CHAPTER 9 MUNDANE REASONS FOR THE BAD-NEWS BIAS More is not always better. We're moving into an era when the less we use, the better off we will be. Is a 400-pound wife better than a 130-pound wife? (Ted Turner, Principle owner of CNN, in "Notable Quotables" from MediaWatch, June 22, 1992 (Vol. Five; No. 13. p. 2) The problems are enormous and none of the solutions simple. But most are conscious that unless there's action, the planet may solve the problem -- by simply making it impossible for people to live on it. (CNN reporter Lucia Newman on Agenda Earth, June 3. ("Notable Quotables" from MediaWatch, June 22, 1992 (Vol. Five; No. 13).p. 1) We now begin a set of chapters that attempt to analyze the causes of the creation of false bad news - to explain why the media pump into the minds of the public so many wrong facts and so much bad thinking about the environment, population growth, and a variety of other subjects of interest to society. Discussed in this chapter are the mundane reasons for bad-news bias - self-interest of media as served by scare-created audiences (some examples are given of how the news is manipulated to achieve this effect), and the propensity of organizations and individuals to produce false statements about trends in order to promote budgets, grants and fundraising. The chapters that follow take up other strands in the explanation. Inevitably, this chapter contains some stories that are not pretty, leading to some judgments - explicit and implicit - that are not benign. But I do not mean to seem cynical when I refer to the sellouts found in all classes of people involved. Though I refer to those who do sell out, there are many who do not, and give up the short-run gains and instead work and live with integrity. The problem is a structural one: There are too few institutional sanctions against the sell-outs; there are two few instruments that punish the unethical behavior. To get more people acting with more integrity we need to strengthen the structure; as some wise person with balanced judgment observed long ago, locks help keep honest persons honest. By now there is as very large amount of documentation of the ill practices mentioned in this chapter. Some general book references on the environment include Ronald Bailey's Eco-Scam (1993), Michael Fumento's Science Under Siege (1993), Edith Efron's The Apocalyptics about environmental politics and cancer, Jay Lehr's Elizabeth Whelan's Toxic Terror (1993) about chemical scares especially in connection with cancer, Dixy Lee Ray and Lou Guzzo's Trashing the Planet especially with regard to atmospheric scares, Sell-Outs by Media Chapter 2 showed a large collection of instances in which the Washington Post converted good-news stories into stories with bad-news headlines and lead paragraphs. That's the sort of behavior of the press and television that perverts the public's knowledge and opinions. And Chapter 1 contains a case study of an incident in which the media first promoted a scare and then refused to acknowledge that the scare was false when the falsity was arguably shown to be so - by self-confession of the agency that produced the scare. Sell-Outs by Scientists Funding of research projects is important for many scientists. It enables them to do their work with better equipment and more help that their universities would supply otherwise, and sometimes it makes it possible to do work that would be impossible otherwise, as is the case with large-scale experiments in physics such as the machines that produce sub- atomic particles. Much the same is true in biology, when private foundation and governmental help is sought for large-scale ecological experiments in the Amazon. It is not surprising, then, that some scientists justify their requests for funding with the claim that in the absence of the research, the country and the world are on the road to hell - a direction that the scientist's research will reverse. Chapter 6 provided documentation for the rare example for which people are imprudent enough to put the evidence on paper: the Mellon foundation pressured researchers at the largest and most prestigious association of scientists - the American Association for the Advancement of Scientists - to commit themselves in advance to finding that population growth has ill effects. And the researchers acquiesced, and accepted the money. In her book The Visible Scientists, Rae Goodell (1977) tells how some leading scientists - including Paul Ehrlich - use exaggerated and sometimes false publicity in the mass media to promote their own ends (though some of the visible scientists she describes are beyond reproach in this respect). Lest one think that I am overly excited about the matter, consider this statement from the mainstream Nobel Prize-winner in economics, Theodore Schultz, as careful and prudent (and as well- respected) as any academic in the world: Most academic economists are complacent about their freedom of inquiry...about the conditions under which research funds are made available to them by institutions other than the university. This complacency ...is exemplified in their failure publicly to challenge private patrons, foundations, and government agencies on their allocation of funds for economic research...it entails the risk of alienating the patrons and causing them to reduce further their support of university research. This risk is neatly avoided by the art of accommodation -- by quietly and gracefully submitting proposals for research grants that seem to fit the demands of the patrons (pp. 116- 117). The distortions of economic research will not fade away by accommodating the patrons of research funds (1981, p. 121). Sell-Outs by Organizations The example of the false scare about the presence of dangerous quantities of Alar on apples is so well-known that it need not be retold here. You can find an account of this fiasco in most of the general books referred to earlier in this chapter, see Dixy Lee Ray and Lou Guzzo's Trashing the Planet, see also in Lehr] This story illustrates how an