Reading the Newsweek story on "Hidden Hazards" to which Rick Charbonneau
alerted us made me remember a book I had read some time back called Eco-Scam
by a reporter named Ronald Bailey (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. 228
pp. ISBN 0-312-08698-9). This book was published before most of the
lead-free effort got underway, but as will be seen, the pattern is the same
for each "crisis". In chapter 1, "The Imagination of Disaster" he starts by
quoting H.L. Mencken: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the
populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it
with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." In chapter 10,
"The Media and the Messiahs" he discusses the responsibilities of the
reporter to be objective on the subject of the environment, in spite of
strong temptation to become an advocate. I provide below excerpts
(references and most ellipses omitted) of what he has to say in this
chapter.
I would guess that the author of the Newsweek article, Stefan Theil, has not
read this book nor any of a number of other books along this line. (It's
obvious he hasn't been following the leadfree forum.) Had Mr. Theil read the
ten tips offered by Bailey below, the article he would have written would
have been quite different.

Maybe it's not too late. Maybe Mr. Theil will realize that there's a lot
more to the story than what he wrote, that environmentalists are not
necessarily the "good guys" and industrialists the "bad guys", and he'll
come looking for other sources of information on which to base future
articles. Those articles could be just as interesting without the hype,
although they will admittedly take longer to write. I intend to write to
Newsweek's editor suggesting that Mr. Theil check out the resources at
www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives and the
library at www.leadfree.org. He might even want to subscribe to this forum!

