NPR Touts Pro-Nuke 'Environmentalists'- Network's own nuclear links undisclosed

An August 15 NPR Morning Edition segment touted the benefits of nuclear power, suggesting it was gaining popularity with many environmentalists who once opposed it.

The segment was an interview with Fortune magazine editor David Whitford, who has written a series of articles about the debate over nuclear power. The piece was introduced by NPR anchor John Ydstie, who asserted that "with fossil fuel carbon emissions in the environmental bull's-eye, nuclear power is starting to shake off its bad reputation." Whitford elaborated on the claim that nuclear power's image is improving: "There are many environmentalists now who began their careers opposed to nuclear power who are now reconsidering nuclear power in the face of global warming."

But Whitford cited just one such environmentalist, Stewart Brand, describing him simply as the creator of the 60s and 70's publication, the Whole Earth Catalogue, and calling him "sort of the original off-the-grid environmentalist." In fact, Brand is currently a businessman, a co-founder and leader of the corporate consulting group Global Business Network (GBN). GBN numbers, among the 192 clients named on its website, more than a dozen corporations and governmental agencies involved in the production or promotion of nuclear energy: General Electric, Bechtel, Duke Power, Siemens-Westinghouse, Fluor, Electric Power Research Institute, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, Électricité de France, Iberdrola, Vattenfall, Sydkraft (now E.ON Sweden) and Sandia National Labratories. Some of these, including GE, Bechtel, Duke Power and Westinghouse, are receiving government subsidies to develop the next generation of nuclear power plants, according to a Department of Energy report. Brand's financial links with the industry went unmentioned in the NPR segment.