David Peat

Re-envisioning the Planet 163wise and impartial decisions and looked to a future that was widerthan the next election.Democracies call upon us all to make informed decisions. Whetherit is a matter of electing a politician, voting in a referendum, or pickingthe right bag for our groceries, we are obliged to think wisely and assessthe information before us. Yet the issues of today, such as globalization,the economic disparity between first and third worlds, globalwarming, depletion of the ozone layer, decay of the inner cities, anddrug dependency, are far more complex than those that faced thefounding fathers of the United States. To whom are we to turn for ouranswers? From where can we obtain clear and unbiased information?How are we to access the pros and cons of genetic engineering, nuclearpower, or trickle-down economics?Ours is a period when wisdom, judgment, honesty, and unbiasedinformation—in other words, certainty—is badly needed. We expectto be informed by newspapers, radio, and television. We need informationthat is presented clearly, with mature reflections and informedcomment. Yet all too often we are offered the soothing words of theprofessional “expert.” When a news story breaks—a stock market crash,air disaster, nuclear accident, disease epidemic—an expert is always onhand to deliver opinions in palatable sound bites. While there are manyhighly professional and educated television journalists and producers,television news is subject to a major constraint: it must do well in theratings. Such a format is not easily designed for scientists or academicswho wish to qualify their opinion with “maybes,” “possiblys,” “on thebalance of probabilities,” “in certain cases,” or “in this particular context.”Far better to present an issue as controversy. By reducing thingsto black and white an issue can be dramatized with two “experts” whobattle it out for a minute or two in front of a smiling moderator.Newspapers have time to be more reflective, yet even they havetheir advertisers, as well as the political agenda of the proprietor tothink of. Readers of the major newspapers are the victims of circulationwars, so that sometimes the real gems of writing and reportingcan only be found in small-town newspapers that do not have to competeat the national level.