Gordon Davy
Baltimore, MD
[log in to unmask]
410-993-7399

"No problem, no news," runs one old maxim of journalism. As we have seen
throughout this book, many players have a strong interest in hyping
environmental problems into "global emergencies" or "worldwide crises."
Crises keep donations flowing to environmental advocacy groups, advance the
careers of certain bureaucrats and politicians, attract funds to scientists'
laboratories, and sell newspapers and TV airtime. This natural process of
highlighting bad news is bad enough, but now some journalists are proudly
throwing off the professional constraints of objectivity and becoming
environmental advocates themselves. Although he later backpedaled in
embarrassment, Time's science editor Charles Alexander [stated] at a
conference at the Smithsonian Institution, "I would freely admit that on
this issue [environmentalism] we have crossed the boundary from news
reporting to advocacy."
An even more egregious example of advocacy journalism is the Cable News
Network. CNN producer Barbara Pyle makes no bones about her environmental
advocacy: "I switched from being an 'objective journalist' to an advocate in
July 1980," after reading the gloomy Global 2000 presidential report. Pyle
added, "We [CNN] didn't become the environmental network overnight." Her
colleague at the "environmental network," Teya Ryan, producer of CNN's
"Network Earth" program, has jettisoned all pretense of objectivity.
And leading environmentalists certainly agree with Ryan that the situation
is so desperate that we simply have to overlook quaint niceties like
objectivity. "The communications industry is the only instrument that has
the capacity to educate on the scale needed in the time available," intones
the Worldwatch Institute's Lester Brown. "We don't have time for the
traditional approach to education - training new generations of teachers to
train new generations of students - because we don't have generations, we
have years."
Reporters and readers should keep firmly in mind the fact that every
institution has its own self-interest and acts to defend it. Environmental
activists tend to think of themselves as planetary saviors. Many honestly
believe what they are saying, but like everyone, they are inclined, some
consciously and others unconsciously, to put their own "spin" on the
information.
"On the one hand, as scientists, we are ethically bound to the scientific
method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but - which means we must include all the doubts, caveats, and ifs, ands,
and buts," says Stephen Schneider. He then revealingly adds, "On the other
hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most
people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context
translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous
climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad-based support, to
capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of
media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified,
dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.
This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved
by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between
being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both." Sara
Vickerman of the Defenders of Wildlife puts it more succinctly: "The best
way to get on TV is to take an extreme position." Make sure you can
distinguish when a scientist is speaking as an expert and when he is
speaking merely as a concerned citizen.
Also, journalists sometimes treat factual scientific disagreements as though
they were reporting election results or describing a political debate. Given
the growing politicization of science it is difficult to avoid this pitfall,
but there remains a core of scientific objectivity that can be reached if
the reporter works hard enough. Reporters shouldn't allow themselves to
become merely the conveyor belt of predigested views embodied in carefully
crafted press releases issued by the headquarters of advocacy groups or
government agencies. Former EPA press officer Jim Sibbison pointedly notes
that "reporters take too much on faith what the government tells them." "The
press already knows what it wants to hear," says ... Melvyn Shapiro, chief
meteorologist at NOAA's Boulder, Colorado laboratory. "The press calls up
the media darlings in the scientific community and they give the press the
line. Reporters already know who is going to give them the doomsday
scenario."
Now, I would like to offer some unsolicited advice to my fellow reporters in
the hope that they will be able to avoid being taken in by apocalypse
abusers in the future.
Political reporting skills come in handy when threading one's way through
interagency conflicts and battles. Always remember the rule of financial and
business reporting - follow the money. This determines which agency,
congressman, or advocacy group wins by pushing the policy under
consideration. Whose budget, staff, and media presence will be enlarged due
to the alleged crisis?
Although the garden variety test tube jockey is still a good source of
information, journalists must never forget that lab directors are keenly
aware of how the media can influence their government funding. Individual
scientists can be forgiven for thinking that their work is of vital
importance to humanity, but journalists must not unskeptically share their
views. Of the scores of scientists I interviewed for this book, I could
count on the fingers of one hand the number who did not mention funding and
the scarcity of research monies. Lab directors are not only scientists; they
are also public relations officers and politicians who must navigate the
dark byways of Congress and government agencies in search of the wherewithal
to keep their organizations going. Consequently, they feel enormous
institutional pressure to hype the work of their laboratories and to tie it
to the solution of some looming mediagenic crisis. Typically, reporters
ignore the careful caveats that a scientist might couch his findings in and
try to get to the heart of the matter - the terrible crisis that is menacing
us all. How many reporters highlight the highest number, the greatest cost,
the most terrible possibility as a way of getting the attention of their
readers7 We are all guilty of this sin.
Some journalists console themselves with the thought that by reporting a
looming disaster which then is later disproved, they can always argue that
they were merely demonstrating proper concern for the gravity of the
situation. But have they served their readers and viewers well?
Also, why not get mad when you get taken? Follow-up reports of what really
happened, while not completely repairing the damage caused by early alarmist
articles, can somewhat ameliorate the harm. Why not embarrass in public
those who led you down the garden path with their canned crises? It might
even serve to make other advocacy groups and agencies more careful in their
claims in the future.
Although there are those who urge journalists to throw aside the "blinders"
of objectivity - especially in the area of environmental reporting -
remember that the public relies on the objectivity of the press. Just as in
science, public trust depends on maintaining standards of objectivity. Most
good reporters and editors already know these rules and follow them, but
don't forget them in the fight to get the news. Don't let yourself get
co-opted by your sources. It is especially difficult to resist the
temptation to be on the side of those claiming to save the earth. After all,
who wants to stand for the destruction of our home? Paraphrasing G. K.
Chesterton, if people lose faith in the objectivity of science, they will
not then believe in nothing; instead they will believe in everything.
Americans are well down the road to believing in everything, as the growing
popularity of New Age pseudo-science attests.
One personally very disheartening experience occurred after a television
program on which I was debating the seriousness of the "ozone crisis" with
an environmental activist in front of an audience of high school seniors. A
young woman came up to me after the program and told me that even if the
ozone "crisis" was not so bad, it was all right to exaggerate the situation
to get people's attention. Incredulous, I asked, "So then you're saying it's
all right to lie in what you think is a good cause?" With complete
earnestness, she replied, "Yes, sometimes you have to lie in a good cause."
Below are some tips on how the public and reporters can tell that they may
be dealing with a false prophet of doom.
1 The first indication is flat-out claims that the end of the world is
impending due to whatever crisis they are citing.
2 Next, does the proponent assert that certain facts "impel," "require," or
"demand" that a specific course of action be followed? Good scientists
rarely propose radical social and economic plans in conjunction with
releasing scientific research results.
3 Is the proposed program clearly identified with any particular political
ideology, party, or interest group?
4 Look at the proponents' past predictive records - have the dooms they flog
ever come true? Do they couch the hypothesized doom in "could," "should,"
"perhaps" language? Conditional language in making dire claims may signal
that apocalypse abuse is going on.
5 Think about how a scientist would go about testing the truth of the
assertions being made. Do they more closely resemble the vacuities of
astrologers, or testable hypotheses like "what goes up must come down"? This
process will give you some idea of the real scientific content of the
statement.
6 Be especially skeptical about "scientific" reports that are being handled
by public relations firms.
7 Scientific findings and conclusions are generally highly caveated and
nuanced - rarely flat-out one way or the other. Beware of absolute
certainty.
8 Find out who funded the work being reported - what agency or foundation,
and what is its agenda? Remember that advocacy organizations' personnel need
to justify their jobs and perquisites.
9 Beware of moral fervor and high levels of righteous indignation. Just
because people are willing to put their lives on the line for their beliefs,
a la Greenpeace, doesn't mean that they are right. After all there were
hundreds of thousands of convinced Nazis and communists who died for their
causes.
10 Talk with scientists - other than those who are pushing the alleged
crisis. Be aware, however, that scientists are often reluctant to criticize
their fellow scientists and may even fear that their criticisms might
endanger the funding for their own work if they speak up in opposition. No
one wants to sound like they favor nuclear war or destroying the ozone
layer.
A. A. Hodge once wrote: "It is easier to find a score of men wise enough to
discover the truth, than to find one intrepid enough, in the face of
opposition, to stand up for it." It's a reporter's job to find that one.

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