Sitting in his Baltimore office the other day, Charles Margulis, Greenpeace’s quiet and thoughtful anti-genetic engineering warrior, seemed chagrined. Margulis is the one who virtually single handedly prompted Gerber’s recent decision to remove all genetically engineered (GE) ingredients from its baby food. He is also the one who shamed Kellogg into admitting that they exclude GE ingredients from their European cereals but do nothing to keep them out of American breakfast bowls.
What had Charles worried was an email news release he had received from the folks behind the respected PBS Frontline series. In the foregoing weeks, Margulis had spent much time and effort with the producers in putting together a report about GE foods and now, here in his email, was the first indication of what that report might look like.
“I was shocked to see what they wrote,” he says. What shocked him the most was the part that read, “In Africa, rice plants are genetically transformed to produce vitamin A, preventing millions of African children from going blind.” Margulis had been quite clear in explaining to Frontline producer Kathleen Boisvert: those were the very buzzwords and images used by the biotechnology industry today to promote its technology and derail its critics. The problem with that “save-the-world-while-making-a-buck” statement? It is based on a lie.
Margulis hammered out a quick reply to the email. “Is this really from your release? Is Frontline aware that there is no Vitamin A rice growing anywhere outside of a few greenhouse plants, none of which are in Africa?” he asked. Boisvert seemed surprised at first, but later, apparently after conferring with senior producers, she replied: “Yes, you are viewing the official press release for Harvest of Fear. The first paragraph lists examples that the biotech industry is claiming as future applications/benefits of GE technology.”
Margulis almost couldn’t believe it. He knew that if what was ultimately broadcast reflected what the press release said, viewers would only be misled about this new technology that was already being forced down consumers’ throats.
“I’m very surprised that Frontline would write such a misleading release,” he responded, as tactfully as possible. “The release is written in the present tense. Anyone reading it would certainly conclude that these products already exist.”
Apparently, the producers were no longer interested in the opinion of the expert they had courted and relied upon earlier. They never even bothered to write him back. So now, as is so often the case when anyone talks with a reporter, Margulis is simply left to wonder. Has the industry that has so effectively steered the reporting of this new technology succeeded in feeding Frontline a fairy-tale version of the facts? Do the producers really get it? What’s even more troubling, do they still have the freedom to report all the facts they find without the political or economic pressures that so clearly influence what passes for journalism in the mainstream media these days?
Massaging the Message
For those raising questions about genetic engineering and its possible deleterious effects on humans and the environment, there is no shortage of evidence that the industry itself has become the master of the message, manipulating and massaging the facts wherever they must.
Consider the $50 million advertising campaign by the Council for Biotechnology Information, the industry’s Washington front group. Its mission: “To create a public dialogue and share information about biotechnology that is based on scientific research, expert opinion, and published reports.”
Maybe you’ve seen the Council’s slick television commercial. Laughing, attractive families frolicking through pristine fields filled with a plentiful harvest. It’s seductive enough to rival those feel-so-damn-good Claritin ads. More importantly, it’s enough to make you wonder, “Hey, how do I get some of that stuff?”
At a recent conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists, the Council sent its representatives to hand out glossy information packets to any writer who wanted one. And for newspeople who might ever need a good resource, the Council was there to offer that, too. A simple phone call from a reporter, and the Council can serve up third-party “experts” who just happen to advocate the industry line. The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) is such a group. In their book, Toxic Sludge is Good for You, public relations watchdogs John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton call the ACSH “a commonly used industry front group that produces PR ammunition for the food processing and chemical industries.”
Ronnie Cummins of the Pure Food Campaign is more blunt. He calls ACSH and other pro-industry voices, such as JunkScience.com promoter Steven Milloy, “scaremongers.” Nonetheless, he concludes that they and others like them, are “a potent force,” because they get their message out on the influential op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, and other dailies in cities large and small.
Of course, there is nothing totally new about the genetic engineering industry using paid flacks to put its best foot forward. Every industry and product promoter has taken the same route. Automobiles, tobacco, nuclear energy–the bigger the sell, the harder the push. But biotech has been particularly effective in its behind-the-scenes work, earning itself headlines that read: “Engineered Catfish Could Be Bigger, Healthier,” and “Scientists Can Produce GM Crops That Combat Disease.” The “Golden Rice” cover story in Time magazine last summer may be the industry’s biggest coup to date. Its headline blared “This Rice Could Save a Million Kids a Year.”
“The golden rice story has been a lie repeated a thousand times,” says Cummins from his office in Little Marais, Minnesota–a long way from the well-heeled headquarters of the Council for Biotech Information, which he and his colleagues constantly challenge. Golden Rice, he says, has become the poster child for genetic engineering. While the article in Time trumpeted the virtues of bringing beta-carotene to children to help them sharpen their eyesight and strengthen their resistance to infectious diseases, the facts speak a much different story.
The real problems are poverty and inequality, says Peter Rossett of the Institute for Food and Development Policy and co-author of World Hunger: Twelve Myths. “Too many people are too poor to buy the food that is available or lack land on which to grow it themselves.” These are problems that won’t be solved with the use of genetic engineering, Rossett states in a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times.
Marion Nestle, in the March 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, writes that rice engineered to deliver beta-carotene is unlikely to alleviate vitamin A deficiency because many children with this deficiency are malnourished. “Digestion, absorption, and transport of beta-carotene require a functional digestive tract, adequate protein and fat stores, and adequate energy, protein, and fat in the diet,” she writes.
PR Flacks Trump Passionate Journalists
While corporate communications departments at companies today are stronger and better financed than ever, the mainstream broadcast media has been bowed and downsized by the bottom-line mentality of its corporate owners who see the news as just another profit center, not entirely unlike, say, the light bulb division.
