The Media and the Environment

Abstract

In late May of 2004 the New York Times published a weak mea culpa for its dismal reporting on George Bush's idiotic adventure in Iraq. The sad thing was that its coverage had been much better than the average in the mainstream U.S. media. We felt that time had come for that newspaper to publish a similar statement on its grossly inadequate treatment of environmental issues, so in early June we submitted the "OP ED" reprinted below. Needless to say it was not published. In the short time since, things have gotten even worse and the Times and its cohorts spent a week canonizing Ronald Reagan, the second worst President the United States has ever had (Bush II has, to everyone's amazement, captured the number one position). While there was occasional mention of Reagan's sleazy foreign policy moves and his war on the poor, his moves to destroy the environment were universally ignored. We should all recall that he appointed James Watt his Secretary of the Interior, a religious crazy who believed the "rapture" was so imminent that there was no need to protect Earth's life support systems. Watt later barely avoided a jail sentence for his corrupt acts while in office.