Lobbying firm pressed for details about payments to journalists for favourable stories

From the publisher

A political lobbying firm secretly paying journalists for articles favourable to its clients is facing calls to reveal full details of the payments, after the practice was denounced as a dangerous “attack on democracy”. MPs, senior lobbyists and transparency campaigners all condemned the behaviour of CT Group, the firm co-founded by the campaign strategist Lynton Crosby, an election guru previously hired by David Cameron and Boris Johnson. There were calls for an overhaul of lobbying rules and demands for CT Group to reveal the full extent of the practice, exposed after a four-month Guardian investigation. “Lobbyists paying journalists to produce apparently independent articles is an attack on the ethics of…

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