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john stossel attacks greens again 6/29
MORE UNDERHANDED REPORTING FROM ABC NEWS
Stossel is now gearing up for another attack on greens, this time in the form of a screed against environmental education. The program is reportedly scheduled to air on Friday, June 29,2001. According to educators and parents whose children were interviewed for the show, Stossel has once again allowed his beliefs to interfere with his journalistic duties.
MORE UNDERHANDED REPORTING FROM ABC NEWS
The Story Behind John Stossel\'s Latest Attack on Environmentalism
Marianne Manilov is a writer living in San Francisco. She is currently
working on her
first book about the human rights activist, Ka Hsaw Wa. She is a
senior consultant
with the group We Interrupt This Message.
John Stossel is back in action. Stossel is a commentator on ABC\'s
\"20/20,\" where he
devotes much of his time to railing against government regulations.
According to
FreeMarket.net, Stossel is \"one of the libertarian movement\'s most
valuable
proponents.\" His staunch libertarian perspective influences much of
his commentary,
sometimes to the detriment of its accuracy.
Last summer, Stossel attacked the organic food industry using
fabricated and
distorted scientific studies. His fans sprang to his defense, and the
Competitive
Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank, even sponsored a
website in his honor,
SaveJohnStossel.com.
Stossel is now gearing up for another attack on greens, this time in
the form of a
screed against environmental education. The program is reportedly
scheduled to air
on Friday, June 29, 2001. According to educators and parents whose
children were
interviewed for the show, Stossel has once again allowed his beliefs
to interfere with
his journalistic duties.
Stossel\'s Sudden Arrival
An environmental educator, who was present for Stossel\'s interviews
with children
and was also interviewed himself, is concerned about Stossel\'s
tactics.
John Quigley is the executive director of Earth Day Los Angeles. In
April, he hosted a
field day for 2,000 kids to teach them about clean energy solutions.
The day\'s events
were filmed by Debbie Colloton, one of Stossel\'s producers.
\"We had an educational experience where everything was solar-powered
at the
event,\" Quigley said. \"There were local presentation areas that were
solar-powered.
Kids learned about clean transportation and about things they can do
in their homes.\"
Colloton also visited an elementary school to interview kids. She
subsequently
arranged for 10 children, grades two through five, to be taped in a
studio setting as
they talked about the environment.
Colloton never mentioned Stossel\'s involvement with the project. \"We
still didn\'t think
anything,\" Quigley said. \"We just didn\'t know. We thought Debbie
Colloton was going
to do the interviews for her ABC documentary.\"
Quigley was wrong, however, because about five minutes before taping,
John Stossel
showed up. \"Debbie Colloton announces that Stossel will be
interviewing the kids,\"
Quigley said. \"It didn\'t raise a red flag because all I knew was that
he was a
commentator for ABC. It did seem odd that his name was never mentioned
at all and
all of a sudden he shows up.\"
Stossel interviewed the kids for about 30 minutes on environmental
topics before
showing his agenda, Quigley said.
\"He started asking leading questions and it was very clear what he
wanted to get,\"
Quigley said. \"He would say, \'Wow, it\'s really scary, isn\'t it?\' And
the kids weren\'t
scared at all and so they just looked at him. He asked that question
repeatedly.\"
According to Quigley, Stossel was having a hard time getting what he
wanted. \"These
were bright kids, and they were responding well. He was clearly trying
to elicit certain
responses on tape. When he didn\'t get the verbal response he wanted,
he had the
crew shoot from behind and had the students raise their hands while he
asked, \'Is the
air getting dirtier or cleaner?\' It was clear that he wasn\'t
interested in honest dialogue
but was trying to elicit certain responses for a script he had already
written.\"
Although Quigley was bothered, he thought Stossel was just asking
tough questions.
He agreed to tape a discussion with Stossel and fellow educators the
following
Monday.
About 30 minutes into the interview with educators, Stossel changed
the tone from a
round-table discussion to an attack. \"He proceeded to attack the
elementary school
teachers, telling them, \'You\'re scaring these kids,\' \" Quigley said.
