Big Media Is Bad News for Global Warming
One of the hardest things about fighting Big Media is its refusal to cover media consolidation as a real issue. In this guest post by Mark Cooper, director of research at Consumers Federation of America, outlines the parallels between the fight for a healthier environment and a better media system.
By Mark Cooper, Consumer Federation of America
Activists in the media reform and media justice movement argue that “media is the issue” because the media influence which issues get aired and how they are represented in public discourse. Many of us work on issues alongside media reform, and we are constantly making the connection between specific issues — like race and gender equity, social justice — and media reform. However, it is rare when a mainstream media outlet makes the connection. Just such a connection was made in the lead editorial in the New York Times on New Year’s Day.
 Guest Blog Post by Mark Cooper |
The editorial, titled “The One Environmental Issue,” opens with the statement that “the overriding environmental issue of these times is the warming of the planet. The Democratic hopefuls in the 2008 campaign are fully engaged. … The Republicans do not go much farther than conceding that climate change could be a problem.”
The editorial goes on to note that “polls suggest, however, that voters are increasingly alarmed. … There is also a growing appetite for decisive action, everywhere, it seems, except the White House. Governors in more than two dozen states are fashioning regional agreements to lower greenhouse gases, the federal courts have ordered the executive branch to begin regulating these gases, and the Senate has begun work on a bipartisan bill.”
Big Media Misses the Big Issues
Actually, the editorial points out that there is another major institution that has failed to take notice of this important issue — Big Media. “In a recent study, the League of Conservation Voters found that as of two weeks ago, the five main political talk-show hosts had collectively asked 2,275 questions of candidates in both parties. Only 24 of these questions even touched on climate change.”
The editorial points out one of the important consequences of the failure of the press to play its proper role. “One result is that even candidates who urge comprehensive change have not been pressed on important questions of cost,” but it misses the more important consequence. The public is not made fully aware of the differences between the candidates on this critical issue. It is called agenda setting, and it is just another example of a conservative slant in TV land.
Big Media’s failure to cover environmental policy properly parallels its failure to cover media policy. For years, the media regurgitated the junk science funded by the oil industry, without exposing it as paid PR, just as big media hypes the research bought and paid for by their corporate parents.
The Role of Regulators
The agencies responsible for implementing policy also get cream puff treatment. Just as the FCC has the responsibility to set one of the most important policies affecting the media, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has responsibility for setting one of the most important aspects of environmental and energy policy — the fuel economy of cars and trucks.
And just as the FCC has done a horrible job and got reversed by the courts, NHTSA has done a horrible job and got reversed by the courts.
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In 2004, when NHTSA decided to increase the fuel economy standard for pickups and SUV by a paltry 1.3 miles per gallon, it used a gasoline price of $1.50 per gallon (when the pump price was well above $2.00). Eighteen months later, it could no longer stand behind such an obvious mistake, so it raised price of gas to $2.27 (when the pump price was already over $3.00). However, in spite of raising the economic value of the benefits by 50%, it failed to raise the standard any higher. The press barely noticed the absurdity.
Cases in the Courts
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The FCC and NHTSA had parallel problems in court. You may recall that in 2003 the courts found Chairman Michael Powell’s diversity index arbitrary and capricious:
We do not object in principle to the Commission’s reliance on the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust formula, the Herfindahl-Hirschmann Index (HHI), as its starting point for measuring diversity in local markets. In converting the HHI to a measure of diversity in local markets, however, the Commission gave too much weight to the Internet as media outlet, irrationally assigned outlets of the same media type equal a market shares, and inconsistently derived the cross-media limits from its Diversity Index results. …
Additionally, there is no dispute that the assignment of equal market shares generates absurd results. For example, in New York City, the Dutchess Community College TV station and the stations owned by ABC each have an equal 4.3% market share. Or compare the Dutchess Community College station’s weighted share of 1.5% (4.3% times the 33.8% multiplier to television) to a mere 1.4% weighted, combined share assigned to the New York Times company’s co-owned daily newspaper and radio station. A Diversity Index that requires us to accept that a community college television station makes a greater contribution to viewpoint diversity than a conglomerate that includes the third-largest newspaper in America also requires us to abandon both logic and reality.
NHTSA’s cost-benefit analysis had a similar problem, beyond the bogus price of gasoline. The court accepted the idea of cost-benefit analysis, but objected to the fact that NHTSA refused to place any value of the reduction of emission of carbon dioxide, which results from the burning of gasoline in automobiles. The court wrote:
We hold that the Final Rule is arbitrary and capricious, contrary to EPCA in its failure to monetize the value of carbon credits, failure to set a backstop, failure to close the SUV loophole, and failure to set fuel economy for all vehicles. … Even if NHTSA may use a cost-benefit analysis to determine the “maximum feasible” fuel economy standard, it cannot put a thumb on the scale by undervaluing the benefits and overvaluing the costs of more stringent standards … assigned no value to the most significant benefit of more stringent CAFÉ standards reductions in carbon emissions. … Thus, NHSTA’s decision not to monetize the benefits of carbon emissions reductions was arbitrary and capricious.
 FCC Chairman Kevin Martin in the Hot Seat |
December 18: A Day of Reckoning
The fate of these two issues took parallel paths on December 18. When the FCC voted out its new proposal to allow newspapers to own TV stations in the same market, it ensured a continuing battle at the agency and in the courts.
On the same day, President Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which sets a goal of increasing the average fuel economy of cars and trucks by 7.5 miles per gallon in 12 years. NHTSA will be in charge of the rulemaking, ensuring another fierce fight over cost-benefit assumptions and providing an opportunity for the public, which is increasingly concerned, to weigh in for the first time. (NHTSA got 45,000 comments in the 2004 truck rule proceeding, a piddling sum compared to the 2.5 million the FCC got in the 2003 media ownership proceeding).
Will Big Media do a better job of covering these next rounds? Stay tuned, but don’t hold your breath.
For more information on the recent FCC decision check out: http://www.freepress.net/press/release.php?id=323
For more information on energy policy see this report from Consumers Federation of America: A Step Toward a Brighter Energy Future: Policymakers Break the Logjam, But Vigorous Implementation Is Crucial (PDF link)
