How The Media Deceives You About Health Issues

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http://www.talkinternational.com/issues_health.htm

 

How The Media Deceives You About Health Issues

 

 

by Tate Metro Media

 

Detroit Metro Times February 6, 2001

 

 

Think about how many times you've heard an evening news anchor spit out some

variation on the phrase, " According to experts .... " It's such a common device

that most of us hardly hear it anymore. But we do hear the " expert " - the

professor or doctor or watchdog group - tell us whom to vote for, what to eat,

when to buy stock. And, most of the time, we trust them.

 

 

Now ask yourself, how many times has that news anchor revealed who those experts

are, where they get their funding, and what constitutes their political agenda?

If you answered never, you'd be close.

 

 

That's the driving complaint behind Trust Us, We're Experts, a new book

co-authored by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton of the Center for Media and

Democracy.

 

 

Unlike many so-called " experts, " the Center's agenda is quite overt - to expose

the shenanigans of the public relations industry, which pays, influences and

even invents a startling number of those experts.

 

 

The third book co-authored by Stauber and Rampton, Trust Us hit bookstore

shelves in January.

 

 

There are two kinds of " experts " in question--the PR spin doctors behind the

scenes and the " independent " experts paraded before the public, scientists who

have been hand-selected, cultivated, and paid handsomely to promote the views of

corporations involved in controversial actions.

 

Lively writing on controversial topics such as

 

 

dioxin

bovine growth hormone

genetically modified food

 

 

 

makes this a real page-turner, shocking in its portrayal of the real and

potential dangers in each of these technological innovations and of the " media

pseudo-environment " created to hide the risks.

 

By financing and publicizing views that support the goals of corporate sponsors,

PR campaigns have, over the course of the century, managed to suppress the

dangers of lead poisoning for decades, silence the scientist who discovered that

rats fed on genetically modified corn had significant organ abnormalities,

squelch television and newspaper stories about the risks of bovine growth

hormone, and place enough confusion and doubt in the public's mind about global

warming to suppress any mobilization for action.

 

 

Rampton and Stauber introduce the movers and shakers of the PR industry, from

the " risk communicators " (whose job is to downplay all risks) and " outrage

managers " (with their four strategies--deflect, defer, dismiss, or defeat) to

those who specialize in " public policy intelligence " (spying on opponents).

 

 

Evidently, these elaborate PR campaigns are created for our own good. According

to public relations philosophers, the public reacts emotionally to topics

related to health and safety and is incapable of holding rational discourse.

Needless to say, Rampton and Stauber find these views rather antidemocratic and

intend to pull back the curtain to reveal the real wizard in Oz.

 

 

Metro Media: What was the most surprising or disturbing manipulation of public

opinion you reveal in your book?

 

 

John Stauber: The most disturbing aspect is not a particular example, but rather

the fact that the news media regularly fails to investigate so-called

" independent experts " associated with industry front groups. They all have

friendly-sounding names like " Consumer Alert " and " The Advancement of Sound

Science Coalition, " but they fail to reveal their corporate funding and their

propaganda agenda, which is to smear legitimate heath and community safety

concerns as " junk-science fear-mongering. "

 

 

The news media frequently uses the term " junk science " to smear environmental

health advocates. The PR industry has spent more than a decade and many millions

of dollars funding and creating industry front groups which wrap them in the

flag of " sound science. " In reality, their " sound science " is progress as

defined by the tobacco industry, the drug industry, the chemical industry, the

genetic engineering industry, the petroleum industry and so on.

 

 

Metro Media: Is the public becoming more aware of PR tactics and false experts?

Or are those tactics and experts becoming more savvy and effective?

 

 

Stauber: The truth is that the situation is getting worse, not better. More and

more of what we see, hear and read as " news " is actually PR content.

 

On any given day much or most of what the media transmits or prints as news is

provided by the PR industry.

 

It's off press releases, the result of media campaigns, heavily spun and

managed, or in the case of " video news releases " it's fake TV news - stories

completely produced and supplied for free by former journalists who've gone over

to PR. TV news directors air these VNRs as news. So the media not only fails to

identify PR manipulations, it is the guilty party by passing them on as news.

 

 

Metro Media: What's the solution for the excesses of the PR industry? Just more

media literacy and watchdog organizations like yours? Or should the PR industry

be regulated in some way?

 

 

Stauber: In our last chapter, " Question Authority, " we identify some of the most

common propaganda tactics so that individuals and journalists and public

interest scientists can do a better job of not being snowed and fooled. But

ultimately those who have the most power and money in any society are going to

use the most sophisticated propaganda tactics available to keep democracy at bay

and the rabble in line.

 

 

There are some specific legislative steps that could be taken without stepping

on the First Amendment. One is that all nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations -

charities and educational groups, for instance - should be required by law to

reveal their institutional funders of, say, $500 or more.

 

 

That way when a journalist or a citizen hears that a scientific report is from a

group like the American Council on Science and Health, a quick trip to the IRS

Web site could reveal that this group gets massive infusions of industry money,

and that the corporations that fund it benefit from its proclamations that

pesticides are safe, genetically engineered food will save the planet, lead

contamination isn't really such a big deal, climate change isn't happening, and

so on.

 

 

The public clearly doesn't understand that most nonprofit groups (not ours, by

the way) take industry and government grants, or are even the nonprofit arm of

industry.

 

 

 

 

 

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