Soylent Green revisited

"The Tribal Filter on Green News," Insight July 23, 1990. Update: Click here for larger, legible image.

It's been nearly twenty years we've been calling out the warmenists and their media allies, wondering when, already, the truth would finally out. Now it finally has, as Drudge headlines "Climategate: 'Greatest scandal in modern science,'" and mainstream outlets can no longer deny there's something rotten in the state of warmening "science." Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhoffe says the leaked correspondence suggests researchers "cooked the science to make this thing look as if the science was settled, when all the time of course we knew it was not," and now "Congress May Probe Leaked Global Warming E-Mails." In celebration of this day of cleaning out the Augean Stables, herewith we offer republication of one of our earliest blogposts on the subject, "Soylent Green." Note Palinophobe Andrea Mitchell's unabashed confession way back when (1990): "Clearly the networks have made the decision now, where you'd have to call it advocacy." Enjoy:

January 3, 2004. Blogging is nothing new.  Before the glory of the internet, we were madly clipping and underlining and annotating the margins of tree-based publications.  Take this snail blog post, "The Tribal Filter on Green News," by Woody West, having "The Last Word" in the July 23, 1990 issue of Insight:

Only lately have the pooh-bahs of the national press felt secure enough to admit publicly that they filter the news through their personal-tribal creed. As a result, of course, they often report as fact that which is both unsettled and disputed.

. . . At a conference on the environment in Washington earlier this year, reported by The Wall Street Journal's David Brooks, Charles Alexander harrumphed:

"As the science editor at Time I would freely admit that on this issue we have crossed the boundary from news reporting to advocacy." There was applause from the pressies in conclave assembled, after which Andrea Mitchell, an NBC correspondent, said that "clearly the networks have made the decision now, where you'd have to call it advocacy."

It gets even better:

An environmental reporter at The Boston Globe, Dianne Dumanoski, is quoted as saying, "There is no such thing as objective reporting . . . I've become even more crafty about finding the voices to say the things I think are true.  That's my subversive mission." Then spake Barbara Pyle, environmental editor of Cable News Network, which shows distressing signs of aping the older networks in cooking the news: "I do have an axe to grind. I want to be the little subversive person in television."

Pardon our French, but, plus ça change . . . Oh, and Andrea, there's a message for you from someone called Alan . . . and David Brooks, You're the man!  Clearly.

Update: "Somewhere, a tree is planted." The Anchoress links, and links and links.

[Thanks to susis for title]

Comments

[goomp]

Integrity thy name is not news reporting.

[Gayle Miller]

Not my training in J-school AT ALL. I find this whole thing very distressing. Sure, I blog. But that is clearly and unabashedly MY opinion.

I covered the JFK assassination and of course, having seen the Zapruder film repeatedly, I had my opinions, particularly since I had grown up around firearms of all sorts. The personal opinions were never expressed directly or indirectly in my reporting. I stuck to FACTS - not my view of things.

I also covered the second Sam Shepherd trial. Once again, I had my opinions. They were strictly restricted to the space in my noggin. I was as impartial as Herculean effort could cause me to be. You see, then and now, I thought the man was guilty as sin!

It takes effort and a commitment to allowing the reader to form his or her own opinion - but unbiased reportage is possible. Most people calling themselves journalists today are just too filled with hubris or too lazy to do it!

[Brooklyn]

This is a prime example of the problems with 'fashion'.

Remember "bell bottoms"?

Democrats have grown their power, peddling a fashion which dehumanizes their opposition as being ugly and uncaring. They vilify Republicans and Conservatives in such an obscene manner. It has grown for decades with these Partisan Democrats, peddling a fashion in numerous Media Establishments, Educational Institutions, and Public Offices.

The Climate 'con' is just another fashionable movement, that lacks basis, and is pushed as a reason to gain power.

Fashion is easy to grow, as many just don't pay much attention to the specifics, and often believe what they hear, see, read. Also, in regards to the Democratic Party effort to debase GW Bush, many just want to be accepted. It is this human desire, to belong, which has grown such a disastrous fashion amongst many. So many lousy, corrupt, incompetent figures have been built up, while so much bad policy pushed, all empowered by a simplistic fashion.

I see it growing on all sides, all the time.

Perhaps the most amusing, was Mr. Perot's Third Party movement, which basically empowered the Clintons to the Presidency.

Here, on Our first Planet, some for their own gain, have pushed a 'global warming' fashion, which they know label 'climate change'. The desire to have a better environmental existence is a sincere positive, but it reminds us all, just how unethical some can be, and the overwhelming influence of Our popular culture has on the human existence.

Pop Rocks and Beatle Mania, might even have been exploited by eager socialists today.