It's been weeks since the publication of Nathaniel Rich's "Losing Earth", the much-hyped article that went cover to cover in an August issue of the NY Times Magazine, but its giant contradictions are as jarring now as when I first read the article.
First, there's the title, which suggests that we are despoiling and ultimately losing the most precious of all things--a habitable planet upon which to live. If true, and the evidence is strong, you'd think it would have been front page news for decades, not something that pops up in the magazine as a done deal after forty years of sporadic coverage, like a jack in the box. The logic of that is, let's not worry about this climate change thing too much until we can safely feel it's too late to do anything.
Second, the premise of the article is that there was a decade--the 1980s--when action to solve the climate crisis was nearly taken, but that human nature kept us from acting. Here, again, there's a comfortably safe logic that avoids pointing fingers: it was nobody's fault and everybody's fault at the same time. The premise contradicts itself. If action was nearly taken, that means that a lot of people wanted to take action. Either those people are not human, or the article's premise is wrong.
The body of the article is well written and contains some useful research that, surprise, further contradicts the premise. In 1980, as it was becoming clear that strong U.S. leadership was needed to generate international action on climate change, Ronald Reagan was elected president. According to Rich's telling, Reagan moved to expand coal production, appointed "an anti-regulation zealot" to lead the EPA, and considered eliminating the council that had just warned him about the disastrous effects of global warming. "Reagan’s violence to environmental regulations alarmed even members of his own party," Rich declares.
This vivid telling, in which there were people who wanted to act, and others like Reagan who did not, completely undermines the article's central premise that "Almost nothing stood in our way--except ourselves."
It's often said that capitalism has a socialist element. It seeks to privatize profit while socializing loss. Pollution, for instance, is dumped on the global commons--in the atmosphere and waterways. Unlike profits, pollution's many costs and impacts are shared by all. We as individuals are allowed to operate under a similar logic, enjoying personal comfort and mobility as the CO2 rises from our chimneys and exhaust pipes to mix in the shared atmosphere. Rich's article does the same with blame, spreading it across all of humanity even while animating the text with the dramatic tension between those who wished to take action, and those who scuttled progress.
Particularly dramatic is the account of the first months of the George H.W. Bush administration, following a campaign in which Bush called for action on climate change. Soon after Bush took office in 1989, Secretary of State James Baker and EPA administrator William K. Reilly called for the U.S. to lead on climate change, but Bush's chief of staff, John Sununu shut them down while President Bush looked the other way. Again, the article's narrative clearly points not to some universal defect in human nature but towards particular individuals whose ideologies blinded them to the existential threat posed by a warming planet.
Though some blame goes to citizens who didn't pay attention, who listened to what they wanted to believe rather than a harder truth, it is the leaders who are ultimately to blame. They are the ones who take the solemn oath to protect the nation, and who ignored the evidence in order to let the voters off the hook. They are the leaders who failed to lead, and who chose the easy way, who opted out, who in a bout of reverse elitism decided they knew more than the scientists who have devoted their lives to studying the planet.
Journalism has long had trouble pointing the finger of blame, particularly at conservatives who since the 1980s have been battering the media with accusations of liberal bias. There's a palpable relief a journalist feels upon declaring "both sides" are to blame. But spreading the blame equally around when the facts suggest otherwise is hardly objective. It is a form of bias that provides reprieve for the guilty and smears the innocent. "Both sides" journalism leaves the public unprotected from malefactors, while offering no incentive for politicians to do the right thing. If extended to a schoolyard, a no-blame policy would lead to mayhem where bullies never face consequences. That, in essence, is what national politics has descended into.
Take Rich's surprise declaration: "Nor can the Republican Party be blamed." Rich defends this statement by mentioning a handful of Republicans who supported action, as if a small and ultimately powerless minority within the party somehow compensates for the behavior of the party as a whole. It is breathtaking to see how a political party that lectures the disadvantaged on personal responsibility is so easily let off the hook for its primary role in sabotaging action on climate change. Interestingly, insofar as generosity and forgiveness are liberal traits, then the forgiveness of the Republican Party for obstructing climate action supports the claim that the news media has a liberal bias. The Republican Party, then, benefits from an externalization of blame in much the same way as industry benefits from the externalization of costs like pollution.
Perhaps the least sympathetic to Nathaniel Rich's logic will be those who, fifty or a hundred years hence, look back in disbelief on decades of inaction, followed by self-serving attempts to wash our generation's hands of responsibility by chalking it all up to human nature.
12.13.18 Update: A "We're all to blame" sub-title was attached to an oped by John Kerry. The title was later changed to "John Kerry: Forget Trump. We All Must Act on Climate Change. If we fail, it won’t be just the president’s fault." The titles of opeds are chosen by editors rather than the oped author, suggesting an editorial tendency towards socializing blame for climate change.
Showing posts with label news reporting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news reporting. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 05, 2018
Monday, January 15, 2018
"The Post"--Monument or Gravestone?
With iconic actors Streep and Hanks playing iconic characters Katherine Graham and Ben Bradlee in "The Post," it's time for a NewsCompanion repost. Following Bradlee's death in 2014, much was not written about the years following Watergate, and what Bradlee himself described as the "post-Watergate caution of editors". "What the newspaper did not need", he felt, "was another fight to the finish with another president--especially a Republican president, and especially a successful fight. Without the suggestion of a formal decision, I think the fires of investigative zeal were allowed to bank." The post below, from October, 2014, explores whether monuments can sometimes become gravestones, and whether victory can plant the seeds of future defeat.
Ben Bradlee--After Watergate
There's a big gap in obituaries for Ben Bradlee, the gutsy, charismatic icon of journalism who passed away October 21st. We hear plenty about the journalistic heights of the Watergate investigation that led to President Nixon's downfall, and the embarrassing depths of the fabricated Janet Cooke story, which led to the Washington Post returning a Pulitzer Prize. But with the exception of one blogpost at Philly.com, little is said of the years 1981 to 1991, which coincided with the Reagan/Bush era and Bradlee's last ten years as executive editor of the Post.
The reason for this gap can be found in the "After Watergate" chapter of Bradlee's book, "A Good Life", where he describes the "post-Watergate caution of editors". "What the newspaper did not need", he felt, "was another fight to the finish with another president--especially a Republican president, and especially a successful fight. Without the suggestion of a formal decision, I think the fires of investigative zeal were allowed to bank."
