Woke capitalism may claim virtue, but by ignoring major stories like that of Steven Donziger, it shows those claims to be false. I’ve been following the story of Steven Donziger, and at the same time I have been thinking about the shifting class composition of journalism. This important article by former Amazon Worker Kevin Mims in Quillette Bad News—A Review, made we wonder whether the gaping absence of the really important news we see in corporate and establishment media, might be at least partly due to a lack of blue collar writers in journalism. I know there are also huge corporate interests at play, but giving the finger to the man was largely a feature of the blue collar mentality, I think we are all the poorer for the absence of these important voices. Apologies for my usual muddled approach, but I was trying to wrap one story into another.
Yet another great article by Kevin Mims. It echoes many of the observations made by veteran British journalist and commentator Mike Graham (@Iromg on Twitter and who presents The Independent Republic of Mike Graham on Talkradio on YouTube). I have heard him talk about his early days of journalism, when talent school leavers who didn’t even have ‘A’ levels would be subjected to a form of wordsmith apprenticeship within local newspapers, with the best scooped up to the nationals, like sportsmen ascending to the premier leagues.
He also mentioned a historic job swap where tabloid journalists traded places for a short period with writers from more prestige newspapers like the Guardian- the tabloid journalists took to the broadsheets like ducks to water and were able to fill column inches with ease, but ask a more prestige writer to condense down a story to five or six hundred word, to only the bare facts, and they were at a loss.
Probably the best central hub I’ve seen in recent times which raises class issues is Breaking Points, with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti. They are available for free on YouTube, but also have a Substack and can be accessed through Apple Podcasts. They tend to target a millennial audience and consistently outperform CNN in terms of viewership, and whilst I may not always agree with their political viewpoints, what I really value is the fact that they cover stories completely ignored by the corporate media.
They regularly profile interesting writers like the aforementioned Zaid Jilani and Jonah Furman, who also writes at the Intercept and various other outlets, and covers labor issues. He has recently been covering the John Deere strike and the ongoing Kellogg’s labor dispute. Another regular features guest in Matt Stoller, who covers American monopolies with his Substack BIG.
But by far the most significant case Breaking Points have covered recently is that of environmental lawyer Steven Donziger. For those unfamiliar with the case, he won a landmark victory against Oil Giant Chevron for $9.5 billion representing the interests of indigenous people and farmers in Ecuador, for Chevron’s role in contaminating the Lago Agrio region of Ecuador. The case was subsequently upheld by 28 appellate judges in multiple countries and jurisdictions.
Chevron did not take the judgement lying down. They swiftly moved their assets out of Ecuador. They subsequently created a publication to discredit Danziger and hired a team of hundreds of lawyers spanning over 60 firms to investigate him. The tactic paid off. Chevron filed a RICO suit in New York. Based largely on the testimony of one witness, an Ecuadorian Judge Alberta Guerra, who had been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, was moved to the US with his family and received a stipend 20 times his former salary. He later recanted and admitted he had lied. Regardless, the judge in the case, a Judge Lewis Kaplan, was dismissive of the new evidence, claiming his court “would have reached precisely the same result in this case even without the testimony of Alberto Guerra.”
But the most extraordinary episode of this saga was yet to come. After Donziger failed to turn over laptops and other documents to Chevrons, on the basis that it might violate and harm the interests of his clients, Judge Kaplan held him in contempt for his failure to comply with what many might deem an unreasonable demand. When public prosecutors declined to prosecute, Judge Kaplan made the unprecedented move of appointing a private law firm to prosecute the case. Stephen Donziger has subsequently been under house arrest for 787 days, and when a ‘panel of human rights experts commissioned by the United Nations said on September 30 that Donziger’s house arrest violated international civil rights laws and recommended his release’ the case finally moved forward, culminating with six month sentence for contempt of court. A curious result for what began as a civil case.
The whole story has even been the subject of Hollywood Interest. The 2009 documentary Crude followed the story. In 2016 The Hollywood Reporter disclosed that documentary filmmaker Bill Guttentag was directing Rumble in the Jungle a film sympathetic to Donziger, whilst Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B had acquired the right to Law of the Jungle by Paul Barrett, a book highly critical of Donziger. In a final note, dozens of legal organizations around the world representing more than 500,000 lawyers along with over 200 individual lawyers have submitted a judicial complaint against Judge Kaplan.
