Re: Medis bias

[Jerry, Cohen]

> I think the problem is more one of an ideologically motivated news media

> than a scientifically illiterate news media.  With its vast wealth the

> popular press could probably find some competent consultants somewhere > > >from whom to obtain advice and sound science. 

> Perhaps they could try contacting the Health Physics Society or the

> American Nuclear Society.



Yes, they certainly could, but they don't. I suspect the reason is fear of getting the wrong answer to their inquiry - i.e. one that does not scare people and is therefore not newsworthy. Scientific literacy and successful journalism don't seem to be compatible with each other.



,> For a scholarly and systematic treatment of the bias of the popular press

> see "Environmental Cancer -- A Political Disease?" by S. Robert Lichter and

> Stanley Rothman (Yale University, 1999), especially chapter five ("Media

> Coverage of Environmental Cancer").  The leftist bias of the popular bias

> may not be well-known, but is certainly well-established.

> 

> Steven Dapra

> sjd@swcp.com

> 

> 

> 

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