The scandals of the Reagan era, which Bradlee describes as "unconstitutional adventures that threatened democracy more than Watergate", came in the protective shadow of Nixon's resignation, an increasingly passive public, and the never-ending stream of accusations of liberal bias aimed at newspapers like the Washington Post. "That criticism," wrote Bradlee, "that suggestion of bias, wore me down over the years, I now think, and I know we walked the extra mile to accept the official versions of events from the White House--explanations that I doubt we would have accepted from the right-hand men of Democratic presidents. And the public was glad to go along."
Bradlee notes that the alleged liberal bias, if anything, went the other direction: "at the Post anyway, we were always praying for good Democratic scandals". That reverse bias, along with the need in some political circles to avenge the resignation of President Nixon, contributed to the investigative excesses of the Clinton years.
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, famed for their reporting of the Watergate story, said that Bradlee's “one unbending principle was the quest for the truth and the necessity of that pursuit. He had the courage of an army.’’ And yet, one aspect of Bradlee's truthfulness is his admission that, even for him, the journalistic pursuit of truth could be compromised, blunted, worn down by relentless ideological attacks and public apathy.
Sometimes it's hard to distinguish monuments from gravestones. In a country that remains paralyzed and artificially polarized as the global threat of climate change gathers power and momentum, the World War II monument on the National Mall becomes more like a gravestone for a lost era of national unity and sacrifice for the greater good. Given the timidity that crept into journalism in the 1980s, the courage and commitment to truth that marked the Watergate investigation, too, stands as both monument and gravestone.
As Bradlee is rightly celebrated for his long and iconic journalistic career, and the personal and financial risks taken in pursuing the Watergate scandal, it's good to remember that the greatest monuments to past glories are not built of stone, nor of words. They come not in the form of passive, ritualistic celebration--an annual parade, a comforting eulogy, or a ribbon slapped on the back of a car--but in emulation. These are the living monuments America seems to have forgotten how to build.
The reason for this gap can be found in the "After Watergate" chapter of Bradlee's book, "A Good Life", where he describes the "post-Watergate caution of editors". "What the newspaper did not need", he felt, "was another fight to the finish with another president--especially a Republican president, and especially a successful fight. Without the suggestion of a formal decision, I think the fires of investigative zeal were allowed to bank."
The scandals of the Reagan era, which Bradlee describes as "unconstitutional adventures that threatened democracy more than Watergate", came in the protective shadow of Nixon's resignation, an increasingly passive public, and the never-ending stream of accusations of liberal bias aimed at newspapers like the Washington Post. "That criticism," wrote Bradlee, "that suggestion of bias, wore me down over the years, I now think, and I know we walked the extra mile to accept the official versions of events from the White House--explanations that I doubt we would have accepted from the right-hand men of Democratic presidents. And the public was glad to go along."
Bradlee notes that the alleged liberal bias, if anything, went the other direction: "at the Post anyway, we were always praying for good Democratic scandals". That reverse bias, along with the need in some political circles to avenge the resignation of President Nixon, contributed to the investigative excesses of the Clinton years.
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, famed for their reporting of the Watergate story, said that Bradlee's “one unbending principle was the quest for the truth and the necessity of that pursuit. He had the courage of an army.’’ And yet, one aspect of Bradlee's truthfulness is his admission that, even for him, the journalistic pursuit of truth could be compromised, blunted, worn down by relentless ideological attacks and public apathy.
Sometimes it's hard to distinguish monuments from gravestones. In a country that remains paralyzed and artificially polarized as the global threat of climate change gathers power and momentum, the World War II monument on the National Mall becomes more like a gravestone for a lost era of national unity and sacrifice for the greater good. Given the timidity that crept into journalism in the 1980s, the courage and commitment to truth that marked the Watergate investigation, too, stands as both monument and gravestone.
As Bradlee is rightly celebrated for his long and iconic journalistic career, and the personal and financial risks taken in pursuing the Watergate scandal, it's good to remember that the greatest monuments to past glories are not built of stone, nor of words. They come not in the form of passive, ritualistic celebration--an annual parade, a comforting eulogy, or a ribbon slapped on the back of a car--but in emulation. These are the living monuments America seems to have forgotten how to build.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Blame High Gas Prices, or High Demand for Gas?
It's assumed that gas prices have a big impact on people's budgets--an impact that ripples out into the rest of the economy. A standard article in the business section included this bit of text:
"Shares of Wal-Mart fell 2.4 percent after it posted lower-than-expected quarterly sales in the United States, as shoppers were pinched by higher payroll taxes and gas prices."But the amount of money we spend on gas involves more than the price at the pump. More important are the number of miles driven, and how many miles our vehicles get on a gallon of gas. The article could just as easily have said that Wal-Mart has been getting pinched for years by the legacy of low gas mileage standards, which spawned the building of inefficient cars, which make people more dependent on cheap gas to drive the extra distance to Wal-Mart. Inefficient cars not only require more gas to run, they also collectively increase the cost of gas by increasing demand.
As so often happens, this news story gives emphasis to what we cannot control--the price of gas--rather than what we can control--the efficiency of the car we buy, and whether we live in suburban sprawl or a more compact community with amenities and employment closer by.
A tax on carbon is the sort of tax one can avoid, by using less carbon-based fuels. It encourages investment in greater efficiency, and thereby frees people from the treadmill of waste and the resulting dependency on cheap fuel. The bias of news reports that focus on the price of gas rather than other factors is making it harder to get off that treadmill.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
News Reports and the Unanswered "Why"
Being a problem solver, my first impulse upon seeing a headline like ("Sinkhole Causes Florida Resort to Partially Collapse") is to ask why it happened. If we determine the cause, the problem might recur less often in the future. Journalism is not oriented towards answering this sort of why, however. Articles about disasters--wildfires, buildings falling into sinkholes, bridges collapsing, buildings blowing up--focus on the action, the who, what, where and when. If there's a perpetrator in the form of a specific person, then the "why" takes center stage. But if the "why" has to do not with a character but a process, like miscommunication, mismanagement, poor landuse decisions, or climate change, then the "why" gets relegated to the last paragraph or two of the article, or is dropped altogether.
Unfortunately, the most preventable tragedies are those caused by processes rather than individuals. By not clearly implicating and giving emphasis to those processes, the news media reduces awareness and therefore support for policies that would make tragedies less common.
For instance, one reason why so many people remain clueless about the underlying causes of wildfire and climate change is the lack of explanations in everyday reporting. Wildfire coverage focuses on the drama of victims and heroes, leaving no room for mention that building houses in fire-prone landscapes leads to fire suppression, which leads to fuel buildups in forests that depend on periodic fire to consume accumulating pine needles and fallen limbs, which leads to massive wildfires destructive to both forests and communities. Because people think nature, rather than the mismanagement of nature, is the cause of destructive fires, there will be no broad support for improving management. Thus, we're condemned to endless repetitions of the same old war-like, victims-heroes scenario. Not understanding the human role in phenomena like wildfires, people are less prepared to accept that human activity could also be driving the rapid change in climate underway.
