "It's OK to take that stuff," he says, "but to buy into it [without question] can lead us astray." Calame thinks that aggressive PR is far from quashing discussion of important issues at the grassroots level. Take the Internet, for example. "Communication on the Web allows a huge diversity of viewpoints," he notes. However, credibility is a major issue. The Drudge Report on the Web cannot be trusted, but such sites allow many voices to be heard, concludes Calame.

So what about STATS? Although much of its funding comes from conservative organizations, STATS provides an unbiased critique of statistical information and specializes in debunking many of the myths that have arisen due to inappropriate use of statistical information in the media, claims an editorial from the October 30, 1998 issue of the Baltimore Sun. The paper quotes Robert Lichter, a political scientist who runs the parent organization for STATS, the Center for the Media and Public Affairs, and serves as the president of STATS, as acknowledging "the rightward tilt of key backers. 'The conservative foundations fund you first because they hate the media the most,' he says. But he notes that money for the center also has come from the Latino rights group La Raza, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Ford Foundation." Stauber rightly points out, however, that STATS is not an unbiased agency like the National Academy of Sciences or the American Association for the Advancement of Science. So be careful - if STATS is the source of interpretation for otherwise unfathomable statistics, the interpretation they provide may come with a slight slant to the right.