environmental organization will use untruth and large-scale commercially-organized hype to spread a false story that it deems useful for its own purposes. Anti-truth behavior by another sort of organization: Donald Warwick documents how the United Nations Fund for Population Activities budgeted half a million dollars (in 1972 dollars) for a study of "the role of cultural values, including religious and ethical beliefs, in the formulation and implementation of population policies in the developing countries" (1987, p. 168). Then "the UNFPA decided to publish absolutely nothing from the project when all of the work was completed and thousands of pages of reports were available", tried to get Warwick and others not to publish the results, and resisted its own name being mentioned in connection with the study. All this was "because some of the findings might be considered critical of member countries of the United Nations or of agencies providing international population assistance" (p. 167). The Club of Rome cynically first promoted the Limits to Growth scare in 1972, and then proclaimed that it only did so to get the attention of the public. The Limits to Growth simulation, in which we breed to the exhaustion of natural resources, is so devoid of meaning that it is not worth detailed discussion or criticism. Yet it is taken seriously by many people to this day, and it is therefore a fascinating example of how scientific work can be outrageously bad and yet be very influential. The Limits to Growth was immediately blasted as foolishness or fraud by almost every economist who read it closely and reviewed it in print, for its silly methods as well as for disclosing so little of what the authors did, which makes close inspection impossible. To use the book authors' sort of language, the whole Limits to Growth caper was public-relations hype, kicked off with a press conference organized by Charles Kytle Associates (a public-relations firm) and financed by the Xerox Corporation; this entire story, along with devastating commentary, was told in detail in Science the week following the book's appearance in 1972. (The public-relations campaign may not be a bad thing in itself, but it certainly shows the manner the authors and the sponsoring Club of Rome intended to have their material make its way in the world of ideas.) The most compelling criticism of the Limits to Growth simulation was made by the sponsoring Club of Rome itself. Just four years after the foofaraw created by the book's publication and huge circulation - an incredible 4 million copies were sold - the Club of Rome "reversed its position" and "came out for more growth." But this about-face has gotten relatively little attention, even though it was written up in such places as Time and the New York Times.<1> And so the original message is the one that remains with many people. The explanation of this reversal, as reported in Time, is a masterpiece of face-saving double talk. The Club's founder, Italian industrialist Aurelio Peccei, says that Limits was intended to jolt people from the comfortable idea that present growth trends could continue indefinitely. That done, he says, the Club could then seek ways to close the widening gap between rich and poor nations - inequities that, if they continue, could all too easily lead to famine, pollution and war. The Club's startling shift, Peccei says, is thus not so much a turnabout as part of an evolving strategy.<2> In other words, the Club of Rome sponsored and disseminated untruths in an attempt to scare us. Having scared many people with these lies, the club can now tell people the real truth. (I have been waiting in vain since the first edition for them to sue me for libel in that previous sentence.) But it is possible that the Club of Rome did not really practice the deceitful strategy that it now says it did. Maybe the members simply realized that the 1972 Limits to Growth study was scientifically worthless. If so, the Club of Rome then lied about what it originally did, in order to save face. From the outside, we have no way of knowing which of these ugly possibilities is the "truth." How much more can one twist the truth that this? Sell-Outs by Politicians The Sunday that I am writing this there appeared in The Washington Post a story headlined "MADE IN WASHINGTON: THE GREAT VACCINE SCARE. How Clinton Invented the Childhood Immunization Crisis". The story is so well told, and so pithily, that I quote from it at length: INSERT VACCINE This story well illustrates the propensity for political figures to use environmental, health, and other concerns to promote themselves. These purity-and-health subjects are especially well-suited for the task because they are white-knight issues - subjects that everyone has much the same interest in. Sell-Outs by Journalists There are two main reasons why a journalist exaggerates the dangerousness of an event or a supposed trend - to advance one's career, and to win influence for one's own activist agenda. Here is an anecdote illustrating how news is made to seem more dangerous than it really is to advance one's job situation: ... A personal experience at Business Week illustrates how the need for a strong story line may get in the way of the truth. I was assigned the lead news story (not the cover story, but the first story in the section about what had happened in business the previous week). This was a few years after the oil crisis of 1979, and my job was to find out whether the recent drop in gasoline prices was sizable enough for Americans to "hit the road" the coming spring -- that is, to plan on increasing their automobile travel. Business Week reporters around the country called the national parks, Disney World, travel agencies, and other such places to find out if bookings were up and if they could discern a trend. Relying on such report- ing, I had to decide whether tourism and travel would be going up. If travel was going up, I had a good lead story; if the drop in gas prices was having no discernible effect, I had either no