Over the course of the last few months, the Center for Consumer Freedom has ramped up its effort to educate Americans about the deceptive fundraising and spending practices of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Most Americans don’t realize that less than one half of one percent of the society’s revenue goes to support hands-on pet shelters, despite their use of tear-jerking ads like this. As our advertising campaign gained traction and donors started dropping like flies, president Wayne Pacelle launched a full-scale personal attack on the Center for Consumer Freedom’s executive director, Rick Berman.
Rather than responding to the substance of our criticisms at HumaneWatch, Pacelle has lashed out, making all manner of bizarre ad hominem attacks against Berman and his staff. He filed an ethics complaint against a Berman-managed trade association, the American Beverage Institute–which, oddly enough, has nothing whatsoever to do with animals–that was so bogus that the environmental lobby should go after Pacelle for all the wasted legal paper.
Going even further off the deep end, Pacelle hired an out-of-work reporter to do a stalker-like, error-riddled “expose” on Berman that featured pictures and video of Berman’s home and cars, respectively.
The New York Times, ever our fans, felt obliged to cover this creepy story. I was quoted in the story asking, “In this new world of fake reporting, how do I go about getting a correction? Is there an ombudsman I can call?” But what about the old world of so-called “real journalism?” Are they any better? It turns out, the answer is “no.”
Recently our friends at the New York Times ran a front page story about Rick Berman and his nonprofit management company attempting to tar it as little more than a way to funnel money through nonprofit groups and into his pocket. We read the piece and thought, “Hey, we’re on the cover of the New York Times!”
The piece, unsurprisingly, doesn’t give us the loving treatment we always hope for from the Times. It was written at the behest of groups like the Humane Society, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (and a few other left-wing groups with which we routinely do battle)–the reporter admitted as much to me in conversation–and we knew it wasn’t going to be all hugs and sunshine. But since we are one hundred percent confident in the way we do business, and have nothing to hide, we invited Stephanie Strom to come hang out with us at Berman headquarters.
She spent two hours talking with me and Rick and we walked her through the way Berman and Company conducts its business. We showed her how we bill hours just like a law firm. Told her about how our boards employ outside auditors to run independent audits on us every year just to make sure we’re doing everything absolutely perfectly. We made our accountants, lawyers and board members available to answer her questions. And we showed her the results of our I.R.S. audits, which all have come to the same conclusion: That our nonprofit status is just fine.
And what did she turn around and do? She wrote a boring, confusing story that had even more factual inaccuracies than the story HSUS paid to have written. It’s filled with insinuation and cheap shots like, “Asked about critics like Wayne Pacelle, executive director of the Humane Society, Mr. Berman said, “You know Wayne is a vegan, right?” After two hours of conversation, with all there is to say (and all that we constantly say) about the Humane Society, that was the big takeaway? Are you sure you’re not just trying to get around printing our actual arguments? Of course you are.
Or there’s this, “Jack Reilly, a former lawyer for the I.R.S., said he thought a case could be made that the Berman nonprofits were established to provide business for Mr. Berman’s firm, and thus were commercial in nature.” I can make a case that the sky is black. But guess what? It’s blue.
But it’s cool New York Times, we’re not mad at you. You were looking for something nefarious and couldn’t find anything, so you had to try to keep it interesting. And unlike the paid piece on the society’s website, you do have an ombudsman we can call. And you can print corrections!
You, the reader, can check out all the factual errors, which we have submitted for formal corrections, here.
We know Wayne Pacelle likes dogs, but his favorite has got to be his New York Times lapdogs. He can sic them on us as often as he wants, because at the end of the day, when you’re on the cover of the New York Times it means people are paying attention to your message. And right now our main message is that the Humane Society gives less than one half of one percent of its revenue to hands-on pet shelters.
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