Unfortunately, the most preventable tragedies are those caused by processes rather than individuals. By not clearly implicating and giving emphasis to those processes, the news media reduces awareness and therefore support for policies that would make tragedies less common.
For instance, one reason why so many people remain clueless about the underlying causes of wildfire and climate change is the lack of explanations in everyday reporting. Wildfire coverage focuses on the drama of victims and heroes, leaving no room for mention that building houses in fire-prone landscapes leads to fire suppression, which leads to fuel buildups in forests that depend on periodic fire to consume accumulating pine needles and fallen limbs, which leads to massive wildfires destructive to both forests and communities. Because people think nature, rather than the mismanagement of nature, is the cause of destructive fires, there will be no broad support for improving management. Thus, we're condemned to endless repetitions of the same old war-like, victims-heroes scenario. Not understanding the human role in phenomena like wildfires, people are less prepared to accept that human activity could also be driving the rapid change in climate underway.
The report on fifty units of a luxury resort in Florida collapsing into a sinkhole offered a partial exception to this tendency. As with coverage of wildfires out west, the article offered the usual graphic details and quotes from witnesses. What it also included, however, were a few paragraphs at the end providing context so that we could better understand why a building would suddenly drop into the ground.
"Sinkholes can develop quickly or slowly over time.
They are caused by Florida's geology — the state sits on limestone, a porous rock that easily dissolves in water, with a layer of clay on top. The clay is thicker in some locations making them even more prone to sinkholes.
Other states sit atop limestone in a similar way, but Florida has additional factors like extreme weather, development, aquifer pumping and construction."
They are caused by Florida's geology — the state sits on limestone, a porous rock that easily dissolves in water, with a layer of clay on top. The clay is thicker in some locations making them even more prone to sinkholes.
Other states sit atop limestone in a similar way, but Florida has additional factors like extreme weather, development, aquifer pumping and construction."
The last sentence at least obliquely implicates human activity in making sinkholes more common. In fact, human activity can promote sinkhole formation in multiple ways. The website for the St Johns River Water Management District lists four ways sinkholes can be triggered or exacerbated:
- Overwithdrawal of groundwater
- Diverting surface water from a large area and concentrating it in a single point
- Artificially creating ponds of surface water
- Drilling new water wells
It's understandable that consumers of news would want to be fed exciting action and the human drama of villains, victims and heroes. But what will make the world a better place is if we become familiar with underlying causes and effects, and thereby develop stronger support for preventative action.
Saturday, August 03, 2013
1000 Years From Now
The Aug. 1 CNN headline read "Judge sentences Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro to life, plus 1,000 years". I'm sure many people felt reassured by this, given he had spent the last ten years torturing three women in a boarded up house in a Cleveland neighborhood. You'd think neighbors would have been curious about the house. But, then, you'd think people in general would be curious about what the world will be like in 1000 years, and how our actions now may influence that. All we know thus far is that Ariel Castro will still be in prison.
"Life, plus 1000 years" is a useful mindset for judging our nation's policies. Do they serve not only the living but also all those who will live over the next 1000 years? Otherwise, what are we sentencing future humanity to endure?
In jurisprudence, multiple life sentences are handed out to mere mortals because there's a tendency for convicts to come up for parole early in their sentences. A judge leaves a margin for error, exagerating a sentence, knowing it could shrink. When considering our collective impact on the future, the tendency of many is to conveniently discount it, to minimize or dismiss altogether, to assume everything will work out. This is a perilous path, given that consequences could be far greater and come much sooner than expected.
The future is unprotected by any of civilization's institutions. Future people have no legal standing, (although, interestingly, a landowner's right to future profit does). Financial markets suffer from a severe case of near-sightedness. Government is under siege around the world. We punish criminals as if they will live forever, yet talk, or don't talk, about the future of civilization as if it has none.
Friday, February 01, 2013
Navigating to Reality in the Misinformation Age
A critique of the news media's abdication of its role in correcting widespread misperceptions (from a 12/12/12 letter to a local newspaper):
Let it be known that on Nov. 28, a new approach to journalism was born, on page 7 of the Town Topics. Though I had been waiting nearly two decades for this breakthrough, it took several readings for the importance of the headline to sink in. "Not Everybody Knows That Hospital Has Moved From Princeton to Plainsboro." I know, it doesn't sound like much, and my first inclination was to pass it by. Only when I re-encountered the headline, in the process of recycling, did the headline's import sink in.
The article was about people still making the drive to the old hospital site in search of medical care. But on a broader scale, consider how many people labor under the burden of misinformation, and spend their lives driving their fevered thoughts to the wrong conclusions time and time again. Though this is considered the Information Age, it is equally the Misinformation Age, when lies go viral, replicating exponentially in nutrient-rich environments of resentment and fear. People are lost not only because they aren't paying attention, but because they are being actively misled.
Fortunately, as the hospital article described, there is someone waiting at the old hospital site to redirect those who are lost. Additional signs directing people to the new hospital are now in place.
These steps make obvious sense, but ask yourself if the same steps have been taken to help people arrive at reality-based destinations in their thinking. Where, for instance, will people encounter, in an adequately redundant way, the basic facts about the human-caused transformations now underway that will change life on earth forever? Princeton probably contributes to the global problem of rising oceans and radicalized climate as much per capita as any other town, and yet there is precious little "signage" in news media--local or otherwise--directing us towards an understanding of the gravity of the situation.
An article in the pioneering style of "Not Everybody Knows...." would give the basics about how human activity is warming the earth and acidifying the oceans, and that the many consequences--more destructive storms and droughts, coastal flooding, undermining of marine ecosystems, melting of ice caps, temperature rise-- are playing out faster than scientists' models had projected. It would say that sea level rise is accelerating, with three feet likely this century, and 220 additional feet of rise still locked up in the ice fields of Greenland and Antarctica. It would say that the impacts of pouring climate-changing gases into the atmosphere, unlike many other forms of pollution, are essentially permanent, and continued dependency on fossil fuels will only destabilize climate and marine systems further.
That's the sort of "signage" we need, posted like hospital signs in well-traveled places where people are sure to see them again and again, until the message gets through. The lack of it, the fact that one almost never encounters this information in daily living, reading, and listening without considerable search, is sending a very clear message: that it doesn't really matter where we're headed.
