Google Blogger Attacks Moore

A Google blogger has added herself to the firestorm of debate around Michael Moore's Sicko. In an official corporate blog, Lauren Turner, a Health Account Planner at Google, criticized the movie as one-sided: "Moore's film portrays the industry as money and marketing driven, and fails to show healthcare's interest in patient well-being and care," she wrote. She went on to suggest that health care companies get out "the truth" about themselves by buying ads on Google, and even offered Moore the opportunity to do the same: "Whether the healthcare industry wants to rebut charges in Mr. Moore's movie, or whether Mr. Moore wants to challenge the healthcare industry, advertising is a very democratic and effective way to participate in a public dialogue". She clarified that the position she took on the blog was her own, not Google's: "Some readers thought the opinion I expressed about the movie Sicko was actually Google's opinion. It's easy to understand why it might have seemed that way, because after all, this is a corporate blog. So that was my mistake - I understand why it caused some confusion". In other Moore-related news, the filmmaker has just announced that he will be showing Sicko at Iran's first international documentary film festival, which will be held in October.