story or a very unimportant one at the end of the news section. It was impossible to have a story that said, "On the one hand, some people are going to travel more this summer, but on the other hand, a lot of people are going to stay home." That wouldn't qualify as news. Unfortunately, the reporting was ambiguous. In some places, it looked as though tourism was on the rise; in others, reservations were similar to what they had been for a few years. I was faced with a decision. If I decided that the travel was not going to increase, I would lose a prominent spot in the magazine that week. Certainly, my incentive was to focus on an upswing. In the end, I did. (Shaw, 1992, p. 480). [And Jay Mathews in TRS. Here's another example (sorry about so much stuff about me personally, but that's the evidence that comes into my hands most often): Professor Gene Griessman of Georgia State University told me that as a journalist in the early 1980s he was doing a story on environmental doomsday. He came across my work, and made mention in the story of the fact that there was also argument and data on the other side from the doomsday issue. His editor looked at the story and said something like, "You mean that doomsday is not for sure?" When Griessman assented, the editor simply spiked the story (personal correspondence and telephone conversation). And here is evidence that journalists will bend what they and others' write to advance their own beliefs: ...Charles Alexander, the science editor at Time who was primarily responsible for that issue, spoke at a conference on environmental issues. "As the science editor at Time I would freely admit that on this issue we have crossed the boundary from news reporting to advocacy." Andrea Mitchell of NBC News echoed the same theme. "Clearly the networks have made that decision now, where you'd have to call it advocacy." (Shaw, 1992, p. 474, derived from Brooks, 1989) The media further bias the situation by excluding what they label as minority views on the ground that they are insignificant - even when the supposed minority views represent the scientific mainstream. For example: Media Watch on CNN, and Robert Whelan. [see MediaWatch Janet Cooke award and pop - in clip file. CONCLUSION It is entirely to be expected that some journalists, just like persons in any other occupation, will bend the ethics of their occupation for personal gain and to advance their own ideological agendas. The problem in journalism is that the forces to check this very human propensity are too weak. REFERENCES Bailey, Ronald, Ecoscam: The False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse (New York: St. Martins Press, 1993) Fumento, Michael, Science Under Siege: Balancing Technology and the Envir onment ((New York: Morrow, 1993). Goodell, Rae The Visible Scientists (Boston: Little Brown, 1977) Lehr, Jay, Rational Readings on Environmental Concerns (New York: Van Nos trand, 1992). London, Herbert I., Why Are They Lying to Our Children? (New York: Stein and Day, 1984) Shaw, Jane, "Is Environmental Press Coverage Biased?", in Lehr, Jay H., Rational Readings on Environmental Concerns (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1992) Adler, Cy A. Ecological Fantasies (New York: Green Eagle Press, 241 W. 97th St, NY 10025, 1973, 212-663-2167) Arnold, Andrea, Fear of Food (Bellevue, Washington: The Free Enterprise Pr ess, 1990). Arnold, Ron, Ecology Wars (Bellevue, Washington: Free Enterprise Press, 1 987) Balling, Robert. C., Jr., The Heated Debate (San Francisco: Pacific Resear ch Institute, 1992) Barrons, Keith C. , Are Pesticides Really Necessary? (Chicago: Regnery, 1 981). This excellent book delves into a Beckmann, Peter, The Health Hazards of Not Going Nuclear (Boulder, Colo: Golem Press, 1976) Bennett, Michael J., The Asbestos Racket, Washington: Free Enterprise Pre ss, 1991) Brooks, David, "Journalists and Others for Saving the Planet," The Wall Street Journal, October 5, 1989, p. A20. Efron, Edith, The Apocalyptics: How Environmental Politics Controls What W e Know About Cancer (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984). Greve, Michael S. and Fred L. Smith (eds.) Environmental Politics: Public Costs, Private Rewards (Praeger: New York, 1992). Isaacs, Rael Jean , and Erich Isaacs, The Coercive Utopians (Chicago: Reg ner, 1983). Jo Kwong, Protecting the Environment: Old Rhetoric, New Imperatives (Washi ngton, DC: Capital Research Center, 1990). Lehr, Jay, Rational Readings on Environmental Concerns (New York: Van Nos trand, 1992). London, Herbert I., Why Are They Lying to Our Children? (New York: Stein and Day, 1984) MacCracken, Samuel, The War Against the Atom (New York: Basic Books, 1982 ) Maddox, John, The Doomsday Syndrome - see old ult res Michaels, Patrick, Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global War ming (Washington: Cato Institute, 1992). Olson, Sherry, The Depletion Myth: History of Railroad Use of Timber (Camb ridge: Harvard U. P., 1971) Rathje, William, and Cullen Murphy, Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage (N ew York: HarperCollins, 1992). Ray, Dixie Lee, with Lou Guzzo, Trashing the Planet (Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1990). Schultz, Theodore W., Investing in People. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.) Warwick, Donald P., Bitter Pills: Population Policies and Their Implement ation in Eight Developing Countries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). Warwick, Donald P., "The Politics of Population Research With a UN Sponsor", in G. Clare Wenger (ed.), The Research elationship (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1987), pp. 166-184 Whelan, Elizabeth M., Toxic Terror: The Truth Behind the Cancer Scare (Jam eson Books, 1985) Whelan, Elizabeth M., and Fredrick J. Stare (edited by Stephen Barrett), Panic in the Pantry (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1992). **ENDNOTES** <1>: New York Times, April 14, 1976; Global 2000, II, p. 613. <2>: Time, April 26, 1976, p. 56. page 2 mediabk bias9m July 18, 1995