Al Gore has always avoided debating his theory of climate change, and now he has environmental journalists and their group, the Society of Environmental Journalists, to help him fend off tough questions.
A journalist had his microphone turned off after asking Mr. Gore what he proposed to do after a British High Court found nine "significant errors" in his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," at the SEJ's annual conference on October 9.
After Mr. Gore refused to answer any of the journalist's questions, conference moderators quickly intervened in the brief exchange and physically surrounded Phelim McAleer. Mr. McAleer is the director of his own documentary film, "Not Evil, Just Wrong," which challenges the scientific claims of Mr. Gore's movie.
Later, in the hallway, moderators told Mr. McAleer that he had been cut off for trying to "monopolize" the Q & A session, telling him, "You got as much as you were gonna get."
One of the moderators, a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, related a consistent account of the event on the SEJ blog.
Despite his claim that moderators observed standard SEJ practice in dealing with Mr. McAleer, it is unseemly for an organization that purports to represent journalists to silence one of their own, particularly during a contentious exchange with a political figure.
In the video, Mr. McAleer does not appear to receive any support from fellow journalists. He says later that the reaction of those in attendance, including Andrew Revkin of the New York Times, "was to shut down the journalist and protect the politician."
In short, environmental 'journalists' and the SEJ did nothing to disprove that they are merely uncritical "cheerleaders for environmental causes."
NB C-notes
14 years ago
2 comments:
This is an interesting and provocative posting, although my first reaction is that seems to not be consistent with the purpose of this class blog. My understanding is that our postings should analyze current issues of journalism ethics and express our opinions on how the media is following (or not) ethical principles. From the opening phrase, it appears that you have firmly taken a side about the incident described.
It sounds like you strongly agree with the position of Mr. McAleer about climate change science. That's fine if it's how you feel about this issue, but that stance thoroughly permeates the tone of this posting. You're mostly giving your views about the reliability of climate change science rather than the ethical issues raised by the conference. There is a valid point to be made about whether it's appropriate to have a "society of environmental journalist" and that group to have a conference with Al Gore as a guest speaker, but this posting focuses more on the questionable handling of a adversarial encounter.
I did read the moderator's blog posting about this incident and it sounds like he was being fair and consistent about keeping time for each questioner. McAleer had reached that time limit, so it's quite debatable as to whether he was "cut off".
I would just ask that you keep these comments in mind for future postings.
Did you watch the video?
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