First appeared in the Town Topics, 12/12/12
Let it be known that on Nov. 28, a new approach to journalism was born, on page 7 of the Town Topics. Though I had been waiting nearly two decades for this breakthrough, it took several readings for the importance of the headline to sink in. "Not Everybody Knows That Hospital Has Moved From Princeton to Plainsboro." I know, it doesn't sound like much, and my first inclination was to pass it by. Only when I re-encountered the headline, in the process of recycling, did the headline's import sink in.
The article was about people still making the drive to the old hospital site in search of medical care. But on a broader scale, consider how many people labor under the burden of misinformation, and spend their lives driving their fevered thoughts to the wrong conclusions time and time again. Though this is considered the Information Age, it is equally the Misinformation Age, when lies go viral, replicating exponentially in nutrient-rich environments of resentment and fear. People are lost not only because they aren't paying attention, but because they are being actively misled.
Fortunately, as the hospital article described, there is someone waiting at the old hospital site to redirect those who are lost. Additional signs directing people to the new hospital are now in place.
These steps make obvious sense, but ask yourself if the same steps have been taken to help people arrive at reality-based destinations in their thinking. Where, for instance, will people encounter, in an adequately redundant way, the basic facts about the human-caused transformations now underway that will change life on earth forever? Princeton probably contributes to the global problem of rising oceans and radicalized climate as much per capita as any other town, and yet there is precious little "signage" in news media--local or otherwise--directing us towards an understanding of the gravity of the situation.
An article in the pioneering style of "Not Everybody Knows...." would give the basics about how human activity is warming the earth and acidifying the oceans, and that the many consequences--more destructive storms and droughts, coastal flooding, undermining of marine ecosystems, melting of ice caps, temperature rise-- are playing out faster than scientists' models had projected. It would say that sea level rise is accelerating, with three feet likely this century, and 220 additional feet of rise still locked up in the ice fields of Greenland and Antarctica. It would say that the impacts of pouring climate-changing gases into the atmosphere, unlike many other forms of pollution, are essentially permanent, and continued dependency on fossil fuels will only destabilize climate and marine systems further.
That's the sort of "signage" we need, posted like hospital signs in well-traveled places where people are sure to see them again and again, until the message gets through. The lack of it, the fact that one almost never encounters this information in daily living, reading, and listening without considerable search, is sending a very clear message: that it doesn't really matter where we're headed.
First appeared in the Town Topics, 12/12/12
Thursday, November 29, 2012
David Brooks Speaks Consiberally at Princeton
David Brooks, the ubiquitous political commentator, gave a fluid talk at Princeton University this past Monday evening, as the audience overflowed beyond the paneled confines of McCosh 50 into another room, and another room beyond that. On Public Broadcasting's News Hour, NPR's All Things Considered, the NY Times opinion page, and no doubt many other venues I'm not aware of, he plays the role of a moderately conservative commentator in an age when we see our politicians mostly through the filter of the punditocracy. Pundits like Brooks speak or write at length, while the words of our leaders are chopped up and delivered to us in sound bytes, with the exception every fourth year of party conventions and debates, and the annual state of the union address. Even on those occasions when political leaders get a chance to speak to us directly and unabridged, we still need commentators afterwards to tell us what we just heard.
But lest my own punditocratic tendencies obscure completely that of which Mr. Brooks spoke, here is an account:
David Brooks is a scintillating speaker who offers up a rich cuisine of anecdote, insight and perspective, sprinkled with humor and recommendations for books and articles worth reading. In a talk, he reveals aspects of his talent that remain largely hidden in his multimedia opinionating appearances. One witnesses a highly mobile and insatiable intellect that can morph at any moment into stand-up comedy.
Sometimes we found ourselves listening in rapt attention to a speaker telling us how messed up we are, as a nation, as a generation or as individuals. Other times, aware he was speaking to a room largely composed of Democrats, he served as go-between, making us privy to conversations he's had with his Republican friends. Much of what he says comes off as oblique criticism of the Republican Party he is hired to favor. Perhaps he could best be called a liservative or a consiberal, or a consiberal liservative, which when fused forms a consiberaliservative sandwich, in which liberalism is squeezed between two containing slices of conservatism and made visible only where it spills out around the edges.
So, again, let me aim to fend off digressions long enough to speak of what he spoke of:
First came an extended and many-angled comparison between 1950s culture and today. We are now more narcissistic, self-absorbed, self-satisfied, with higher self-esteem and lower achievement in math and science. We are worse followers, more obsessed with consumption and self-realization. There is less self-criticism, which might mean that people more often draw a line between good and evil not internally, through the middle of the self, but externally, as in us vs. them. There is a loss of public identity and public virtue. People live in information cocoons--witness Karl Rove denying the election results in Ohio. This most recent presidential campaign, Brooks said, was the most dishonest he had ever witnessed, and the campaign operatives were fine with that. (He preferred to imply that both sides were equally dishonest, which of course rewards the greater offender and punishes candidates who adhere more closely to truth.)
He made it clear he wasn't suggesting we return to the 1950s, but wanted to point out aspects from that time that had worth. Having become well-known and omnipresent in the political media, he somewhat ironically extols the virtues of the self-effacement common back then.
One thing Brooks would clearly like to bring back, though he won't say it explicitly, is the Republican Party of long ago. Republicans, he observes, "missed the shift" in America--the post 1950s changes in demographics, ethnicities, cultural norms. "The job of a conservative party is to conserve," by which he might mean remain the same in the face of change, though he could have noted that the Republican Party has not really conserved itself, but instead shifted dramatically in recent decades to embrace its more radical elements.
Many Republicans, he reports, wanted to quit Norquist's no new taxes pledge years ago, but are only now speaking openly about it. That would suggest a Republican Party under siege of its own ideology, its members afraid to speak their own opinions.
He says Republicans equate government action with dependency, while many growing elements of the electorate look at Pell Grants and community colleges as ways to become less dependent. Brooks calls for Republicans to return to a more Hamiltonian tradition in which government gives people the tools to excel. And he seems to empathize with Democrats trying to lead in a time when public virtue is less valued. He praises scientists for an ethos that shuns hasty conclusion and unsupported conviction. Brooks favors a national service requirement, in part because it would bring people of diverse economic and geographic backgrounds together in the service of the country, promoting a sense of shared destiny otherwise experienced only in times of disaster.
He is most optimistic about the judgement and spirit of those 35 and younger. He jokingly gave some credit for that to the parents of the below 35s, thus absolving just about all of us from his critical appraisal earlier in the lecture.
