When is a journalist not a journalist? When she doesn’t let the facts prevent her from furthering a corporate-funded agenda.

We recently became aware of a December 2005 entry on  Lene Johansen's blog  claiming SpinWatch is “run” and funded by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). Johansen, an arts and journalism graduate, is the Director of US Operations for Swedish think tank Eudoxa and writes editorial content for Tech Central Station — a website whose funders, past and present, include AT&T, NASDAQ, McDonald’s, Microsoft and Exxon Mobil.

Johansen cited the ActivistCash.com website as the source of her information on CMD. ActivistCash is the creation of Rick Berman a Washington-based lobbyist for the restaurant, alcohol and tobacco industries. The information on the site is laced with inaccuracies and has been heavily criticised for its unreliability.

ActivistCash is a project of the Center for Consumer Freedom which according to its website is: “…a nonprofit coalition of restaurants, food companies, and consumers working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices. The growing cabal of "food cops," health care enforcers, militant activists, meddling bureaucrats, and violent radicals who think they know "what's best for you" are pushing against our basic freedoms. We're here to push back.”

One of the most basic rules of honest and effective journalism is “check your facts”. SpinWatch is an independent organisation based in Europe. We are not “run” by CMD and receive absolutely no funding from them. We would have told Johansen this if she had asked — but no effort was made to contact us.

In her CV Johansen describes Eudoxa as a: “Built for profit think tank with $35,000 in revenue [for the year] 2004.” In addition to working for Eudoxa for the past six years Johansen “writes editorials on health care and biotechnology for Tech Central Station”

Between December 2004 and November 2005 she also worked as a Communications Specialist for the Show-Me Institute in St Louis where she: “Planned public relations strategy and information systems strategy for start up state policy think tank.”

A Eudoxa press release states: “The main focus of Eudoxa is explaining the cultural impact of emerging technologies integrating our policy analysis with classical free-market ideas and dynamist thoughts of experimentation, innovation and decentralization.”

Eudoxa’s Website says: “Our mission is not to influence the current agenda, as that has already been set by intellectuals more than a decade ago. Our work is to influence tomorrow's agenda.

“We have identified several emerging technologies that will have a profound influence on our society, the way we perceive humanity and the way we live our lives in a few years time. Our mission is to look at these technologies from our free-market, dynamist perspective and put them into a political, cultural and historical context.”

Eudoxa actively promotes a policy of tobacco harm reduction and argues: “The central idea of harm reduction is the recognition that some people always have and always will engage in behaviours which carry risks, like the use of tobacco.

“Harm reduction is intended to mitigate the potential harms associated with tobacco use without prohibiting the use of related products”. As a “for profit” think tank Eudoxa were probably delighted to receive “…an unrestricted gift from International Smokeless Tobacco Company Inc., an affiliate of the US Smokeless Tobacco Company” to finance a harm reduction project.

Eudoxa is active in several other areas including, eliminating tariffs on pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, nanotechnology, climate, environment, intellectual property and health care policy. They are closely linked to the International Policy Network and Stockholm Network.

Both of these networks promote a pro-corporate, free-market ideology and work to influence public opinion via conferences, seminars, books and the print and broadcast media.