Last month MediaNomics
reported that no network journalist had questioned the science
behind the new EPA clean-air standards. Bob Zelnick called to tell
us that in a story for ABC's Good Morning America, he in fact ran a
soundbite from a Henry Henderson, a Chicago city environmental
official who argues that by causing businesses to relocate, the new
rules would increase pollution.
Zelnick is correct. The
point of the article still stands, though. Zelnick, like many other
reporters, balanced his story with both EPA officials and their
opponents. However he didn't bring on a source to question the EPA's
scientific rationale for the new standards that current levels of
outdoor air pollution are harming asthma sufferers and causing
premature mortality. Every network report seemed to assume this was
true.
As Michael Fumento of the
American Enterprise Institute has written, even the White House
Office of Science and Technology and the EPA's own Clean Air
Scientific Advisory Committee questioned this claim, a fact no
network reporter has mentioned.
By interviewing Henderson,
Zelnick did go into more depth in his short morning-show story than
other reporters did in their longer evening-show stories. But we're
still waiting for a reporter to ask the White House why it's going
against its own science advisors.
