MediaWatch: May 1994
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: May 1994
- Amount, Tone of Scandal Coverage Markedly Different Than During the Reagan Era
- NewsBites: Newsweek Loves the Times
- Revolving Door: Formative 60's
- First Lady Called "Candid" and "Responsive" After She Evades Questions
- Vanishing Liberal Bloc?
- Stossel's Scare Special
- Washington Post's America of Cliches
- Janet Cooke Award: NBC's Ann Curry Offers Dire Scenario of Overpopulation Without Citing Sources
Stossel's Scare Special
Consumer reporters have often focused on allegedly deadly chemicals, contaminated food, or a "dying planet." Even if scientists found the fears overblown, the media had already moved onto another exposé. In an amazing turnabout, ABC consumer reporter John Stossel devoted an April 21 news special to the topic with a show titled Are We Scaring Ourselves to Death?
Examining the asbestos scare which paralyzed the New York City schools last fall and cost taxpayers "almost $100 million dollars," Stossel found "most scientists who research asbestos and the dangers say closing the schools made no sense...what the kids were exposed to in school wasn't a real risk." He cited Dr. Stephen Levin, "an activist who usually advocates more safety regulations ....he says New York's attempt to remove asbestos probably spread more into the air."
Stossel visited Aspen, Colorado, where "EPA proposed to excavate thousands of truckloads of dirt from this neighborhood, because there's lead in the soil. Blood tests done on local children found no lead poisoning. In fact, lead levels were below the national average."
He showed that statistically, everyday activities like driving and common objects like water-filled buckets were more deadly than "toxic" chemicals. Stossel wondered "what if simply having so many regulations kills people?" He explained: "Regulations act as a brake on the economy -- when it takes five years for the factory to get a permit to open, fewer people are employed. If pesticide use is restricted, food costs more and people have less to spend on other things...there's a good chance we're shortening lives by making more people poor. Yet we rarely take this into account when we spend billions trying to squeeze the last ounce of risk out of these smaller threats."
Unlike reporters which pass along the latest environmental horror story without question, Stossel took the media, and even himself to task. He recalled: "I was there when the government evacuated the town of Times Beach, Missouri because there was dioxin in the soil." At the time he claimed "dioxin is incredibly deadly." He admitted the dioxin risk had been overstated: "Years later, the government official who urged that the town be closed said, well, he may have made a mistake...But that didn't get much publicity. The media had moved on."
Stossel concluded with a rhetorical question: "Today we're exposed to far more dangerous-sounding chemicals and technologies than ever before -- pesticides, pollutants, bioengineering, electromagnetic fields. And the result? We live longer than ever....What's lengthened lifespans by 30 years just this century is the very technology we now fear so much."
