Submitted to the NYT on 6/18/10
Stephanie Strom’s story, “Nonprofit Advocate Carves Out a For-Profit Niche” contains a number of factual errors that serve to portray Berman and Company in an unfavorable light. The piece overall is clearly biased against Rick Berman, but these errors are inexcusable and should be corrected.
The article blatantly mischaracterizes Mr. Berman’s stance on a controversial issue:
In similar style, Mr. Berman has gone after groups like the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), whose campaign to make all convicted drunken drivers install ignition systems that prevent them from starting their cars when intoxicated amounts, Mr. Berman says, to “de facto Prohibition.”
Mr. Berman never said that putting ignition interlocks in convicted drunk drivers’ cars amounts to de facto Prohibition. Mothers Against Drunk Driving supports having alcohol detection technology installed in all new cars as original equipment, like seatbelts or airbags. For various legal, insurance-liability, and physiological reasons we know that alcohol detectors, once in all cars, won’t be set at the legal limit of .08. It is this position—mandatory installation of interlocks in all cars set well below the legal limit—that Mr. Berman said would amount to de facto Prohibition. Mr. Berman and the American Beverage Institute have been very consistent in their statements on this issue, and if Ms. Strom was unable to understand the distinction between breathalyzers for convicted drunk drivers and breathalyzers for all drivers, she should have checked with her source to clarify. You can see our position represented accurately in many opinion pieces published throughout the country, including this letter in USA Today which explains that requiring interlocks for offenders is simply the first step in getting them in all cars and that “would mean the end to moderate drinking before driving.” This op-ed also differentiates between requiring interlocks for all offenders and requiring them in all new cars.
- Mr. Berman’s wife Dixie does not oversee the bookkeeping for Berman and Company and its nonprofit clients. The accounting function is managed by three CPAs. Mrs. Berman works part-time, mostly tracking down invoices and filling in where necessary. We specifically explained this to Ms. Strom, so we can only assume it was a willful misstatement on her part. One only has to examine any of the organizations’ publically available tax forms, which show Ms. Terri Robbins as the CPA of record, to see the reporting error.
- Mr. Berman did not claim that his firm doesn't get compensated for managing the work of our institutional clients. This reporting mistake makes it look as though Rick is denying that the firm gets paid for research and communications work as well as other management services. Rick being portrayed as denying this basic fact wrongfully gives the appearance of lying.
- Ms. Strom fails to note in the story that the original impetus for her investigation was a specific request by Humane Society of the United States, MADD, and other organizations with which Berman and Company-managed nonprofits do regular battle. The New York Times’ readership is hardly best served when self-interested groups lobby reporters to write attack pieces on their opponents, especially when the Times’ reporters do not even disclose the reason for writing the story.
- The chart attached to the story completely exaggerates the amount of profit Berman and Company earns from its nonprofit clients. The totals reported in the chart include substantial reimbursements for expenses, such as hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising costs which are “passed through” to the advertisers, and travel expenses. For example, Berman and Company will pay for an ad on behalf of the Center for Consumer Freedom—just like any PR firm would for any client—and CCF reimburses BAC for the cost of the advertisement. (Several such ads have been placed in the Times in recent years, as your advertising department can attest.) That’s clearly not revenue going to Berman and Company. The actual management fees are clearly marked on the 2008 990’s. For instance, CCF paid Berman and company $1,043,000—that’s certainly not 93% as your chart states. This should be corrected.