Despite Brooks' agile intellect, he is in some ways trapped, like those Republicans who can't, given the demands of ideological conformity, speak honestly about taxes or climate change. If Brooks wishes for a more honest, public spirited political discourse, then he must speak out directly and forcefully against the more rightwing elements he is employed to side with, rather than couching his criticisms in a "both sides are equally to blame" gauze of mutual culpability.
One could charitably say he is doing the best he can, as a conservative commentator in a time when conservatism, through radical drift and denial of reality, has mostly lost connection to its original meaning. But it's hard to sympathize. Brooks' mental agility can be used just as effectively to obscure truth as to reveal it, as in his Oct. 18 NY Times column's attempt to blame Al Gore for Republicans' refusal to support action against climate change:
"Al Gore released his movie “An Inconvenient Truth” in 2006. The global warming issue became associated with the highly partisan former vice president. Gore mobilized liberals, but, once he became the global warming spokesman, no Republican could stand shoulder to shoulder with him and survive. Any slim chance of building a bipartisan national consensus was gone."
After such a statement, conservatism lies eviscerated on the floor, an empty husk of what once may have been. Conservatism cannot preach personal responsibility while blaming others for its own intellectual cowardice. If climate change is real, and poses a grave risk to the country's future, then you don't sit back and blame one of the messengers for not being more lovable. When the status quo feeds radical changes in climate, attempts to "conserve" the status quo become a form of radicalism.
Like Christie in a talk in the same university lecture hall last year (see related post here), Brooks did not mention climate change.
He ended his talk with a final finale of one liners, worthy of a spot on Letterman's Late Show. During the Q and A, Brooks was accused by a morose-sounding fellow of making false assertions based on misleading interpretations of various studies, including a supposed comparison of American and Chinese values based on what they remember from looking at fish in an aquarium. A debunking can be found here, though Brooks refused to concede any error.
It would be a full time job to correct false impressions created by pundits. Their role is to speak authoritatively about myriad issues--an impossible task. Most lack the scientific training needed to appreciate the urgency of climate change, or to see nature as anything other than a distant backdrop for human drama. In fact, their training is not even considered relevant to whether we should take them seriously or not. Brooks' skill at sounding authoritative places him in high demand, but the more time he spends speaking or cranking out the next column, the less time he has to dig deeper into issues. Like a politician, he risks his living if he admits error or strays too far from his established positions. He can seem like an intellectual globetrotter, summoning whole eras for analysis and comment, and yet he is also trapped, struggling to escape from a box of his own making. Not surprising, then, that he's sounding consiberally more liservative with time.
The talk was a Stafford Little Lecture, part of the fall, 2012 Public Lecture Series
But lest my own punditocratic tendencies obscure completely that of which Mr. Brooks spoke, here is an account:
David Brooks is a scintillating speaker who offers up a rich cuisine of anecdote, insight and perspective, sprinkled with humor and recommendations for books and articles worth reading. In a talk, he reveals aspects of his talent that remain largely hidden in his multimedia opinionating appearances. One witnesses a highly mobile and insatiable intellect that can morph at any moment into stand-up comedy.
Sometimes we found ourselves listening in rapt attention to a speaker telling us how messed up we are, as a nation, as a generation or as individuals. Other times, aware he was speaking to a room largely composed of Democrats, he served as go-between, making us privy to conversations he's had with his Republican friends. Much of what he says comes off as oblique criticism of the Republican Party he is hired to favor. Perhaps he could best be called a liservative or a consiberal, or a consiberal liservative, which when fused forms a consiberaliservative sandwich, in which liberalism is squeezed between two containing slices of conservatism and made visible only where it spills out around the edges.
So, again, let me aim to fend off digressions long enough to speak of what he spoke of:
First came an extended and many-angled comparison between 1950s culture and today. We are now more narcissistic, self-absorbed, self-satisfied, with higher self-esteem and lower achievement in math and science. We are worse followers, more obsessed with consumption and self-realization. There is less self-criticism, which might mean that people more often draw a line between good and evil not internally, through the middle of the self, but externally, as in us vs. them. There is a loss of public identity and public virtue. People live in information cocoons--witness Karl Rove denying the election results in Ohio. This most recent presidential campaign, Brooks said, was the most dishonest he had ever witnessed, and the campaign operatives were fine with that. (He preferred to imply that both sides were equally dishonest, which of course rewards the greater offender and punishes candidates who adhere more closely to truth.)
He made it clear he wasn't suggesting we return to the 1950s, but wanted to point out aspects from that time that had worth. Having become well-known and omnipresent in the political media, he somewhat ironically extols the virtues of the self-effacement common back then.
One thing Brooks would clearly like to bring back, though he won't say it explicitly, is the Republican Party of long ago. Republicans, he observes, "missed the shift" in America--the post 1950s changes in demographics, ethnicities, cultural norms. "The job of a conservative party is to conserve," by which he might mean remain the same in the face of change, though he could have noted that the Republican Party has not really conserved itself, but instead shifted dramatically in recent decades to embrace its more radical elements.
Many Republicans, he reports, wanted to quit Norquist's no new taxes pledge years ago, but are only now speaking openly about it. That would suggest a Republican Party under siege of its own ideology, its members afraid to speak their own opinions.
He says Republicans equate government action with dependency, while many growing elements of the electorate look at Pell Grants and community colleges as ways to become less dependent. Brooks calls for Republicans to return to a more Hamiltonian tradition in which government gives people the tools to excel. And he seems to empathize with Democrats trying to lead in a time when public virtue is less valued. He praises scientists for an ethos that shuns hasty conclusion and unsupported conviction. Brooks favors a national service requirement, in part because it would bring people of diverse economic and geographic backgrounds together in the service of the country, promoting a sense of shared destiny otherwise experienced only in times of disaster.
He is most optimistic about the judgement and spirit of those 35 and younger. He jokingly gave some credit for that to the parents of the below 35s, thus absolving just about all of us from his critical appraisal earlier in the lecture.
Despite Brooks' agile intellect, he is in some ways trapped, like those Republicans who can't, given the demands of ideological conformity, speak honestly about taxes or climate change. If Brooks wishes for a more honest, public spirited political discourse, then he must speak out directly and forcefully against the more rightwing elements he is employed to side with, rather than couching his criticisms in a "both sides are equally to blame" gauze of mutual culpability.
One could charitably say he is doing the best he can, as a conservative commentator in a time when conservatism, through radical drift and denial of reality, has mostly lost connection to its original meaning. But it's hard to sympathize. Brooks' mental agility can be used just as effectively to obscure truth as to reveal it, as in his Oct. 18 NY Times column's attempt to blame Al Gore for Republicans' refusal to support action against climate change:
"Al Gore released his movie “An Inconvenient Truth” in 2006. The global warming issue became associated with the highly partisan former vice president. Gore mobilized liberals, but, once he became the global warming spokesman, no Republican could stand shoulder to shoulder with him and survive. Any slim chance of building a bipartisan national consensus was gone."
