THE NATION
EDITORIAL | April 16, 2001
The Times v. Moyers
On March 26, PBS carried something that has become
increasingly rare in our media-besotted land: genuine journalism. The program
was an explosive investigation by Bill Moyers and his staff of a decades-long
program by the chemical industry to hide the life-threatening dangers associated
with the use and production of their products. People were dying who did not
have to die; they were living with debilitating illnesses and receiving no
compensation from the companies.
The industry did everything it could to discredit Moyers.
It set up a website, wrote angry letters to PBS and accused Moyers of a biased
presentation--before having seen the program.
One would think that a story of this magnitude would
interest others in the mainstream media. One would be wrong. In the Washington
Post, media columnist Howard Kurtz focused on the controversy between Moyers and
the companies. The New York Times, however, reviewed the program as if taking
orders directly from the chemical industry. "Have we perhaps grown up in a
perverse sort of way and now accept
that spectacular progress like that of the last half-century cannot be achieved
without tradeoffs?" wrote Neil Genzlinger. "Nothing good, be it
democracy or more durable house paint, comes without a price."
No one on the program argued against tradeoffs or
democracy. The issue Moyers presented was quite simple: Do companies have the
right to lie and mislead their workers and the public about the potentially
harmful effects of their products? If tradeoffs or democracy were the issue,
then the victims of these companies would at least
have been given the relevant information about the likelihood that they
might contract cancer or other life-threatening diseases as a result of their
exposure to toxic chemicals.
Yet, as Moyers reported, that information was deliberately
withheld or covered up by the companies.
People died or were permanently disfigured as a result of
the coverups Bill Moyers exposed. Yet the Times likened acceptance of (slow)
murder by corporations for profits to growing up. It's hard to know which is
more offensive: the actions of the corporations or the willingness of
journalists to act as apologists for them.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010416&s=editors3
In the past 50 years, over 80,000 synthetic chemicals have
been created for use in homes, businesses and factories. We have trusted the
chemical industry and our government to test the chemicals' effects on health
and safety, and to take dangerous ones off the market.
That trust has been severely betrayed.
As a recent Bill Moyers PBS special has shown, the chemical
industry has been covering up dangerous effects of its products for decades.
Workers died, executives lied and millions were exposed to known toxins as a
result of the industry's secrecy.
Now the Moyers documentary, "Trade Secrets," has
jumpstarted a wave of grassroots activism across the country. A national
coalition of concerned citizens, "Coming Clean," hopes to use local,
grassroots pressure to make our food, water and communities safer from untested
chemicals.
AlterNet has compiled this page of articles, actions and
links for anyone interested in becoming part of this movement. We encourage you
to share this information with your colleagues and loved ones, so we can begin
discussions in our communities about how to protect ourselves and our children
from harmful toxins.
The Coming Clean Campaign - (comeclean.org)
Find out how you can help the Coming Clean campaign phase
out use of dangerous toxins and hold the chemical industry responsible for its
misdeeds. Local chapters of the campaign are forming now.
The EWG's Chemical Industry Archives - (chemicalindustryarchives.com)
The Environmental Working Group has posted 50 years worth
of secret chemical industry documents on the Internet, all in a searchable,
public archive. An amazing source for original research.
"Trade Secrets" Homepage - (pbs.org/tradesecrets)
The official homepage of the Bill Moyers special, which
first aired on Monday, March 26. Chock full of good information and nicely
broken down into four sections: The Program, The Problem, The Evidence and The
Options.
Shine the Spotlight on the Chemical Industry! - (actforchange.com)
Working Assets' e-activism site, ActForChange.com, has
begun a campaign to force chemical company executives to reveal the secrets they
are withholding from the American public.
The Chemical Industry Response's - (abouttradesecrets.org)
The American Chemistry Council's response to the
accusations in Trade Secrets. It calls the show "inaccurate" and
"incomplete" and claims that Moyers did not adhere to proper
journalistic standards.
http://www.alternet.org/chemicals.html
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