[ Comment on mindfully.org letter from an industry proponent 4aug01 below]
Dear editor;
Regarding your editorial entitled "School Newspaper," I would like to mention that, in spite of the erroneous quantities of pollution by GE Plastics the students reported, GE is indeed an extremely large polluter. GE not only has a history of pollution, it also has a history of avoiding its responsibility for the pollution it creates.
One current example of this is New York State's Hudson River, which is highly polluted with PCBs by indiscriminate dumping of waste by GE. Hundreds of thousands of tons of river bottom will have to be removed from the river to bring it back to a safe level of PCBs. GE has fought the EPA's efforts to begin the cleanup with all it's financial might.
GE's attempt to avoid responsibility has been aided by the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), an industry front group that receives funding from GE. The list of major corporate polluters contributing to ACSH is quite extensive. Elizabeth Whelan, ACSH's president wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (12dec01), "Who Says PCBs Cause Cancer?" Whelan focuses on the PCB pollution by GE, attempting to reduce the toxic threat to sensationalist environmentalism. Contrary to her assertions, there is solid evidence linking PCBs to human cancer.
So, in spite of the errors such as the ones made by the school children, they were justified in attacking GE. This misrepresentation of facts by them is quite insignificant when compared to the everyday practices of GE which can be documented with ease.
Best regards,
Mindfully.org
References:
A poorly handled incident involving an erroneous story about GE Plastics published in the Mount Vernon (Ind.) High School school newspaper could serve as a valuable learning experience.
Unfortunately, the first lesson would be that a newspaper on any level does not stop publishing because it runs an erroneous story. Rather, it admits its error, endeavors to learn from its mistake and goes on publishing.
As reported Wednesday in the Evansville Courier & Press by staff writer Mark Wilson, a story written by students and published earlier in the monthly Wildcat Word accurately identified GE Plastics as one of Posey County’s largest polluters. But the students misstated some pollution figures taken from a Web site and reported other figures in terms of tons instead of pounds. And they made a strongly worded link between cancer risk and pollution in Posey County.
In response, GE, through communications manager Kimberly Derk, expressed its outrage in a heavy-handed letter to the newspaper. The GE letter was published in the paper’s March issue, the last for this year, along with a student-written correction.
The newspaper was scheduled to publish in April and May, but teacher Jo Hamm, adviser to the paper, called it off after school officials reprimanded her for the student report.
Where to begin?
In the news business, we make mistakes. We attempt to avoid them, as individuals and as institutions. We have checks and double checks, and the longer we work in this business, the more our instincts develop a suspicion that something may be wrong with a particular story or item. And yet, we still make mistakes.
To a journalist, there is nothing worse. A published error can wreck a day, a week, a career.
So we tell you from firsthand experience and embarrassment, be careful, and be right, before you publish.
And as we said, the newspaper still publishes. It must. Indeed, especially in the face of intimidation from influential people, groups and institutions, news organizations must do their utmost to deliver the news.
There should be a lesson here, as well, for GE. Its response seemed not to be measured, and that is unfortunate, for this could have been a genuine teaching opportunity.
In the news business, big companies such as GE Plastics are skilled at defending themselves. If unfavorable but accurate information is published, they are adept at giving their side a good spin. If erroneous information about them is published, they respond aggressively. GE did in this case.
In fact, the company may be right in describing the report as “biased” and “sloppy.” But in responding, this seemed more a chance for the company to educate than to intimidate.
As for the school, especially those who reprimanded the teacher, we would ask this: Had the student paper published an erroneous story about a single student, would the adviser have been reprimanded to the point she would stop publishing?
We doubt that a single student, wronged by a story in the school paper, would have the influence to cause school officials to come down so hard on the student publication.
But because this story involved a major Posey County employer — one that pointed out in its letter that it is the “backbone of the local economy” — it looks like a bad case of intimidation.
There is a lesson here about backbone, but not the sort that GE Plastics provides to the local economy.
Also, educators, do not forget that these were students in a learning situation, where mistakes will be made. Errors must be a part of the experience, yet the lesson here is that if you err, that’s the end of the process.
There is a lesson as well for those students who may be serious about a career in journalism. Environmental reporting is a challenging, rewarding assignment sure to grow in importance in the news business. But it is a subject to be approached carefully. It is both complicated and emotional, involving not only personal health but personal economics.
