Beware of false balance

The right-wing backlash against the academia and responsible journalism has been growing for decades. Since conservative positions have consistently been repudiated by actual facts, they have taken to attacking the source. If you can’t kill the message, kill the messenger.

Sadly, the mainstream media has actually helped the right-wing activists to undermine our usually reliable sources of fact. Decades of “liberal media” bashing has reputable networks acting timid. They want to be seen as reliable, so they take criticisms seriously. Unfortunately, too seriously. (The neglect of Bush’s background in 2000, the soft hand with Bush’s march to invade Iraq, and the lack of blaming Bush for just about anything these past four years show us just how cowardly they’ve been.)

Brow beating of the media isn’t their only tactic, however.

Another tactic to defeat the reliability of academics and journalists is to overwhelm any and every discussion with lots and lots of noise. This is shown clearly (if not briefly) in an article in the current Columbia Review Journal.

The gist is this. An evangelical anti-abortionist doctor invented the idea that abortions cause breast cancer (called the “ABC theory”). This allegation was then used as basis for an attempted Texas law to force doctors to warn patients about this hazard. However, there is no factual evidence to support this alleged link. It is not controversial. It’s wholly without merit.

But... in the attempt to be fair and open-minded, the National Cancer Institute gathered “the world’s experts” to discuss the ABC theory. No one (but the doctor) saw any validity to the alleged link.

Of course, that won’t end the doctor’s efforts. Right-wing media and GOP-activists everywhere will continue their tactics. They will hold this man up as an example of truth being quashed by the “biased liberal elites” who “control the media and academia”. This is the “red state” persecution complex that has been building for decades. And they will continue to push men like this doctor onto every show or panel possible, otherwise crying foul in the name of “fair and balanced” discussion.

But balance doesn’t necessarily mean giving every crackpot a microphone. In fact, this could be very dangerous to people’s health.

We all remember the tobacco industry’s “expert scientists” who argued for years that there was no proof that smoking caused cancer. And these companies were all the while sitting on their own research proving just the opposite. This is the nonsense that happens when science is distorted for financial, political, and/or religious gain.

This isn’t balance. It’s manipulation. And it’s time we stopped helping them do it to us.