\"At one point he
raised his voice and was yelling it, \'You\'re scaring these kids,\' but
this time, like it was
a dramatic performance for TV, he said over his shoulder, \'That was
over the top.\' The
impression I got was that he was telling the cameraman that this
wasn\'t to be used.\"
Quigley said Stossel tried to get the group to fight back, but the
group didn\'t take the
bait. \"For the most of the attack,\" Quigley said, \"the six of us were
stunned. We tried
to bring it back to a dialogue. We responded as best we could given
the
circumstances.\"
He worries that the footage will be edited to support Stossel\'s
agenda. \"He would
have to be a very dark force to turn that footage into something
else.\"
Quigley is not alone. On June 25th, parents of the children who were
interviewed
wrote to John Stossel and revoked their consent for their children to
appear in the
piece. \"Some of us witnessed the interview you conducted with our
children, and saw
how you asked leading questions to get them to say what you wanted,\"
the parents
wrote.
Michael Scott, one of the parents who signed the letter, was present
when his two
children, Zachary, age 8, and Rachel, age 10, were interviewed. Scott
said that he felt
something was wrong when Stossel asked the children to answer in
unison to
questions.
According to Scott, Stossel asked the children if all scientists agree
about the cause
of global warming. \"What he was looking for is for the kids to say,
\'All scientists
agree.\'\" Scott said Stossel also led the children to saying they were
scared. \"Prior to
being asked in unison, no one said they were scared,\" Scott said.
\"Then Stossel said,
\'This is pretty scary stuff, yeah?\' and some of the kids agreed.\"
Scott thinks Stossel didn\'t do enough investigation to draw any
conclusions. \"A lot of
information my son gets is from reading and not from school. He didn\'t
ask, \'Did you
learn that from your dad? Did you learn that from your friends?\'\"
Scott said. \"My son is
8 and he reads National Geographic. I\'m amazed at the amount of
information he has
and I know he didn\'t get it all from school.\"
Brad Neal, another parent, is also angry. \"He totally manipulated the
interviewing
process,\" Neal said. \"He asked questions again and again until he got
what he
wanted. He used the word scared like 15 times. I kind of have to kick
myself for not
pulling out my kids right then.\"
Both Scott and Neal were contacted by Dawn Porter, Director of News
Practices for
ABC, yesterday when the letter was made public. Neal said that ABC
would like to
meet with the parents, but he is not sure he is interested. \"I just
asked Debbie
Colloton, who was also on the phone, \'Why didn\'t you let us know it
was Stossel? Why
didn\'t you let us know what the piece was about?\'\"
Neal said that he just wants his kids out of the piece. \"This is
against everything I am
teaching my kids,\" Neal said. \"I\'m teaching my kids to be honest, even
when it\'s
uncomfortable, to be forthright.\" Neal\'s children are Brandon, age 10,
and Sam, age
8.
The Environmental Working Group, which previously went after Stossel
for his report
on organic food, coordinated the letter. EWG California Director Bill
Walker said that
Stossel\'s conduct violated the Code of Ethics for the Society of
Professional
Journalists. \"It says that you are supposed to use special sensitivity
when dealing with
children,\" Walker said.
ABC released a statement yesterday denying that the interview was
inappropriate.
\"While ABC News is confident that the interview was handled in a
respectful and
sensitive manner according to the highest journalistic standards, we
take the
concerns of these parents seriously and are reaching out to them to
open a direct line
of communication to resolve this issue,\" the statement said.
But ABC\'s version of events, as told through their public relations
department, differs
from the parents\' account. \"We didn\'t know that it was going to be
\'controversial\' until
we went into the field and heard the kind of information that was
being taught to the
kids -- which turned out to be highly partisan and very one-sided. Our
report will reflect
exactly what we saw and heard,\" ABC\'s Jeffrey Schneider said.
