June 27, 2001|By David Folkenflik | David Folkenflik,SUN TELEVISION WRITER
Once a consumer crusader as a local television reporter, John Stossel has made a name for himself in recent years at ABC News as a contrarian challenging conventional wisdom.
He finds society to be populated by nettlesome critics of corporate America, especially those ideologues he says are masquerading as environmental or health advocates. In ABC's "Tampering With Nature," a one-hour special to be aired Friday, Stossel says some of those ideologues are busy brainwashing schoolchildren to believe that the world is a very scary place.
"What sad distortions to feed children," Stossel remarks, in an early version of the program sent to reviewers. "It's all part of the environmental doomsday message that's all over America."
But angered parents of six of the California children interviewed by Stossel on Earth Day (April 22) say it is he who is doing the distorting. On Monday, they sent a letter accusing the network of sandbagging their kids and withdrew their consent for the young children - second- and third-graders - to appear on the prime-time show.
Two parents who watched Stossel talk with the children said the network correspondent's questions, and even his very presence, made them uneasy. Teachers interviewed the next day also found him confrontational.
"They were manipulated by Stossel," said Brad Neal, the parent of two children who took part. "If they were adults, OK. But these are little kids. The truth is scary. We're not trying to indoctrinate them."
Late yesterday afternoon, ABC News retreated, defending Stossel but saying he would remove all the footage with the children's voices and faces. Instead, said ABC spokesman Todd Polkes, Stossel will paraphrase their responses.
In a statement released by the network late yesterday, ABC noted no parents objected during the April interview and said a review showed it had been "conducted in a professional and responsible manner according to the highest journalistic standards." Nonetheless, ABC News stated it would "respect the belated decision of a number of parents to withdraw their consent."
This is not simply a tussle over the exploitation of children. The parents' initial indignation was harnessed into action by officials at the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based advocacy organization. The group exquisitely timed the parents' strike to undermine Stossel, who is not a new target for the group.
In February 2000, ABC News' "20/20" aired a segment by Stossel that argued that organic food, despite claims, was no safer than regular food because neither had pesticide residues. In fact, Stossel said, organic food could pose additional health risks from bacteria. He referred to a scientific study commissioned by ABC News to prove that claim. But the EWG, which backs a reduction in pesticide use, interviewed the clinical scientists who conducted the studies. They said they did not carry out any tests for pesticides.
As a result of EWG's persistence, Stossel later backed off his contention during a lengthy on-air apology. He was also reprimanded by the network.
Stossel functions almost as a conservative essayist for ABC, with his reporting serving to support his contentions. Indeed, he is called a commentator rather than a reporter during his regular reports on "20/20." Some may watch Friday's show and see the indoctrination in the assemblies and field trips that his producers caught on camera, and a society gone astray with overheated fears about global warming.
Others, however, may be warier. He touches on such wide-ranging topics in "Tampering With Nature" - from human cloning to gene therapy to environmental education to Kevin Costner's "Waterworld" - that he can't plunge very deep.
In just one instance, he asks, how bad can things be nowadays, when there are now more forests than there were in 1920? Yet a fuller picture might prove more complicated.
"Today's forested habitats may not be as suitable for some native species as forested habitats of presettlement times," states a 1998 report by the U.S. Geological Survey, a government agency. "For example, the extensive deciduous forest that covered the southeastern Piedmont has been replaced by pine forests, which do not provide the conditions needed by various species," such as certain wildflowers and birds.
Besides, many of the trees planted by forest companies are destined to be felled for lumber anyhow.
When networks broadcast reported commentaries, they shouldn't be surprised they'll spur the wrath of interest groups. All the more reason to make sure those reports bear up under scrutiny.
Local Emmys awarded
Two Baltimore channels -Maryland Public Television and WBFF - won multiple prizes in the local Emmys handed out earlier this month. If you look at the results one way, the awards validated the sights-and-sounds approach practiced by WBFF (Channel 45) and by a reporter-producer team at WJZ (Channel 13).
