Once again, the foreign media coverage is not fooled by Bush’s PR stunt, while the U.S. media buys the White House line. UK’s The Independent labeled this a “Greenwashing Climate Summit” in its headline, and opened their story with:
For the first time in 16 years, a major environmental conference opens in Washington, hosted by the Bush administration. But no concrete results are expected, and that — say European participants — is the point of this high-level meeting.
Far from representing a Damascene conversion on climate change by President George Bush, the two-day gathering of the world’s biggest polluting nations is aimed at undermining the UN’s efforts to tackle global warming, say European sources. “The conference was called at very short notice,” said one participant. “It’s a cynical exercise in destabilising the UN process.”
So how does the AP puff piece on the summit begin?
Myth: The president refuses to admit that climate change is real and that humans are a factor. Myth: The U.S. is doing nothing to address climate change. Myth: The United States refuses to engage internationally.
So begins a hand-sized handout, easy for reporters to pocket, issued at the State Department where President Bush on Friday was to cap two days of talks at a White House-sponsored climate change conference that is as much about salesmanship as it is about diplomacy.
Uhh, no. It is not about diplomacy at all. It is entirely about salesmanship and worse. Greenwashing is the better word. Undermining diplomacy would be the right phrase.
And how can AP begin the story with the White House’s talking points? Is that journalism — to just reprint the White House press release?
When you compare the AP story with the British story, you realize the wide chasm between serious foreign journalism and amateurish U.S. coverage. Sad.
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Joe:
I think you have raised a critical issue here — the role of the US press as a Bush enabler. And it’s not just climate. With the exception of the McClatchy papers, US media has essentially acted as a White House printing press, printing up their lies and distrubuting them to an increasingly misinformed public. Hence Iraq, the credibility given to deniers of global warming for decades, the war against science etc. etc.
But of all the issues they’ve enabled Bush on, global warming will have the most devastating and most lasting consequences. US media deserves to be scorned for their role in enabling this spolied frat rat to once again create the illusion of progress
As lazy as the AP story is, and even though it does have a wider distribution, its still worth noting that at least two key reporters were not greenwashed. Yesterday’s Washington Post featured a Page-Three news analysis by Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson, finding that the administration was taking credit for U.S. emissions reductions which came about as a result of efforts they either had nothing to do with or actively opposed.
The broader point of greenwashing remains– take for instance the under-reported story of the U.S. Climate Action Report a couple of months back. But its also important to give credit where its due amidst that all, particularly where it reinforces a long-standing point (in the aforementioned Climate Action Report, the State Dept. cited as “helpful” the same emissions-cutting efforts in states that the administration has consistently opposed).