Quigley disagrees. \"It\'s going to be tough for Stossel and his crew to
get what they
wanted,\" he said. He\'s tried to explain what happened to the children.
But, he says,
\"What they are learning is that they can\'t trust the media.\"
Shaping the Story
Although ABC says it went into the field with an open mind, there is
evidence to the
contrary.
In March -- a month before Stossel\'s producers turned up at Quigley\'s
event -- a group
called Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment (RISE) posted an
email to their
listserv. RISE serves as a pesticide industry front-group, according
to Sheldon
Rampton, editor of PR Watch. The email was a message from Michael
Sanera,
director of environmental education research at the Stossel fan club
known as the
Competitive Enterprise Institute. The email was later forwarded to
environmentalists.
\"I have been contacted by ABC News,\" Sanera wrote on March 20, 2001.
\"A
producer for John Stossel is working on a program on environmental
education. He
needs examples of kids who have been \'scared green\' by schools
teaching
doomsday environmentalism in the classroom. (He needs kids and/or
parents to
appear on camera.) I have some examples, but I need more. Would you
send out a
notice to your group and ask if they know of some examples.\"
Jeffrey Schneider, from ABC\'s public relations department, confirmed
that Stossel\'s
producer contacted Sanera about the environmental education story.
Schneider also
confirmed that Sanera had recommended that the producers contact a
teacher
named John Borowski, a supporter of environmental education.
Borowski teaches marine science and biology at North Salem High School
in
Oregon. He received a call from Ted Balaker and Debbie Colloton,
Stossel\'s
producers, on April 9, 2001. Balaker and Colloton told him that they
were working on
a documentary.
The call aroused his suspicions. Through his contacts in the
environmental
community, Borowski had already seen a copy of the email in which
Sanera claimed
to be working with Stossel\'s producer. However, when he asked Balaker
and Colloton
if they were working with Sanera, they said no. Borowski subsequently
called Sanera.
\"He told me he was working with a producer named Ted Balaker on a
program for
John Stossel,\" Borowski said. \"They lied to me.\"
ABC\'s Schneider says that the producers did not work with Sanera,
despite
appearances to the contrary. \"The moment we became aware of his email,
we
demanded that he cease and desist,\" says Schneider. Sanera, he said,
\"played no
role whatever in bringing this story to ABC News.\"
In a call with Balaker on April 12, Borowski asked if he was working
with Stossel on
the documentary, and Balaker said that he\'d worked with Stossel in the
past, but not
on the current project. However, ABC says that Borowski was told that
Stossel was
involved in the project.
In the end, neither Sanera nor Borowski were interviewed for the
documentary on
environmental education.
Expecting More from ABC News
Is Stossel once again preparing to unleash a report based on his
anti-environmental
prejudices and deceptive interviewing tactics? Perhaps, but only the
final piece will
show. PR Watch\'s Sheldon Rampton thinks Stossel went too far.
\"Deception is sometimes a justifiable journalistic tactic when
exposing people who
are engaged in fraud or other wrongdoing,\" Rampton said. \"We are all
familiar with
the \'60 Minutes\' segments where a hidden camera and a false identity
are used to
catch someone on film lying to a reporter or offering to commit a
crime. Stossel,
however, has used deception to entrap schoolteachers. There is simply
no
justification for Stossel\'s decision to use deception and concealment
when the sole
purpose of that deception is to disguise his own editorial slant from
the people he is
interviewing.\"
On the ground in Los Angeles, John Quigley is upset. \"There is a
difference between
journalism that is balanced and asks tough questions and so-called
journalism where
the story is sensationalized,\" he said. \"This is a sensationalized
approach, a Jerry
Springer type mentality. You expect more from ABC News.\"
http://www.tompaine.com
MORE UNDERHANDED REPORTING FROM ABC NEWS
The Story Behind John Stossel\'s Latest Attack on Environmentalism
Marianne Manilov is a writer living in San Francisco. She is currently
working on her
first book about the human rights activist, Ka Hsaw Wa. She is a
senior consultant
with the group We Interrupt This Message.
