Who exposes the exposer?

Mainstream journalism on green issues tends to bash do-gooders and give the PTB a pass

Posted by David Roberts at 10:28 AM on 10 Mar 2008

Read more about: green living | environmental movement

The formula is pretty simple: Green is hot right now in U.S. culture, particularly among influencers. Anything that's hot attracts advertising dollars. Media wants to attract those dollars, so it runs green content. (See here for a look at how this is playing out in TV.)

However, content that involves complicated or controversial issues of public policy, or that points a finger of blame at corporations or corporatism, or that challenges the assumptions and behaviors of the American consumer, is verboten. No profit-driven media outlet wants to turn people off, or scare them, or get accused of advocating for one position or another in a politically or culturally charged controversy.

If you're in the business of "lifestyle" content, that's fine. You talk about lightbulbs and cleaning products and organic t-shirts. The media world is packed with that stuff right now. Are there human beings left on earth who don't know about CFLs? Who don't have a helpful new website where they can connect with other light-green souls in a toe-tingling, web 2.0 kind of way? If there are, I'm happy to forward them several dozen press releases.

But what if you fashion yourself a "serious" media outlet? What if you're an investigative journalist or a commentator who discusses economic and political issues for a living, but you work for a profit-driven media conglomerate? You can't very well expose the environmental sins of U.S. politicians and corporations. How do you do "serious" green content, given those constraints?

From what I can tell, the answer is to expose environmentalists -- as naïve, gullible dupes who fall for feel-good gimmicks.

This was brought home recently when I heard about a network TV news show of some note, looking for help in exposing environmental myths for an Earth Day special. What myths, you ask? The myth that coal can be clean? The myth that oil companies operate in a free market? The myth that young families flock to suburbs because of natural preferences rather than a century of preferential public policy?

No, no, not those deeply rooted myths. The proposed myths were all about environmental solutions -- carbon offsets, bamboo, local food, etc.

Now, let's stipulate that there are reasonable questions to ask about all those phenomena. But face it, flagellating soccer moms for misguided attempts to do something good is not investigative journalism; it's infotainment. It's the old American sport of punishing the self-righteous. It's utterly toothless, threatening to exactly no one.

While the American public remains deeply and fundamentally misinformed about the structure of our climate/energy situation, is the best focus for media the scattered, nascent attempts by some people to do something about it? It's profoundly disempowering, however useful it may be to the owners of said media.

For story: Who exposes the exposer?
6 Comments | Post a Comment

You're not suggesting

an "unhealthy" focus on our corporate "partners" are you?

The 5% Project

by JMG at 11:17 AM on 10 Mar 2008

Can we be vindictive?

I want to see the humongous corporations pay and pay and pay until it hurts. I want you to hold their feet to the fire and if you can't, I want you to figure out who can. How WILL we get a new message out to Mr and Mrs average American if the msm is pushing the wrong story??? Indeed.

by gargy at 1:09 PM on 10 Mar 2008

Expose everyone?

I agree - there are bigger fish to fry than going after those who are trying to do the "right thing". But ther eis a problem with this as well. What we think is good today might not turn out to be that good tomorrow. Biofuels anyone? I do think that it is because we always oversell everything each time we think we are closer to giving people what they want. Take for instance the idea that something is eco-friendly. Is it really? Or is it eco-friendlier? For example - your example - local food. It is better than something that came from 1000s of miles away. But it still has an impact. Just less of one. And that impact is environmental. The impact on poverty might actually be worse on the other side than on the locals if you remove the African/South American/Asian out of the equation. It comes down to what is eco-friendly? Is there something like eco-friendly? Or is it just eco-friendlier. More on my blog at www.angryafrican.net

by Angry African at 1:19 PM on 10 Mar 2008

Re: CFLs

Actually, David, there are people who don't know what they are. A couple of days ago I sent in my regular column for the local paper, The (Conway,NH) Daily Sun. The title was "More than CFLs". And the next day I got an e-mail from Terry, the editor, asking me what the CFLs in my title were.

And, yeah, given the seriousness of the situation the media coverage is horrible. No connections are made, it's one sound bite after another and then on to the next story.

by SMLowry at 4:49 PM on 10 Mar 2008

Writing for a mainstream media outlet

for a living is a waste of life.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 9:32 PM on 10 Mar 2008

the heart of the problem

is the media. That is, corporate control of the mainstream media. Heart of which problem? Essentially ALL the serious problems facing the human race: not only the environmental problems we discuss here but also the fact that the US is no longer a democracy, is engaged in an outrageously unjust war on innocent Iraqis and perhaps about to engage in another, suicidal war on Iran; that US citizens are now generally referred to as "consumers" and getting steadily more ignorant of world or national affairs; the fact that the US, and its citizens, are deeply in debt and going deeper daily...
Why can't we solve any of these problems? because we can't even talk about them, as a nation, as long as this HOSTILE ENTITY, the corporation, has control of the nervous system of our body politic, our means of communication, which is the airwaves and pages of newspapers and magazines. We can't point the finger at actual culprits because they are ADVERTISERS. Universities each have a protected corporation or industry that the professors are not allowed to criticise--whichever one is the key local polluter. They give a lot of money to the local college to insure silence.
At a time when human survival is at stake, we are unable to make rational decisions because we have handed over control to the mechanical "persons" we created. Corporations can't think except via the brains of their managers, can't feel at all, and will not care if they cease to exist when the human race does--because they were never alive and able to care at all. People make the mistake of equating them with human persons, eg referring to "good" and "bad" corporations--but they are in no way similar to human beings. They are machines, designed to make profits, and they will keep on doing that until the planet and all its creatures die if we don't assert control over them. Some of these corporations are media corporations, and they are the means of blocking us from discussing and adopting effective solutions.

by mwildfire at 6:00 AM on 18 Mar 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

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