After such a statement, conservatism lies eviscerated on the floor, an empty husk of what once may have been. Conservatism cannot preach personal responsibility while blaming others for its own intellectual cowardice. If climate change is real, and poses a grave risk to the country's future, then you don't sit back and blame one of the messengers for not being more lovable. When the status quo feeds radical changes in climate, attempts to "conserve" the status quo become a form of radicalism.
Like Christie in a talk in the same university lecture hall last year (see related post here), Brooks did not mention climate change.
He ended his talk with a final finale of one liners, worthy of a spot on Letterman's Late Show. During the Q and A, Brooks was accused by a morose-sounding fellow of making false assertions based on misleading interpretations of various studies, including a supposed comparison of American and Chinese values based on what they remember from looking at fish in an aquarium. A debunking can be found here, though Brooks refused to concede any error.
It would be a full time job to correct false impressions created by pundits. Their role is to speak authoritatively about myriad issues--an impossible task. Most lack the scientific training needed to appreciate the urgency of climate change, or to see nature as anything other than a distant backdrop for human drama. In fact, their training is not even considered relevant to whether we should take them seriously or not. Brooks' skill at sounding authoritative places him in high demand, but the more time he spends speaking or cranking out the next column, the less time he has to dig deeper into issues. Like a politician, he risks his living if he admits error or strays too far from his established positions. He can seem like an intellectual globetrotter, summoning whole eras for analysis and comment, and yet he is also trapped, struggling to escape from a box of his own making. Not surprising, then, that he's sounding consiberally more liservative with time.
The talk was a Stafford Little Lecture, part of the fall, 2012 Public Lecture Series
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Civics, Humanities, and News Media in NJ
This past week, there was a well-attended public forum at the Arts Council of Princeton, entitled "Civics, Humanities, and News Media in NJ", organized by Susan Haig of njartsnews.org. The general topic had to do with civic engagement and what people are looking for from the news media. There were quite a few comments relevant to the theme of this website.
Chris Satullo of WHYY spoke of the need to make connections between global events and local realities, and vice versa, and link problems to solutions. Doug Doyle of WBGO in Newark said people in this part of the country tend not to know their neighbors, and that there aren't enough conversations happening. He gave an interesting example of how he triggers conversations with people he doesn't know, on the street or at events, simply by wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers shirt. The conversation may start with football, but quickly veers off in all sorts of interesting directions, and an engagement and communication happens where otherwise there would be none.
In discussing how to reach people, Kacy O'Brien of Passage Theatre in Trenton encouraged collaboration between organizations, and bringing in new constituencies by telling stories relevant to them. Sharon Ann Holt of the NJ Council for the Humanities spoke of the need for news media to let people from the community tell their own stories directly to the audience, particularly stories of success in making the community a better place.
Prior to starting NJ Arts News, Susan Haig had an extensive career as a classical pianist and conductor. Her shift, from music to news, sounds reminiscent of the shift that public radio stations took back in the 1990s from playing classical music--interrupted by news at the top of the hour--to extended news and talk shows. Unlike classical music, which typically progresses from tension to resolution, dissonance to tonal agreement, the news media tends to present stories in which problems lack for solutions and tension continues seemingly without end. Audiences are both drawn to and repelled by these perpetual conflicts. My dream would be that so many problems get solved that the daily news becomes boring, at which point people can finally return to the arts for their dosage of drama.
More on the event can be found here.
Chris Satullo of WHYY spoke of the need to make connections between global events and local realities, and vice versa, and link problems to solutions. Doug Doyle of WBGO in Newark said people in this part of the country tend not to know their neighbors, and that there aren't enough conversations happening. He gave an interesting example of how he triggers conversations with people he doesn't know, on the street or at events, simply by wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers shirt. The conversation may start with football, but quickly veers off in all sorts of interesting directions, and an engagement and communication happens where otherwise there would be none.
In discussing how to reach people, Kacy O'Brien of Passage Theatre in Trenton encouraged collaboration between organizations, and bringing in new constituencies by telling stories relevant to them. Sharon Ann Holt of the NJ Council for the Humanities spoke of the need for news media to let people from the community tell their own stories directly to the audience, particularly stories of success in making the community a better place.
Prior to starting NJ Arts News, Susan Haig had an extensive career as a classical pianist and conductor. Her shift, from music to news, sounds reminiscent of the shift that public radio stations took back in the 1990s from playing classical music--interrupted by news at the top of the hour--to extended news and talk shows. Unlike classical music, which typically progresses from tension to resolution, dissonance to tonal agreement, the news media tends to present stories in which problems lack for solutions and tension continues seemingly without end. Audiences are both drawn to and repelled by these perpetual conflicts. My dream would be that so many problems get solved that the daily news becomes boring, at which point people can finally return to the arts for their dosage of drama.
More on the event can be found here.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Tom Brokaw and Recapturing the American Dream
Tom Brokaw came to Princeton University December 6 to give a talk, built around his new book, "The Time of Our Lives: A conversation about America; Who we are, where we've been, and where we have to go now, to recapture the American dream." (Pause for breath.) His low voice with a touch of gravel sometimes caused words to disappear altogether into the resonant woodwork and stone of Richardson Auditorium. He is calling people to a grand cause--America's journey back to greatness--not with soaring oratory but with a deep conversational tone.
Brokaw must be acknowledged for raising the subject that should be dominating national discourse. More than most, he is calling on America to step out of its lethargy and political paralysis. I sympathize with his cause, but also came to his talk with a mischievous question. What does one call a generation that is greater than The Greatest Generation? There really should be a name, because that is what we need right now. By calling any generation The Greatest Generation--as Brokaw famously named those who endured the hardships of the Great Depression, then defeated the Nazis and Japanese in World War 2--the implication is that all generations that follow cannot possibly compare. While conveying an understandable and deserved respect for those who lived through that era, the title implies that America's best days are behind it.
Consider the possibility that our challenges now are deeper than those faced by America in 1941. The Greatest Generation's enemies were clearly the aggressors, and conveniently distinct geographically and culturally. Back then, the country had a full tank of gas (oil extraction from U.S. lands didn't begin declining until 1971), and though we were 16th in military power in 1939, our economic potential loomed larger than that of Germany and Japan. Now, our easy oil--the baby fat of a nation's youth--is gone, and the greatest economic potential lies elsewhere, in China and India. Most vexing, our greatest enemy is not the sort that we can bomb into submission, but instead is embedded in our lifestyles.
