We Report, We Decide

by Richard R. Loomis and Susan Salter

The Fox News network's famous slogan is "We report, you decide." Sounds like the essence of objective journalism - if only it were true.

Fox, like every major television network and most newspapers and magazines, has a lot at stake. To gain ratings or circulation (thereby boosting advertising revenue), outlets must do whatever it takes to grab our attention. And these days, nothing grabs attention like footage of, for instance, an Arctic glacier breaking up, or a somber talking-head predicting the end of the rainforests. Global warming sells, and thanks to the mainstream media, the American public is buying it up by the ton.

As much as we would like to credit Al Gore and his minions with the global warming craze, let us quote another unimpeachable source - Time magazine - on the subject: "[Those] who claim that winters were harder when they were boys are quite right. … Weathermen have no doubt that the world at least for the time being is growing warmer." That observation was published in 1939, and it helped herald a media fascination with predicting doom and gloom as Mother Nature throws us her best curveballs.

A mere 36 years later, Time (along with Newsweek and probably your local newspaper) was singing a different tune. The sky was falling again, only this time it was a global ice age that would threaten Life as We Know It. Indeed, the years 1974 and 1975 were a veritable golden age of media-pushed climate change. "Telltale signs are everywhere," wrote Time in 1974, "from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of warmth-loving creatures like the armadillo from the Midwest." Newsweek also mentioned "ominous signs" that Earth's weather patterns "have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth."

Anyone who was in school in the 1970s may remember learning of the impending ice age. The presentations were simple: a few handouts, a chart predicting cooling trends, pictures of people in warm coats, snow in Los Angeles, that kind of thing. The three channels of the nightly news occasionally ran a story associated with global cooling, but the bulk of the stories were carried by print news sources.

Today, we are connected 24/7 to news sources on TV and online, and we have come full circle back to global warming. And we are much more excited by the news. Could it be because the media is so much better at disseminating unbiased, in-depth coverage of a highly scientific issue? Well, if you believe that …

Drowning in Information

Unfortunately, the U.S. media and content providers have taken a very hard line when it comes to sharing global warming information across the media band waves. Instead of reporting on the issue and building well-rounded stories, media outlets are generating a new brand of yellow journalism. Anyone who even questions the approach the media has taken to the coverage of global warming is subject to censorship and ridicule.

"After more than a century of alternating between global cooling and warming, one would think that this media history would serve a cautionary tale for today's voices in the media and scientific community who are promoting yet another round of eco-doom," stated Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), whose remarks were published in 2007 in the reference book series At Issue.