John Stossel is back in action. Stossel is a commentator on ABC\'s
\"20/20,\" where he
devotes much of his time to railing against government regulations.
According to
FreeMarket.net, Stossel is \"one of the libertarian movement\'s most
valuable
proponents.\" His staunch libertarian perspective influences much of
his commentary,
sometimes to the detriment of its accuracy.
Last summer, Stossel attacked the organic food industry using
fabricated and
distorted scientific studies. His fans sprang to his defense, and the
Competitive
Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank, even sponsored a
website in his honor,
SaveJohnStossel.com.
Stossel is now gearing up for another attack on greens, this time in
the form of a
screed against environmental education. The program is reportedly
scheduled to air
on Friday, June 29, 2001. According to educators and parents whose
children were
interviewed for the show, Stossel has once again allowed his beliefs
to interfere with
his journalistic duties.
Stossel\'s Sudden Arrival
An environmental educator, who was present for Stossel\'s interviews
with children
and was also interviewed himself, is concerned about Stossel\'s
tactics.
John Quigley is the executive director of Earth Day Los Angeles. In
April, he hosted a
field day for 2,000 kids to teach them about clean energy solutions.
The day\'s events
were filmed by Debbie Colloton, one of Stossel\'s producers.
\"We had an educational experience where everything was solar-powered
at the
event,\" Quigley said. \"There were local presentation areas that were
solar-powered.
Kids learned about clean transportation and about things they can do
in their homes.\"
Colloton also visited an elementary school to interview kids. She
subsequently
arranged for 10 children, grades two through five, to be taped in a
studio setting as
they talked about the environment.
Colloton never mentioned Stossel\'s involvement with the project. \"We
still didn\'t think
anything,\" Quigley said. \"We just didn\'t know. We thought Debbie
Colloton was going
to do the interviews for her ABC documentary.\"
Quigley was wrong, however, because about five minutes before taping,
John Stossel
showed up. \"Debbie Colloton announces that Stossel will be
interviewing the kids,\"
Quigley said. \"It didn\'t raise a red flag because all I knew was that
he was a
commentator for ABC. It did seem odd that his name was never mentioned
at all and
all of a sudden he shows up.\"
Stossel interviewed the kids for about 30 minutes on environmental
topics before
showing his agenda, Quigley said.
\"He started asking leading questions and it was very clear what he
wanted to get,\"
Quigley said. \"He would say, \'Wow, it\'s really scary, isn\'t it?\' And
the kids weren\'t
scared at all and so they just looked at him. He asked that question
repeatedly.\"
According to Quigley, Stossel was having a hard time getting what he
wanted. \"These
were bright kids, and they were responding well. He was clearly trying
to elicit certain
responses on tape. When he didn\'t get the verbal response he wanted,
he had the
crew shoot from behind and had the students raise their hands while he
asked, \'Is the
air getting dirtier or cleaner?\' It was clear that he wasn\'t
interested in honest dialogue
but was trying to elicit certain responses for a script he had already
written.\"
Although Quigley was bothered, he thought Stossel was just asking
tough questions.
He agreed to tape a discussion with Stossel and fellow educators the
following
Monday.
About 30 minutes into the interview with educators, Stossel changed
the tone from a
round-table discussion to an attack. \"He proceeded to attack the
elementary school
teachers, telling them, \'You\'re scaring these kids,\' \" Quigley said.
\"At one point he
raised his voice and was yelling it, \'You\'re scaring these kids,\' but
this time, like it was
a dramatic performance for TV, he said over his shoulder, \'That was
over the top.\' The
impression I got was that he was telling the cameraman that this
wasn\'t to be used.\"
Quigley said Stossel tried to get the group to fight back, but the
group didn\'t take the
bait. \"For the most of the attack,\" Quigley said, \"the six of us were
stunned. We tried
to bring it back to a dialogue. We responded as best we could given
the
circumstances.\"
He worries that the footage will be edited to support Stossel\'s
agenda. \"He would
have to be a very dark force to turn that footage into something
else.\"
Quigley is not alone. On June 25th, parents of the children who were
interviewed
wrote to John Stossel and revoked their consent for their children to
appear in the
piece. \"Some of us witnessed the interview you conducted with our
children, and saw
how you asked leading questions to get them to say what you wanted,\"
the parents
wrote.
