UPDATE: RFK Jr Confirms: ABC Headline was Purposefully Provovative and Inaccurate.
Guest blogger Brad Johnson has this classic case of media-manufactured drama in a post first published by Wonk Room.
Prominent environmentalist and activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has long described the Bush administration as “indentured servants” to the oil and coal industry, in particular because “virtually all the principal environmental agencies” were “being operated by lobbyists from the very businesses they’re supposed to regulate.” In a blatant attempt to create an Earth Day conflict between President Obama and the environmental movement, ABC News’ Brian Ross and Joseph Rhee are claiming that RFK Jr.’s attacks on the Bush administration and other coal advocates apply to the Obama administration:
RFK Jr. Blasts Obama as ‘Indentured Servant’ to Coal Industry
“Clean coal is a dirty lie,” says environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who calls President Barack Obama and other politicians who commit taxpayer money to develop it “indentured servants” of the coal industry.
RFK Jr. has called the phrase “clean coal,” one that President Obama uses frequently, a “dirty lie,” in particular because of catastrophically destructive mountaintop removal mining. The Obama administration, in line with President Obama’s call on the campaign trail to end mountaintop removal, has taken initial steps to restrict the process.
[JR: Josh Nelson of EnviroKnow has more of the story below:]
The reader is left with the distinct impression that Robert Kennedy Jr. called President Obama an indentured servant to the coal industry today. RFK has been calling politicians “indentured servants” for years. One problem: he didn’t actually say it about President Obama. Essentially, ABC pulled together a collection of old quotes and mashed them together out of context to create tension in their story.
Here’s RFK on July 7, 2007 at Live Earth:
Now we’ve all heard the oil industry, and the coal industry, and their indentured servants in the political process telling us that global climate stability is a luxury that can’t afford -that we have to choose now between economic prosperity on the one hand, and environmental protection on the other – and that is a false choice. In 100% of the situations, good economic policy is identical to good environmental policy.
And here he is on December 12th, 2008, referring to President Bush, testifying before the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming:
So it’s the mother forest of all north America, and that’s why it’s the most diverse and abundant temperate forest in the world. Because it’s the longest living. And today, these mining companies with the help of their indentured servants in the White House are doing what those glaciers couldn’t accomplish. What the Pleistocene Ice Age couldn’t accomplish which is to flatten the Appalachian mountains and destroy those forests.
Buried at the bottom of page two of the piece, the quote ABC actually got from RFK Jr. is revealed:
“It’s a sad testament to the impact of campaign contributions, our system and the political clout of this industry that you have very sensible politicians, including great men like Barack Obama, who feel the need to parrot the talking points of this industry that is so destructive to our country,” said Kennedy, who was reportedly under consideration as Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency director.
He did not use the phrase “indentured servants”. He referred to President Obama as a “very sensible politician” and a “great man”. Mr. Kennedy was clear with Huffington Post’s Sam Stein, offering strong support of President Obama and his energy policies on November 5th.
The headline and caption used by ABC were a deliberate attempt to mislead readers. This misinformation is especially dangerous because it is inevitably seized on by sites like Hot Air who will use it to whip their gullible readers into an Obama-Kennedy hate phrenzy. This is worse than tabloid journalism because it is sold to the public as legitimate news. It is the worst kind of linkbait: hyper-sensationalized, intentionally misleading and politically divisive. This is Politico’s style of faux-conflict, artificially constructed with out-of-context quotes and headlines designed to confuse readers.
All of this from The Blotter, which is brought to you by Brian Ross and ABC’s Investigative Team. The Blotter reads every message they receive through this form. People should be asking them questions about this story. Please leave your questions, and any responses you receive, as comments in this thread.
Update: Brad Johnson has several additional “indentured servant” quotes from RFK. None of them mention President Obama.
Update 2: Eric Boehlert at Media Matters weighs in:
That’s just awful journalism by Ross and ABC News.
Update 3: Environmental Capital (WSJ Blog) jumps into the fray:
Environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy apparently called the president an “indentured servant” to the coal industry for his support of projects such as FutureGen, an experimental clean-coal project. Except he didn’t—the ABC news story cobbled together previous Kennedy comments about the coal industry and applied them to the president.
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ABC is on a downward roll apparently. Last night (during Nightline) there was a very short promo for ABC news with Charles Gibson pm Wednesday April 22
“Can we afford to [solve] global warming in a recession?”
[I checked the website for any info on this upcoming segment but couldn't find anything.]
The problem is right there in the promo because even if the segment is ok many people might only see the promo and framing the question like that (and that was the whole thing) is saying it costs us more than it benefits us. It also says that it costs more than we can possibly spend. Plus the visual was of polar bears and ice and water. Message: It’s the polar bears or you.
I’d have felt a lot better if the promo had said “Can we afford to solve global warming in a recession. We talk to people who say we must, we can, and that doing so will actually benefit our economy more than doing nothing.”
On a more positive note, look what’s been on the front page of MSN today: http://lifestyle.msn.com/ your-life/ living-green/ staticslideshowgreenchan.aspx?cp-documentid=18995580>1=34129
An actual presentation of how bad climate change could get in the United States by the year 2100, broken up by region. Its ‘worst case’ impacts aren’t as bad as some of the worst case impacts we talk about here, but I’ve never seen a warning this comprehensive on a ‘popular’ web homepage before. It’s probably due to Earth Day, but it is still encouraging.
I guess this makes ABC appear as the indentured servant of the reactionary right wing.
Maybe Kennedy would prefer power from the Cape Wind project instead of clean coal?
I know I would
Apparently, ABC has missed the clueboat wrt the racist implications of using “indentured servant” to describe Obama…
“Clean” is a worn out word. It means very different things to the several people using it.
It is morally “unclean” to do a bad job of mining that damages lives and leaves a mess. This can be a problem but there are reasonable solutions.
It is “unclean” to pollute the atmosphere with substances that are harmful to health of people who breath the air. This can be a problem but there are reasonable solutions. In fact Powder River Basin coal is very low in sulphur and wide use of this has led to fairly well managed power plant exhausts.
Carbon dioxide is a very clean gas, except it has an effect on the environment that is cumulatively very dangerous. Burning of any fossil fuel produces it. More of it is released from burning coal than the other options. However, it is a quantitative matter, and the word “dirty” is very misleading in describing the problem.
Coal, burnt, is unclean no matter what it’s original (& complex) original constituents.
We need to stop burning it as soon as possible.
Saying ‘Carbon dioxide is a very clean gas’, is disingenuous
Pyrolysis may be appropriate, to use coal reserves.
I’ve been an indentured servant. It ain’t no fun.
Dill Weed