Friday, Dec. 12, 2003 | 5:21 a.m.
Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.
WEEKEND EDITION December 13 - 14, 2003
MEDIA madness.
As you might expect, I am a stalwart defender of the media's role in society, which is to provide the news and information necessary for Americans to make the kind of decisions that are required as a condition of good citizenship. I am not one of those persons who are content to blame the media for the ills of society rather than face the real culprit -- the people.
Whether it is the Hollywood movie studios or the incessant and vacuous chattering that fills the airwaves of talk radio and television -- a part of the media about which no self-respecting journalist should be proud -- the fact remains that those movies and the inanity of the talk show hosts would not exist but for the demand created by people willing to watch and listen. So, if fault is something you seek to find, look to thyself!
Having said all that, there are times when the media does a very poor job explaining the news of the day in a way in which the people can understand and act upon the message. One case in point was a story that appeared in the other newspaper on Dec. 4 which not only did a poor job of telling the story but did it in a way that would make most readers look past its important content for fear of overload.
I refer to a story on page 15A of the Review-Journal, which carried the headline, "White House defends mercury plan." The underline said, "Democrats say proposal puts public health at risk while giving free reign to power plants."
Normally, I would be castigating the Review-Journal editor for doing another poor job of running his newspaper, but not today. Any paper could have come up with similar headlines, although I'd like to think not the Las Vegas Sun, simply because of the way the story was written. It was an Associated Press wire story written by H. Josef Hebert and more than anything else, provided a real life study of what is wrong in America.
Now, anyone over the age of reason knows that too much mercury is a bad thing. According to published reports, mercury is a potent neurotoxin that can cause nervous system and brain damage in fetuses, infants and young children. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in 12 women of childbearing age in the United States has unsafe mercury levels, translating to more than 300,000 babies born at risk for mercury exposure each year.
The short story on mercury is that too much is a bad thing and we have far too much in our environment, both on our land and in our water. Reducing it and ridding the environment of it is a worthy and healthful goal. So, what did the story say?
Not surprisingly, it reported that the Bush administration, once again in an apparent nod to its benefactors in the power industry, removed with the stroke of a pen the requirement that coal-fired power plants adhere to an environmental requirement of the Clinton administration that they install available technology that substantially reduces the mercury produced as a by-product of the plants, mercury which seeps into the environment. Under the Clinton plan, the utility must install the new, lifesaving technology by the year 2008. Under President Bush's order, his powerful utility supporters now have until 2018 to comply. That means that mercury will continue to flow into our rivers and lakes, all in the name of profit.
The fact that President Bush dismantled another environmental safety requirement is not the story. That is the sort of thing we have come to expect from an administration that defines quid pro quo as what we can do for our friends, not only lately but for as long as the campaign dollars keep pouring into Republican coffers. No, the story is carried in the headlines and points out the real danger that threatens this democracy.
It is a fact that mercury causes health risks in pregnant mothers -- no matter what political party to which they happen to belong. Republican and Democratic babies pay the price of too much mercury in their mothers' blood supplies, because the poison does not distinguish an elephant from a donkey. Given that fact, why does a newspaper reporter and a newspaper headline writer feel compelled to tell this story in political terms?
Why must only Democrats be quoted as saying that mercury is bad for children and other living things? Aren't there Republicans with a conscience, too? Well, of course there are but the reporter was obviously more intent on creating a political skirmish than he was in alerting all Americans to a danger being unleashed by George Bush without so much as a lab report to back up his actions.
Mercury poisoning is not exclusive to Republicans or Democrats. It doesn't ask to which party the victims are attached before it attacks. What it does do is kill and that means that what President Bush did should be condemned by not only Democrats but also Republicans and all other people of goodwill.
Realistically, there is no chance that that will happen. Our country has become too polarized for a president of either party to admit a mistake, even one in which so many young and innocent lives hang in the balance.
In this particular case, not only was President Bush dead wrong for allowing the power companies to continue to poison our environment, but so, too, was the newspaper and the reporter for falling into the trap that makes every decision a political one.
Fortunately, newspapers don't make that many mistakes, especially the blatant ones. What we continue to do, though, is maintain a vigilance over our elected leaders so they will be less likely to trade away our health and our futures to those with the campaign cash. If any media outlet is going to fight for the rights of regular people who, not inappropriately, put their trust in the community leaders they elect, then it has to start with stories covered the old-fashioned way: those based on fact and not on the fiction conjured up during a political campaign.
That leaves only us; we the people. If democracy and the newspapers and media outlets that protect us are to survive, then we'd better start thinking and acting based on what is right, not on what is politically expedient.
And that means headlines and stories that appear in our papers must be based on fact and not simply on the politics of the moment, which is a pastime designed to get ratings but which, ultimately, will reap the demise of our democracy.
President Bush was wrong to give the polluters a free ride well into the next decade, leaving innocent American children to pay the heavy price. But so, too, are the newspapers wrong for making the poisoning of children a matter of political gamesmanship.
Mercury is bad. In fact it is deadly. So, too, is a medium caught up in the moment, which makes politics more important than progeny.
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