Among the first casualties of corporate cost-cutting at news organizations have been specialized reporting and investigative journalism, which give journalists time to delve deeper and actually understand the facts. Older, experienced journeymen reporters at the top of the pay scale are also being shown the door, leaving the newsrooms populated with much less experienced journalists to churn out more “product” in less time. Combine inexperience and a lack of skepticism with a powerful PR voice, and you have the formula for disaster.
When my partner Steve Wilson and I stood up for the truth in a story on genetic engineering for Fox Television, the station’s manager couldn’t believe we’d turn down a six-figure sum and no-show consulting jobs in exchange for dropping our ethical objections. Monsanto, a big advertiser, had threatened “dire consequences” if our stories were broadcast. “What’s with you guys?” asked Vice President David Boylan of Fox, incredulously. “Why are you giving me such a hard time? I just want people who want to be on TV!”
An inexperienced reporter who “just wants to be on TV” looks for a story with good pictures and a simple message. Not only is there less time to do extensive research, mid-level managers in many newsrooms don’t want that kind of story anyway. From researcher, to reporter, to producer, and on up the ladder, the message has been heard: the fastest way to personal advancement in the journalism business is to crank out stories that generate a minimum of hassle. Nobody in management appreciates those threatening phone calls from industry flacks and their lawyers, especially not these days when lawsuits are so expensive to defend and advertisers so difficult to replace.
Sadly, inside news organizations today, good reporters have learned that dogged determination and a fire-in-the-belly passion to uncover the facts are no longer the coin of the realm. Passionate reporters are now more likely to be viewed by their editors as zealots pushing a personal agenda. Not surprisingly, in such an environment, some of the smartest reporters have turned into mouthpieces for corporate communications. This is unquestionably the reason why an astounding two-thirds of the foods on our supermarket shelves are laced with GE ingredients without a vast majority of consumers even noticing it.
For one of the best examples of the media’s corporate cheerleading, we need look no further than NBC’s coverage of the human genome project story last year.
First, Robert Bazell praised the innovation and parroted its proponents’ promise of groundbreaking medical advancements to follow. Then financial correspondent Mike Jensen touted the investment advantages of biotech. Omitted was any mention of the millions of American children who don’t even have basic health care, much less any chance to be on the receiving end of this so-called “designer medicine.” Omitted, too, was any mention of the frightening prospect of human cloning.
John Stossel, widely viewed as an apologist and cheerleader for big industry in many fields, is presently working on a series on genetic engineering. His producer has put out the word that they want someone “fiery” to represent the anti-genetic engineering side. “You know what that means,” sighs Margulis of Greenpeace. “They want someone who is going to look like they are out of control.”
Stossel, you may recall, is the reporter recently caught deliberately misleading Americans about organic foods. My husband, Steve Wilson, worked alongside Stossel at a CBS-owned station in New York in the late ’70s when Stossel was a consumer crusader and champion for the underdog. When they saw each other again a few years ago, Steve asked Stossel about the dramatic change in his reporting–how he went from skeptic to corporate cheerleader, someone who now questions the legitimacy of people who challenge big corporations and the status quo. Stossel explained that when he began making “real” money–he now enjoys a seven-figure income at ABC–“I started to see things much differently.”
The term “media elite” is often thrown at reporters who seem to spend more time worrying about their 401K plans and their Lexuses than about serving the public interest. From my own experience, I must admit that that perception is not too far off the mark these days, especially as it relates to television reporters covering the biotech story.
Cummins calls it the “snotty attitude” of the major, mainstream media. Recently, his Organic Consumer’s Association led a national boycott of Starbucks coffee shops to protest the company’s use of GE milk and other ingredients in baked goods. The action led to a pledge from Starbucks to offer non-GE alternatives in all its stores as soon as possible. Cummins says that the breakthrough did not attract any of the national media, except for an ABC crew, which claimed to be shooting for an unidentified upcoming special. Cummins wonders if he’ll soon be watching Stossel poking fun at Organic Consumers and whining his trademark, “Gimme A Break!”
Industry Setbacks
Ironically, it’s the “business” of biotech that has caused an increase in news coverage about GE foods. The discovery of “Starlink” corn–approved for animals but not humans–in the food served at Taco Bell made front-page headlines. The concerns of American farmers about whether they’ll be able to export this year’s crop to Japan has also made it to mainstream news.
Marion Nestle, a professor of Nutrition and Food Studies at NYU who regularly follows the New York Times coverage of these issues, says that the media is becoming more critical of biotech. “I see the industry in retreat,” she says, predicting that Monsanto will eventually have to sell off its biotech division.
She notes that a series of articles in the New York Times by respected writer Michael Pollan are another sign of GE industry troubles. His latest, about vitamin A rice (titled The Great Yellow Hype), quoted the president of the Rockefeller Foundation as saying, “The public relations uses of golden rice have gone too far,” while asking whether “golden rice will ever offer as much to malnourished children as it does to beleaguered biotech companies.”
Nestle believes that factors such as the Greenpeace campaigns, the Seattle WTO protests, Internet lists of GE foods, the USDA effort to have GE foods come under the Organic Standards Act, and other grassroots generated pressure may be forcing the media’s hand.
Gary Webb, the Pulitzer prize winner caught up in the firestorm that followed his San Jose Mercury News reports about U.S. government involvement in the Central American drug trade, was recently asked to name the biggest problem with the mainstream media today. “Cowardice and laziness,” was his response.
I tend to lean toward Webb’s assessment of the attitudes that flourish in most newsrooms today. I can only hope that the small increase in the amount of genuinely objective coverage of issues related to genetic engineering seen in the mainstream media lately will continue to grow.