Acting is a tough business. But there’s one growth area.
“They paid us to sit through the meeting and clap every time someone said something against wind and solar power,” Keith Keough told The Lens, saying he was not political and just needed the money.”
“Grass Roots” activists for hire. New story from New Orleans is consistent with other incidents in recent years.
New Orleans Times Picayune:
Local actors were paid to attend New Orleans City Council meetings last year in a show of support for a proposed Entergy power plant, collecting $60 to $200 for performances that at times included prewritten speeches with talking points favoring the plant — in other words, “speaking roles,” The Lens reports.
“I’m an excellent speaker,” an actor told the news site. “I was their best choice. Of course I had a speaking role, are you kidding?”
It’s not clear who fueled the paid lobbying effort but paying people to “create the illusion of grassroots support,” a practice known as “astroturfing,” is apparently legal, according to The Lens report.
Still, attorneys for a coalition of organizations in opposition to the power plant say they want state and local officials to investigate whether this particular instance of astroturfing broke any laws.
The same coalition has filed a lawsuit alleging that the city council broke state open-meetings law by keeping some citizens out of meetings that involved the proposed power plant.
With the paid actors in attendance, an October public hearing was so packed that some citizens had to wait until the crowd shrank before they were allowed inside council chambers.
In a statement emailed Friday night, Entergy New Orleans President and CEO Charles Rice said the company did not pay anyone to attend the council meetings or direct anyone to attend public meetings.
“Instead, we worked tirelessly to encourage our supporters to take time from their busy workday schedules to testify on behalf of this project,” Rice said.
Longer story here and at link.
The Lens – New Orleans:
Last October, about 50 people in bright orange shirts filed into City Hall for a public hearing on Entergy’s request to build a $210 million power plant in eastern New Orleans. Their shirts read, “Clean Energy. Good Jobs. Reliable Power.”
The purpose of the hearing was to gauge community support for the power plant. But for some of those in the crowd, it was just another acting gig.
At least four of the people in orange shirts were professional actors. One actor said he recognized 10 to 15 others who work in the local film industry.
They were paid $60 each time they wore the orange shirts to meetings in October and February. Some got $200 for a “speaking role,” which required them to deliver a prewritten speech, according to interviews with the actors and screenshots of Facebook messages provided to The Lens.
“They paid us to sit through the meeting and clap every time someone said something against wind and solar power,” said Keith Keough, who heard about the opportunity through a friend.
He said he thought he was going to shoot a commercial. “I’m not political,” he said. “I needed the money for a hotel room at that point.”
They were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements and were instructed not to speak to the media or tell anyone they were being paid.
But three of them agreed to talk about their experience and provided evidence that they were paid to endorse the power plant. Two spoke on the condition that they not be identified, saying they didn’t want to jeopardize other work or get in trouble for violating the non-disclosure agreement.
Another attendee, an actor and musician who played a small role on HBO’s “Treme,” told WWL-TV he was paid to wear one of the orange shirts at a meeting of the council’s utility committee.
Continue reading ““What’s my motivation?” – For these “Grassroots protesters”, it’s Just Another Acting Job”