Regardless of what one might think about the case of Steven Danziger- whether one intellectually is drawn to side with Chevron or Donziger, the is little doubt that this is huge story which would have been covered in the past in great detail, with a frenzy of media and press. Yet today the corporate media is silent. Fox covered the story only in passing- with one reference to Paul Barrett’s book a few year ago. I was unable to find a single listing for CNN or MSNBC. The press has been somewhat more laudable with The Guardian, Forbes and Reuters all covering the story, as well as a slew of independent Left press sources, but one has to wonder, where are the privileged wealthy progressives who inhabit the lofty New York Times and other prestige American publications which Kevin Mims writes about in his Quillette Bad News article?
Could it be that the ESG credentialism of woke capitalism is only a public relations patina, that the woke virtues of those who peddle the more superficial aspects of identity politics at the New York Times could be more than a little jaded? Writing for Medium, Karen Hinton certainly thinks so. One wouldn’t want to annoy the sponsors with anyone remotely resembling real news. To their credit, The New York Times did cover the story back in 2013, but that was before the wave of woke capitalism took over. These days we get stories more like this:
The Donziger case should have been a major news story. In previous eras of journalism it would have been. Perhaps we’ve lost more than we bargained for with what was once a blue collar apprenticeship for the lower middle classes, turning into prestige career for those fortunate enough to attend elite four year universities.
Addendum: One of my readers from a forum I participate in, linked me a very interesting article which shed light on the 2014 court case. It is a Penn Law article which details much of the legal wrangling over the subpoena of outtakes from the documentary Crude. It makes for a compelling read:
The latest opinion from the Southern District of New York betrays misapprehensions about documentary filmmaking, and, in the process, renders documentary out...
Interesting. I’d missed this story too. I’ll have to look into it more. I confess I still don’t fully understand what’s going on from your article alone, but I had no context for it.
This sort of behaviour is, unfortunately, not unknown from a company. In America it harks back to the days when organized crime was used by companies to silence opposition. If one links it to psychology in a company one sees an over-developed attachment to an external entity.
All companies are vulnerable to this kind of reprehensible behaviour though. Do you remember the British Airways affair?
Thanks for elevating this as a topic. I have some reading to do —but surely Brad’s Plan B will do a good job on this. I can certainly believe Judge Kaplan was more than influenced by corporate interests to making the “correct” ruling. Yes journalism has lost much of its connection to real people and honest reflection through populating its ranks with elites and spawn of elites.
> and hired a team of hundreds of lawyers spanning over 60 firms to investigate him
Holy cow. It makes the Kavanaugh inquisition look casual. I guess given enough money you can find something on anyone -- paint Mother Theresa as a whore or Frederick Douglass as a white supremacist. So much easier for comrades Beria, Pot or Mao, they just decided the didn't like you -- that is to say that you are an Enemy Of The People -- and you were dead shortly at minimal expense. Any Latin American colonel would have about the same attitude.
Donziger a crook who tried to shake down Chevron
Much is lost when a field is professionalized; competence being foremost.
I recall the earlier stories on the Chevron case but nothing of the judicial malfeasance. Seems a bit like the treatment of the J6 trespassers.
Thank you for this post. Count me among those who have missed the "Donziger" story. Where would I find the most balanced version?
BTW, when you wrote "But the most extraordinary episode of this saga is yet to come" did you mean "is' or "was?"
Interesting. I’d missed this story too. I’ll have to look into it more. I confess I still don’t fully understand what’s going on from your article alone, but I had no context for it.
This sort of behaviour is, unfortunately, not unknown from a company. In America it harks back to the days when organized crime was used by companies to silence opposition. If one links it to psychology in a company one sees an over-developed attachment to an external entity.
All companies are vulnerable to this kind of reprehensible behaviour though. Do you remember the British Airways affair?
Thanks for elevating this as a topic. I have some reading to do —but surely Brad’s Plan B will do a good job on this. I can certainly believe Judge Kaplan was more than influenced by corporate interests to making the “correct” ruling. Yes journalism has lost much of its connection to real people and honest reflection through populating its ranks with elites and spawn of elites.
> and hired a team of hundreds of lawyers spanning over 60 firms to investigate him
Holy cow. It makes the Kavanaugh inquisition look casual. I guess given enough money you can find something on anyone -- paint Mother Theresa as a whore or Frederick Douglass as a white supremacist. So much easier for comrades Beria, Pot or Mao, they just decided the didn't like you -- that is to say that you are an Enemy Of The People -- and you were dead shortly at minimal expense. Any Latin American colonel would have about the same attitude.
Nice, Sir Geary! "Danzinger" or "Donzinger?"