Today I viewed a television ad by America's Power.org. Like many other "energy" commercials, something didn't seem right, something seemed 'hidden.' As a result, I visited the recommended internet site http://www.americaspower.org. A professionally produced, aesthetically pleasant site, America's Power promotes clean coal energy, which is immediately obvious once the site's home page opens. With news like quality, the site touts the benefits of clean coal technology. What the TV ad didn't mention that America's Power.org is essentially a publicity arm of the coal industry. To be fair, the website does disclose this fact, but one has to search for the information. First, one must select the "who we are" tab, then find the "view a list of our members" link. But one must look at the fine print at the bottom of the web page to see that this is a product of a political action organization of the coal industry, namely "American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy" (ACCCE).
It didn't take much digging to find additional information about the ACCCE, but one finds significant political debate about the ACCCE. The America's Power.org site portrays the ACCCE as a "partnership of the industries involved in producing electricity from coal." In contrast, http://www.sourcewatch.org describes the ACCCE as "astroturf support for coal-based electricity . . . [that] promotes the interests of mining companies, coal transporters, and electricity producers." With the exception of the negative political spin, the Source Watch site provides nothing significantly different from the ACCCE's own site. In fact, the ACCCE's site is more detailed and complete in its disclosures than the highly critical Source Watch article.
When one digs a little deeper into Source Watch, however, one finds that it is linked to the liberal Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), founded by radical activist and Bush hater John Stauber, who admits his political activism began during the late 1960s when his views became radicalized. Source Watch, run by Sheldon Rampton, another left-leaning political activist writer, co-authored a number of anti-Bush books with Stauber. Rampton, a student of Princeton's "new journalism" advocate John Angus McPhee, seems to have adopted the 1960s-1970s "new journalism" practice of subjectivist, political advocacy coupled with the use of exaggerated, embellished descriptions in pieces pretending to be objective news articles. This intentional distortion of hidden political activism presenting itself under the mask of objective news seems to be a tactic that both Rampton and Stauber adopt as legitimate. What makes matters worse is the fact that this personal history is left undisclosed in CMD and Source Watch material. In contrast, they claim to present information with "accuracy and fairness," while hiding the fact that the Center for Media and Democracy controls editorial policy and access.
My point here is simple: we must be diligent enough to dig as deeply as possible into the sources of our information. We must not take anything at face value, whether the source is right-leaning or left-leaning. The political convictions of our sources matter. Sources that disclose their biases may not be any more accurate than other sources, but at least we know what we're getting. Dig a little deeper. Maybe in this way, we'll gain a better perspective on what's really happening in our world.
-- David Adcock, Editor
I think it is significant that the coal industry is unionized. If there is a cap and trade bill I would expect clean coal to be exempted from the most prohibitive regulations.
ReplyDeleteThis may be their aim, as indicated by this wording in their petition: "In its current form, H.R. 2998, formerly H.R. 2454 does not do enough to guarantee that consumers are protected against skyrocketing energy costs. The best way to accomplish this is with a limit on the price of emission allowances. Carefully setting such a limit on allowance prices can ensure economic protection for consumers while not slowing efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
While accepting the premise of the cap and trade bill they craft this so it appears their lobbying effort is in the interest of the consumer.