Mr. Brokaw mentioned global warming in passing, as part of a list of challenges. That's two words more than most speakers are willing to give the subject. Understandable, one must say. It's hard to imagine a more insidious and spirit-sapping enemy than climate change, an enemy that prospers on our lifestyles and offers no target to shoot at. It manifests as miniscule, invisible, seemingly benign molecules in the air and sea, lies low at first, growing in proportion to our machine-enhanced comfort, endangering not us so much as our offspring, and by the time its menace galvanizes us to action with Pearl Harbor-scale devastation, it will be by then unstoppable. Such an enemy, exploiting our every weakness and blind spot, requires a generation greater than The Greatest to defeat.
Brokaw is best when describing the lack of sacrifice by the many during a time when America has fought its "two longest wars." The term "1%" came up twice--first to describe the primarily working class and lower middle class soldiers who with their families have borne the brunt of those distant wars, and then in reference to the economic elite who gained the most over the past decade while the middle class lost ground. He said that, in a democracy, it is unjust, even immoral, to have less than 1% fight our wars for us.
He stresses the importance of education, and sees it as the stage upon which we must compete with emerging powers. But that raised another question. How can we convince kids that knowledge matters if journalistic etiquette allows our political leaders to deny scientific and economic realities? The political paralysis we all decry is sustained in part by a willful refusal by many politicians and voters to accept a basic understanding of how the world works.
Brokaw described the widespread poverty in America as it entered the Second World War. For many men, military service meant receiving for the first time a new pair of boots. Many trained with wooden rifles. I would speculate that those preceding years of deprivation had much to do with America's ability to win the war. It's easier to get people to sacrifice if they are already conditioned by long economic depression to make do with less. America's prolonged indulgence now, what Brokaw describes as a long period of "taking from the cup without giving back", has been marked by a sense of entitlement, a belief that borrowed money and material abundance are our birthright, and that sacrifice equates with self-denial.
He also offered compelling reference to a time when physical labor and the outdoors were more a part of everyday life. He described his father as "a man educated on his own terms," with "a strong back and a good set of hands." At the family's ranch in Montana, when the grandkids were of sufficient age, Brokaw took them hiking off trail to a distant cabin. They saw bear and elk, and slept where no ambient urban light softens the night, and darkness is near absolute. Precious few have the opportunity for such an unfiltered encounter with the land from which America's greatness grew.
There is a tendency to let ourselves off the hook. As each crisis shakes the country--9/11, ballooning debt, the economic meltdown of 2008, and the gathering chaos of climate change--a false refrain sounds, that nobody saw it coming. America has long had people with the training, imagination and insight needed to look into the future and see trouble ahead. Up to now they have been largely ignored. One can hope that Tom Brokaw will be an exception, that his writing and deep voice will not be absorbed into the background rumble of the status quo, but actually reach minds that have not been reached on any other wavelength.
Brokaw must be acknowledged for raising the subject that should be dominating national discourse. More than most, he is calling on America to step out of its lethargy and political paralysis. I sympathize with his cause, but also came to his talk with a mischievous question. What does one call a generation that is greater than The Greatest Generation? There really should be a name, because that is what we need right now. By calling any generation The Greatest Generation--as Brokaw famously named those who endured the hardships of the Great Depression, then defeated the Nazis and Japanese in World War 2--the implication is that all generations that follow cannot possibly compare. While conveying an understandable and deserved respect for those who lived through that era, the title implies that America's best days are behind it.
Consider the possibility that our challenges now are deeper than those faced by America in 1941. The Greatest Generation's enemies were clearly the aggressors, and conveniently distinct geographically and culturally. Back then, the country had a full tank of gas (oil extraction from U.S. lands didn't begin declining until 1971), and though we were 16th in military power in 1939, our economic potential loomed larger than that of Germany and Japan. Now, our easy oil--the baby fat of a nation's youth--is gone, and the greatest economic potential lies elsewhere, in China and India. Most vexing, our greatest enemy is not the sort that we can bomb into submission, but instead is embedded in our lifestyles.
Mr. Brokaw mentioned global warming in passing, as part of a list of challenges. That's two words more than most speakers are willing to give the subject. Understandable, one must say. It's hard to imagine a more insidious and spirit-sapping enemy than climate change, an enemy that prospers on our lifestyles and offers no target to shoot at. It manifests as miniscule, invisible, seemingly benign molecules in the air and sea, lies low at first, growing in proportion to our machine-enhanced comfort, endangering not us so much as our offspring, and by the time its menace galvanizes us to action with Pearl Harbor-scale devastation, it will be by then unstoppable. Such an enemy, exploiting our every weakness and blind spot, requires a generation greater than The Greatest to defeat.
Brokaw is best when describing the lack of sacrifice by the many during a time when America has fought its "two longest wars." The term "1%" came up twice--first to describe the primarily working class and lower middle class soldiers who with their families have borne the brunt of those distant wars, and then in reference to the economic elite who gained the most over the past decade while the middle class lost ground. He said that, in a democracy, it is unjust, even immoral, to have less than 1% fight our wars for us.
He stresses the importance of education, and sees it as the stage upon which we must compete with emerging powers. But that raised another question. How can we convince kids that knowledge matters if journalistic etiquette allows our political leaders to deny scientific and economic realities? The political paralysis we all decry is sustained in part by a willful refusal by many politicians and voters to accept a basic understanding of how the world works.
Brokaw described the widespread poverty in America as it entered the Second World War. For many men, military service meant receiving for the first time a new pair of boots. Many trained with wooden rifles. I would speculate that those preceding years of deprivation had much to do with America's ability to win the war. It's easier to get people to sacrifice if they are already conditioned by long economic depression to make do with less. America's prolonged indulgence now, what Brokaw describes as a long period of "taking from the cup without giving back", has been marked by a sense of entitlement, a belief that borrowed money and material abundance are our birthright, and that sacrifice equates with self-denial.
He also offered compelling reference to a time when physical labor and the outdoors were more a part of everyday life. He described his father as "a man educated on his own terms," with "a strong back and a good set of hands." At the family's ranch in Montana, when the grandkids were of sufficient age, Brokaw took them hiking off trail to a distant cabin. They saw bear and elk, and slept where no ambient urban light softens the night, and darkness is near absolute. Precious few have the opportunity for such an unfiltered encounter with the land from which America's greatness grew.
