Andy Rowell describes himself on Twitter as a "freelance writer/ investigative journalist specialising in environmental, health and lobbying issues".
He's co-author of A Quiet Word: Lobbying, Crony Capitalism And Broken Politics In Britain.
Rowell and his co-author Tamasin Cave are directors of Spinwatch which "investigates the way that the public relations (PR) industry and corporate and government propaganda distort public debate and undermine democracy".
The advisory board of Spinwatch includes some interesting names – Caroline Lucas, Britain's first Green MP and former leader of the Green party; Guardian columnist George Monbiot; and John Pilger, contributor to the Guardian, Mirror, New Statesman and Independent.
He's also a "part-time research fellow at Bath University", home of the Tobacco Control Research Group, so it won't surprise you to learn that Rowell has written an article for the Independent on Sunday today in which he "reveals the tactics of an industry desperate to head off new rules on packaging".
Recycling information that has already been published elsewhere, Rowell writes:
Leaked documents from PMI show the extent of the sophisticated lobbying and media campaign undertaken by the industry to “ensure” that the Government does not introduce plain packaging.
“Tobacco industry whistle-blowers have revealed the underhand use of third parties, front groups and lobbyists to try to prevent new regulations for tobacco,” argued Deborah Arnott from the anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health (Ash).
Messengers identified by PMI, writes Rowell, include:
... the influential campaign group the TaxPayers’ Alliance and the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), the latter having received tens of thousands of pounds of tobacco money. The BBC, in particular, has been heavily criticised for airing the IEA’s views without disclosing its links to tobacco.
Forest gets a mention too:
Forest, predominately funded by the tobacco industry, launched a campaign called Hands Off Our Packs and hired a marketing firm to employ several hundred canvassers in dozens of locations to garner signatures to be submitted to the consultation. Their canvassing tactics have been called into question, including where signatures were forged or canvassers misrepresented how plain packaging works. Forest has condemned these incidents, saying they were “isolated”.
Bias comes in many forms and bias by omission is one of them.
For example, Rowell fails to mention a far more serious case of vote rigging – by tobacco control campaigners – which Angela Harbutt and I wrote about here and here.
He also omits to mention that the BBC's chief critic when it comes to the IEA's tobacco funding is George Monbiot, a member of the Spinwatch Advisory Board.
Another small but significant omission is the fact that the Indy describes Rowell as a "part-time research fellow at Bath University" but fails to explain exactly what he does.
In fact, he's a senior research fellow with the University's Tobacco Control Research Group, a job he shares with Dr Eveline Lubbers.
According to her profile:
Together they developed TobaccoTactics.org as a cutting-edge model of monitoring the tobacco industry, launched in June 2012.
Rowell can call himself a "freelance writer/investigative journalist" but anyone involved in an exercise like that is also a propagandist for the tobacco control industry. (See my review of Tobacco Tactics, published in October 2012.)
Then again, his obsession with the tobacco industry goes back a long way, so at least he's consistent. Here are two examples:
Tobacco explained: The truth about the tobacco industry in its own words, Clive Bates and Andy Rowell (1998)
No smoke without fire (2000): Tobacco smuggling has reached epidemic levels. But tobacco companies themselves are fuelling the trade. Andy Rowell and Rich Cookson report.
Anyway, if you want to read Rowell's article in today's Indy, go to Plain packaging: Big Tobacco prepares for ‘bare-knuckle fight’ over ban.