Michael Scott, one of the parents who signed the letter, was present
when his two
children, Zachary, age 8, and Rachel, age 10, were interviewed. Scott
said that he felt
something was wrong when Stossel asked the children to answer in
unison to
questions.
According to Scott, Stossel asked the children if all scientists agree
about the cause
of global warming. \"What he was looking for is for the kids to say,
\'All scientists
agree.\'\" Scott said Stossel also led the children to saying they were
scared. \"Prior to
being asked in unison, no one said they were scared,\" Scott said.
\"Then Stossel said,
\'This is pretty scary stuff, yeah?\' and some of the kids agreed.\"
Scott thinks Stossel didn\'t do enough investigation to draw any
conclusions. \"A lot of
information my son gets is from reading and not from school. He didn\'t
ask, \'Did you
learn that from your dad? Did you learn that from your friends?\'\"
Scott said. \"My son is
8 and he reads National Geographic. I\'m amazed at the amount of
information he has
and I know he didn\'t get it all from school.\"
Brad Neal, another parent, is also angry. \"He totally manipulated the
interviewing
process,\" Neal said. \"He asked questions again and again until he got
what he
wanted. He used the word scared like 15 times. I kind of have to kick
myself for not
pulling out my kids right then.\"
Both Scott and Neal were contacted by Dawn Porter, Director of News
Practices for
ABC, yesterday when the letter was made public. Neal said that ABC
would like to
meet with the parents, but he is not sure he is interested. \"I just
asked Debbie
Colloton, who was also on the phone, \'Why didn\'t you let us know it
was Stossel? Why
didn\'t you let us know what the piece was about?\'\"
Neal said that he just wants his kids out of the piece. \"This is
against everything I am
teaching my kids,\" Neal said. \"I\'m teaching my kids to be honest, even
when it\'s
uncomfortable, to be forthright.\" Neal\'s children are Brandon, age 10,
and Sam, age
8.
The Environmental Working Group, which previously went after Stossel
for his report
on organic food, coordinated the letter. EWG California Director Bill
Walker said that
Stossel\'s conduct violated the Code of Ethics for the Society of
Professional
Journalists. \"It says that you are supposed to use special sensitivity
when dealing with
children,\" Walker said.
ABC released a statement yesterday denying that the interview was
inappropriate.
\"While ABC News is confident that the interview was handled in a
respectful and
sensitive manner according to the highest journalistic standards, we
take the
concerns of these parents seriously and are reaching out to them to
open a direct line
of communication to resolve this issue,\" the statement said.
But ABC\'s version of events, as told through their public relations
department, differs
from the parents\' account. \"We didn\'t know that it was going to be
\'controversial\' until
we went into the field and heard the kind of information that was
being taught to the
kids -- which turned out to be highly partisan and very one-sided. Our
report will reflect
exactly what we saw and heard,\" ABC\'s Jeffrey Schneider said.
Quigley disagrees. \"It\'s going to be tough for Stossel and his crew to
get what they
wanted,\" he said. He\'s tried to explain what happened to the children.
But, he says,
\"What they are learning is that they can\'t trust the media.\"
Shaping the Story
Although ABC says it went into the field with an open mind, there is
evidence to the
contrary.
In March -- a month before Stossel\'s producers turned up at Quigley\'s
event -- a group
called Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment (RISE) posted an
email to their
listserv. RISE serves as a pesticide industry front-group, according
to Sheldon
Rampton, editor of PR Watch. The email was a message from Michael
Sanera,
director of environmental education research at the Stossel fan club
known as the
Competitive Enterprise Institute. The email was later forwarded to
environmentalists.