There is a tendency to let ourselves off the hook. As each crisis shakes the country--9/11, ballooning debt, the economic meltdown of 2008, and the gathering chaos of climate change--a false refrain sounds, that nobody saw it coming. America has long had people with the training, imagination and insight needed to look into the future and see trouble ahead. Up to now they have been largely ignored. One can hope that Tom Brokaw will be an exception, that his writing and deep voice will not be absorbed into the background rumble of the status quo, but actually reach minds that have not been reached on any other wavelength.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Rethinking News Coverage of Wildfires
The traditional coverage of western wildfires offers a prime example of how consumers of the news are not informed about the underlying forces that drive tragedy. If kept unaware of the underlying forces, people will be unlikely to support changes in policy that would help reduce those tragedies, and so we are destined to have a perpetual stream of articles detailing the latest tragedy caused by wildfires.
Sunday's Trenton Times, 11.20.11, offers a typical Associated Press story about a wildfire in Reno Nevada destroying 32 homes. The article answers the usual questions of what, where, when and who. Victims and damage are tallied, and heroes cheered. The warlike imagery describes a territorial battle between people and nature. "Firefighters made large advances against the blaze that sent nearly 10,000 people from their homes in the middle of the night and sent flames licking the edges of the region's mountain roads."
Where these articles leave readers uninformed is in answering the question "why?". This particular article offers possible causes: a downed power line or a homeless encampment. But though one of these may have actually started the fire, it doesn't explain why so much damage was done.
Most people are unaware that fire is a natural and often beneficial force in nature. Many types of trees, grasses and herbs are adapted to survive periodic fire and even depend upon it. American Indians used fire to create more open, productive landscapes that attracted wildlife with their nutrient-rich regrowth.
Where periodic fire is a natural component of the landscape, home building is a risky proposition, in much the same way that building in a floodplain courts disaster. People compound the risk by building homes with wooden shingles, or allowing highly combustible vegetation to grow close to their homes. In woodlands where natural, low-level fires used to sweep through periodically, consuming dead wood and pine needles, the presence of homes requires suppression of those beneficial fires. Dead plant matter in the woods then accumulates to dangerous levels, eventually fueling the sort of massive, uncontrollable, destructive wildfires we end up reading about.
In the past, one or another news organization would run an article explaining these deeper ecological realities. This was particularly true in 1988, when the summer-long fires in Yellowstone National Park led journalists to dig beneath the default storyline. But, particularly as news budgets have diminished, news coverage has narrowed back to the default storyline, presenting wildland fire as a destructive force victimizing innocent homeowners. It is the repetition of that storyline that powers people's misperceptions, and wastes countless teachable moments.
Back in the 1990's, I sent letters to the Associated Press, alerting them to the misleading storyline that drove their coverage of wildfires. Though one editor responded, there was no change in the approach to coverage. Now, with news budgets greatly diminished, and competition creating ever more pressure to generate dramatic copy, there is even less likelihood of reform.
Reality undermines the simple storyline of evil fire and innocent victims. The failure to convey that underlying reality about some distant fire may seem of little note, but understanding the role people play in magnifying nature's destructiveness is fundamental to understanding the even greater tragedy of climate change.
Traditional coverage of wildfires, then, leaves people unaware of underlying causes and thereby increases the nation's vulnerability to future disasters.
Note: Another A.P. article termed the Reno fire--more typical of August than a cold November night--the "largest 'urban' wild land fire in Reno's history." As freak weather events become increasingly common in the U.S. and elsewhere, the governor offered what is becoming a cliche, "I don't think anybody ever anticipated we'd have an incident like this at this point in the year." The governor and others might not be taken so much by surprise if the drivers of disaster--home construction in flammable landscapes combined with climate destabilization--were more frequently mentioned in news coverage.
Sunday's Trenton Times, 11.20.11, offers a typical Associated Press story about a wildfire in Reno Nevada destroying 32 homes. The article answers the usual questions of what, where, when and who. Victims and damage are tallied, and heroes cheered. The warlike imagery describes a territorial battle between people and nature. "Firefighters made large advances against the blaze that sent nearly 10,000 people from their homes in the middle of the night and sent flames licking the edges of the region's mountain roads."
Where these articles leave readers uninformed is in answering the question "why?". This particular article offers possible causes: a downed power line or a homeless encampment. But though one of these may have actually started the fire, it doesn't explain why so much damage was done.
Most people are unaware that fire is a natural and often beneficial force in nature. Many types of trees, grasses and herbs are adapted to survive periodic fire and even depend upon it. American Indians used fire to create more open, productive landscapes that attracted wildlife with their nutrient-rich regrowth.
Where periodic fire is a natural component of the landscape, home building is a risky proposition, in much the same way that building in a floodplain courts disaster. People compound the risk by building homes with wooden shingles, or allowing highly combustible vegetation to grow close to their homes. In woodlands where natural, low-level fires used to sweep through periodically, consuming dead wood and pine needles, the presence of homes requires suppression of those beneficial fires. Dead plant matter in the woods then accumulates to dangerous levels, eventually fueling the sort of massive, uncontrollable, destructive wildfires we end up reading about.
In the past, one or another news organization would run an article explaining these deeper ecological realities. This was particularly true in 1988, when the summer-long fires in Yellowstone National Park led journalists to dig beneath the default storyline. But, particularly as news budgets have diminished, news coverage has narrowed back to the default storyline, presenting wildland fire as a destructive force victimizing innocent homeowners. It is the repetition of that storyline that powers people's misperceptions, and wastes countless teachable moments.
Back in the 1990's, I sent letters to the Associated Press, alerting them to the misleading storyline that drove their coverage of wildfires. Though one editor responded, there was no change in the approach to coverage. Now, with news budgets greatly diminished, and competition creating ever more pressure to generate dramatic copy, there is even less likelihood of reform.
Reality undermines the simple storyline of evil fire and innocent victims. The failure to convey that underlying reality about some distant fire may seem of little note, but understanding the role people play in magnifying nature's destructiveness is fundamental to understanding the even greater tragedy of climate change.
Traditional coverage of wildfires, then, leaves people unaware of underlying causes and thereby increases the nation's vulnerability to future disasters.
Note: Another A.P. article termed the Reno fire--more typical of August than a cold November night--the "largest 'urban' wild land fire in Reno's history." As freak weather events become increasingly common in the U.S. and elsewhere, the governor offered what is becoming a cliche, "I don't think anybody ever anticipated we'd have an incident like this at this point in the year." The governor and others might not be taken so much by surprise if the drivers of disaster--home construction in flammable landscapes combined with climate destabilization--were more frequently mentioned in news coverage.
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