If your goal is a career in journalism, learn all that you can from this incident. And, unlike your school publication, keep working toward that goal.
source: http://www.courierpress.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?/200105/03+edschool050301_news.html+20010503+news
Comments in red by mindfully.org
Re: GE Plastic's Pollution: Avoidance of Responsibility (above)
In response to your email on GE and their dumping of PCBs in the Hudson River in the above op-ed by mindfully.org
Dear Sirs:Truth is: GE employs hundreds of thousands of employees, contributes billions in tax revenues and yes, unfortunately from time to time pollutes the surrounding environment at some locations. Most of the Hudson River pollution occurred long ago and before PCB's were regulated as heavily as they are today.
Additional truth: Communities along the river are opposing the dredging operations in the Hudson River basin...
mindfully.org: GE and many other industries knew about the toxicity of PCBs long before the regulations went into effect. GE and many other industries fought these regulations vehemently, knowing full-well the ramifications to their bottom line.
See: GE Calls Superfund Law Unconstitutional - AP 7dec00
The Bill Moyers PBS special “Trade Secrets” made it abundantly clear that the MO of industry is misinformation, cover-ups, cheating, bribing, stealing lying, threatening, SLAPPs, etc. When industry includes the cost of environmental degredation, environmentalists will begin to listen. To see a lot of fine examples of industry in action, go to www.ewg.org and view the Chemical Industry Archive. It's a real eye-opener.The bigger truth: you exposed your perspective as an anti-industry extremists. While it is a shame that these big nasty companies want to provide goods and services to the growing world population, take comfort that folks who eschew this kind of capitalism can still find refuge in the "pristine" wilds of Montana, Maine or British Columbia. Free there to live without electricity and free to hug trees at random without interruption.
mindfully.org: People everywhere have a right to clean air, water, and food, not just people that live in MT, ME, or BC. This does not enter into the "ethics" of industry, if one can call it ethics.
There HAS to be balance. And there has to be fairness and accuracy in reporting. GE-Mount Vernon attempted to set the record straight and you took a underhanded shot at them for daring to demand this fairness. While you believe strongly in your environmental activism, the are others at GE who believe just as strongly that they are maintaining an adequate balance between business and the environment.
mindfully.org: The balance of nature has been going full-tilt in the direction of humans for quite some time, with little balance whatsoever. With no regard to all of the stuff that our very existence depends on, industry has plundered nature to their hearts content. If business wants to maintain a balance, then it best begin looking at all the benefits that nature provides gratis. These things that nature does for humans are mostly irreplaceable by humans at any cost. Looking at them from an economic viewpoint, the costs of environmental degredation is not included in economic reports given by Greenspan or any industry such as GE.
A significant portion of pollution is occurring from consumers (wastes illegally dumped from homes into drains, dumpsters, etc.). Companies are held accountable by EPA to such degree that it is largely more economically feasible to be environmentally responsible. However, I rarely hear outcry to further regulate individuals when it comes to pollution. It always seems to reside on those with deep pockets it seems.
mindfully.org: Most pollution, by an overwhelming majority, is from industry, not the public. There are many government and NGO databases that one can refer to for those data on who creates what. If better records were maintained, it would be much easier to enforce the existing regulations. As for pollution created by citizens, the laws definitely need to be updated and made more stringent. Backyard burning of trash is a major source of dioxin that needs to be halted.
See: EPA Fact Sheet Polychlorinated Dibenzo-p-dioxins and Related Compounds (PCBs, Dioxin, Transport, Toxicity, Fish) - EPA Sep99
At any rate, I guess we can agree to disagree. I just found the tone of your comments offensive and unfair based upon merit. If you want to attack GE's corporate structure, that's your prerogative. Just don't make excuses and attempt to justify mischaracterizations made against their individual facilities. You lose credibility in that regard.
Chad Cowan
Owensboro, KY
CCowan@daramic.com
http://www.cse.org
mindfully.org: I do not agree with you on most that you have stated here. However, what the students said was indeed in the spirit of a healthy environment. That they got the numbers off a bit is insignificant when compared to the record of GE. GE attempts at every corner to greenwash and utilize industry-funded front groups such as the American Council on Science and Health. On that PCB/Hudson issue, it did so with a very misleading op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Elizabeth Whalen. Your organization, Citizens for a Sound Economy is no different, in that “the truth” it spread lacks the complete picture.
See: Who Says PCBs Cause Cancer? - Elizabeth M. Whelan, ACSH / Wall Street Journal 12dec00
While it is true that humans must make a living in order to feed and house their families, we are all dust without nature. Industry has not learned that yet. Being ordered to pay $460 million is quite different than actually paying it. GE will, undoubtedly, litigate that until the government has paid triple that amount. In the end, it will be the citizens who must pay to have it cleaned up, either through increased taxes or increased prices on products produced by GE. The share holders and board members will be protected by the courts.
Regards,
mindfully.org
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