MediaWatch: July 1992
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: July 1992
- Media Money Funds Democrats
- NewsBites: The Wrong Rights
- Revolving Door: Special Report: Democrats Covering Democrats
- Networks Decry Difficulties for Teens Seeking Abortions
- Style Triumphs Over Substance of Summit
- Bored By KGB Archives
- Clinton's Media Fans
- Janet Cooke Award: CBS: Blind "Eye of the Earth"
Style Triumphs Over Substance of Summit
RIO REDUCTIONISM
To reporters, the U.N. "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro wasn't a forum for detailed reporting on the complexities of political and scientific debate on the environment. Instead, it was a laudable and idealistic gathering ruined by President Bush. The substance of the summit, the text of the treaties to be signed or rejected, took a back seat to style. Who was in favor of "saving the planet"? And who was not? Among the highlights of Rio bias:
Anchors and reporters regularly reported that the summit was designed to "save the planet." But taking the position that the planet was in danger landed the media squarely in the liberal camp. In the days before the summit, anchors wallowed in the simplistic: on ABC's World News Sunday May 31, Forrest Sawyer stated: "The U.S. is under fire for standing in the way of efforts to protect the planet." CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour oozed like a U.N. press packet on June 3: "The Summit, with perhaps the loftiest goal ever, to stop us from pushing our own planet toward environmental collapse."
The U.S. delegation was regularly described as "isolated" after it "watered down" a "global warming" treaty and refused to sign the biodiversity treaty, which was "designed to protect plants and animals." Almost every reporter, in print and broadcast, used this inaccurate shorthand. Few mentioned the actual text of the treaty, which demanded that the U.S. hand out foreign aid to Third World countries with no conditions, meaning they could not designate the money to protect plants and animals. Only CNN obliquely mentioned that fact.
While the Big Three networks edged toward a tentative balance in talking heads in summit stories in the last week in May and the first two weeks in June, mildly favoring summit promoters over summit skeptics, 39 to 34, CNN demonstrated its "pro-planet" bias with a lopsided soundbite count of 83 to 3. But the skeptical soundbites were dominated by the resolute President and less-than-resolute EPA Director William Reilly. Scientists skeptical of U.N. pronouncements on global warming, biodiversity, overpopulation and other topics were still mostly excluded.
Even so, there were breakthroughs. For perhaps the first time ever, greenhouse-skeptical scientist Fred Singer appeared in a network story. ABC's Ned Potter, however, cast doubt upon Singer's credibility: "S. Fred Singer is a scientist who often defends industries like coal and oil, which are less concerned about the climate than about drastic economic measures being proposed to protect it."
