When a well-known Washington newspaper planned to run a hit piece on fossil fuel expert Alex Epstein, he started a public campaign to call out the fake news in advance when he learned of it. The result was that the said hit piece was delayed by a week, and most of the slander was removed. It demonstrates an effective method of handling opposition research and smear campaigns camouflaged as news.
Alex Epstein
Epstein is a philosopher, and his 2014 New York Times bestseller The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels established him as an expert in moral questions relating to energy. He has testified before Congress and the Senate and presented at Google and Harvard Business School.
Along with Dr. Bjørn Lomborg, Epstein is one of the leading intellectuals on the question of fossil fuels. Therefore, his new book Fossil Future: Why Human Flourishing Requires more Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas – Not Less has been eagerly anticipated.
The paper in question apparently saw Epstein’s new book as such a significant threat to their radical environmentalist agenda that they concocted an attack on him. Just two days before the article was published, the journalist contacted Epstein, made him aware of the content, and asked for comments.
It referenced a paper Epstein wrote in his teens where he argued that Western culture is superior to other cultures. Even if it explicitly rejected racism and endorsed individualism, the journalist portrayed him as a white supremacist and racist.
Pre-emptive Strike
Rather than responding to the email, he immediately started a social media campaign to alert the public of the coming hit piece. His tweet was shared widely and was mentioned by Joe Rogan on his podcast.
As a result, the article was delayed by more than a week. When it finally appeared, the racism smear had been removed. It was still dishonest and questioned the sincerity of Epstein’s concern for poor people in third world countries based on no evidence, but it was no longer a career-ending smear that would enable radical activists to cancel him on all platforms.
The Recipe
Entrepreneur and Dilbert creator Scott Adams was among the many people who congratulated him on his successful counterstrike. “He did what I’ve never seen anybody do. He actually preemptively took out a hit piece. That’s pretty hard to do. I mean, maybe some billionaire’s done it by money and threats or something, but I’ve never seen a regular person, an author, do it before.”
Epstein encouraged everyone to follow his lead and provided a recipe for stopping opposition research firms posing as newspapers. “When you are the victim of a hit piece, do not 1) comment privately – your words will be mangled or ignored, 2) fail to comment – you’ll look evasive. Instead, comment publicly, preemptively, and conclusively” [emphasis Epstein’s].
He added that if people follow this advice, “good people, including me, will help you.” Epstein received help from Rogan, Adams, and many other public figures, and together they were able to stop the media hatchet job. It is uplifting advice for all truth-tellers that dishonest actors in the media can be defeated.
