Re: FW: News Media and How to Deceive

[Bernard L Cohen <blc+@pitt.edu>]

	Things get much worse in cases where reporters are not regular
employees of the paper or magazine, and earn a living as free-lance 
writers. These two examples are from my personal experience:

1. There was an article in a magazine about the horrible dangers from
plutonium toxicity. Having just published a paper on that subject, I
called the writer in an effort to explain to him how he had gone wrong. He
was very knowledgeable about the subject and even was familiar with my
paper. Realizing this, I asked him how he could write such a deceptive
article. He answered: "If I had written it your way, I could not have
gotten it published".

2. A reporter I had known personally had page 1 articles in The New York
Times on how the Chernobyl reactor had a containment equivalent to those
on U.S. reactors and on how more radiocesium had been emitted from
Chernobyl than from all nuclear tests combined. When I called him, I found
that he was quite familiar with the facts. I asked how he could write such
stories and he replied "I don't tell you how to do scientific research, so
you don't tell me how to do journalism" 

	There are lots of other examples of media sins in my book "Before
It's Too Late".

Bernard L. Cohen
Physics Dept.
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Tel: (412)624-9245
Fax: (412)624-9163
e-mail: blc+@pitt.edu


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