The formula is pretty simple: Green is hot right now in U.S. culture, particularly among influencers. Anything that's hot attracts advertising dollars. Media wants to attract those dollars, so it runs green content. (See here for a look at how this is playing out in TV.)
However, content that involves complicated or controversial issues of public policy, or that points a finger of blame at corporations or corporatism, or that challenges the assumptions and behaviors of the American consumer, is verboten. No profit-driven media outlet wants to turn people off, or scare them, or get accused of advocating for one position or another in a politically or culturally charged controversy.
If you're in the business of "lifestyle" content, that's fine. You talk about lightbulbs and cleaning products and organic t-shirts. The media world is packed with that stuff right now. Are there human beings left on earth who don't know about CFLs? Who don't have a helpful new website where they can connect with other light-green souls in a toe-tingling, web 2.0 kind of way? If there are, I'm happy to forward them several dozen press releases.
But what if you fashion yourself a "serious" media outlet? What if you're an investigative journalist or a commentator who discusses economic and political issues for a living, but you work for a profit-driven media conglomerate? You can't very well expose the environmental sins of U.S. politicians and corporations. How do you do "serious" green content, given those constraints?
From what I can tell, the answer is to expose environmentalists -- as naïve, gullible dupes who fall for feel-good gimmicks.
This was brought home recently when I heard about a network TV news show of some note, looking for help in exposing environmental myths for an Earth Day special. What myths, you ask? The myth that coal can be clean? The myth that oil companies operate in a free market? The myth that young families flock to suburbs because of natural preferences rather than a century of preferential public policy?
No, no, not those deeply rooted myths. The proposed myths were all about environmental solutions -- carbon offsets, bamboo, local food, etc.
Now, let's stipulate that there are reasonable questions to ask about all those phenomena. But face it, flagellating soccer moms for misguided attempts to do something good is not investigative journalism; it's infotainment. It's the old American sport of punishing the self-righteous. It's utterly toothless, threatening to exactly no one.
While the American public remains deeply and fundamentally misinformed about the structure of our climate/energy situation, is the best focus for media the scattered, nascent attempts by some people to do something about it? It's profoundly disempowering, however useful it may be to the owners of said media.
Calling all radicals: Unite for Kerry-Boxer
Dispassion as the world ends: The absent heart of the great climate affair
Comments
View as Flat
JMG Posted 4:17 am
10 Mar 2008
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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gargy Posted 6:09 am
10 Mar 2008
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Angry African Posted 6:19 am
10 Mar 2008
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SMLowry Posted 9:49 am
10 Mar 2008
And, yeah, given the seriousness of the situation the media coverage is horrible. No connections are made, it's one sound bite after another and then on to the next story.
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:32 pm
10 Mar 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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mwildfire Posted 11:00 pm
17 Mar 2008
Why can't we solve any of these problems? because we can't even talk about them, as a nation, as long as this HOSTILE ENTITY, the corporation, has control of the nervous system of our body politic, our means of communication, which is the airwaves and pages of newspapers and magazines. We can't point the finger at actual culprits because they are ADVERTISERS. Universities each have a protected corporation or industry that the professors are not allowed to criticise--whichever one is the key local polluter. They give a lot of money to the local college to insure silence.
At a time when human survival is at stake, we are unable to make rational decisions because we have handed over control to the mechanical "persons" we created. Corporations can't think except via the brains of their managers, can't feel at all, and will not care if they cease to exist when the human race does--because they were never alive and able to care at all. People make the mistake of equating them with human persons, eg referring to "good" and "bad" corporations--but they are in no way similar to human beings. They are machines, designed to make profits, and they will keep on doing that until the planet and all its creatures die if we don't assert control over them. Some of these corporations are media corporations, and they are the means of blocking us from discussing and adopting effective solutions.
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