\"I have been contacted by ABC News,\" Sanera wrote on March 20, 2001.
\"A
producer for John Stossel is working on a program on environmental
education. He
needs examples of kids who have been \'scared green\' by schools
teaching
doomsday environmentalism in the classroom. (He needs kids and/or
parents to
appear on camera.) I have some examples, but I need more. Would you
send out a
notice to your group and ask if they know of some examples.\"
Jeffrey Schneider, from ABC\'s public relations department, confirmed
that Stossel\'s
producer contacted Sanera about the environmental education story.
Schneider also
confirmed that Sanera had recommended that the producers contact a
teacher
named John Borowski, a supporter of environmental education.
Borowski teaches marine science and biology at North Salem High School
in
Oregon. He received a call from Ted Balaker and Debbie Colloton,
Stossel\'s
producers, on April 9, 2001. Balaker and Colloton told him that they
were working on
a documentary.
The call aroused his suspicions. Through his contacts in the
environmental
community, Borowski had already seen a copy of the email in which
Sanera claimed
to be working with Stossel\'s producer. However, when he asked Balaker
and Colloton
if they were working with Sanera, they said no. Borowski subsequently
called Sanera.
\"He told me he was working with a producer named Ted Balaker on a
program for
John Stossel,\" Borowski said. \"They lied to me.\"
ABC\'s Schneider says that the producers did not work with Sanera,
despite
appearances to the contrary. \"The moment we became aware of his email,
we
demanded that he cease and desist,\" says Schneider. Sanera, he said,
\"played no
role whatever in bringing this story to ABC News.\"
In a call with Balaker on April 12, Borowski asked if he was working
with Stossel on
the documentary, and Balaker said that he\'d worked with Stossel in the
past, but not
on the current project. However, ABC says that Borowski was told that
Stossel was
involved in the project.
In the end, neither Sanera nor Borowski were interviewed for the
documentary on
environmental education.
Expecting More from ABC News
Is Stossel once again preparing to unleash a report based on his
anti-environmental
prejudices and deceptive interviewing tactics? Perhaps, but only the
final piece will
show. PR Watch\'s Sheldon Rampton thinks Stossel went too far.
\"Deception is sometimes a justifiable journalistic tactic when
exposing people who
are engaged in fraud or other wrongdoing,\" Rampton said. \"We are all
familiar with
the \'60 Minutes\' segments where a hidden camera and a false identity
are used to
catch someone on film lying to a reporter or offering to commit a
crime. Stossel,
however, has used deception to entrap schoolteachers. There is simply
no
justification for Stossel\'s decision to use deception and concealment
when the sole
purpose of that deception is to disguise his own editorial slant from
the people he is
interviewing.\"
On the ground in Los Angeles, John Quigley is upset. \"There is a
difference between
journalism that is balanced and asks tough questions and so-called
journalism where
the story is sensationalized,\" he said. \"This is a sensationalized
approach, a Jerry
Springer type mentality. You expect more from ABC News.\"
http://www.tompaine.com
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IMC Network
I'm old enough to recall when the same idiots who hawk global warming were warning about the coming Ice Age.
"I feel stupid and contagious."
He makes the good point that to survive in the world we MUST tamper with nature, the statement itself is a tautology.
He properly depiected anti-science activists as irrational and cruel people, bent on destroying man's life on earth. He also pointed out their total lack of any proof that genetic engineering has ever caused harm. In fact, he was right to point out that food is safer because of GMO's due to less spraying and less insect infestation.
Good work, John.
The environmental group told the kids that solar power was the only way to go, but left out that all of the solar plants combined produce less than 0.3% of the energy the state needs. They were too busy signing a mindless song about the evils of drilling for oil.
Those kids were certainly manipulated. The school even helped the brainwashing of the 6 - 15 years olds, by making the political re-education into a field trip.
Is the role of public schools to lie to and terrorize young children? Is it right to cloud their minds before given a chance to think rationally? NO.