We’ve said it, Boykoff and Boykoff have said it, and now the Nobel Prize winning Al Gore has stated the obvious: that North American media members have been played for fools, reporting climate change as an “on the one hand, on the other hand” issue.
It’s hard to track whether this faulty substitute for real impartiality is a reflection of mass media stupidity or if it’s a tribute to the cleverness of the people for whom it is economically advantageous to deny climate change. Personally, I think there is something deeply flawed in the media psyche – this addiction to balance that is at once insistent and careless.
On an increasing number of issues, reporters and editors don’t want to be accused of silencing any voice. And, perversely, they think it would be an affront to exercise judgment, even when one side is so clearly in the scientific ditch.
To all those reporters who have got the point (and you are now in a reassuring majority), my apologies for anything in the foregoing is offensive. But look, say, at the Editorial Page of The Vancouver Sun today, or at the National Post’s Denier series – or at anything on Fox – and ask yourself whether you’re truly in good company on this issue. I have to say no.
