Liberal ‘opinions’ vs. conservative ‘fact’
Newspapers are publishing, as fact, the opinion that the production of ethanol is responsible for rising food and energy prices and for a looming environmental nightmare.
Rarely if ever does a newspaper publish, as fact or opinion, the opinions that the cost of the Iraq War should be added to the true cost of a gallon of gasoline, that beef consumption is responsible for high food prices, or that cutting trees for newspapers is an environmental disaster.
I understand the arguments against ethanol, and many of them make sense., although there are counter arguments to all of them that also make sense. There are equally compelling arguments for each of the issues I raised in the second paragraph. So why is the argument in the first paragraph accepted as fact and those in the second considered opinion? I think it boils down to politics.
Developing biofuels and alternatives to petroleum is a decidedly “liberal” cause (although I would argue it’s really pretty mainstream). Preserving the status quo for foreign policy, energy policy, the cattle industry and newspapers all are decidedly conservative causes (and in the case of energy, the war and newspapers, not very mainstream).
Much of the anti-ethanol fervor comes from a University of Minnesota study that argues, logically, that converting food crop land to ethanol-production can have serious consequences. But so does converting land to beef production or for newsprint tree farms.
Here are a few scenarios: Instead of converting vegetable land to ethanol fields, what if, for the sake of national security and energy independence, we converted tree farms and cattle fields to ethanol production? What if, instead of diverting a food staple (corn) to ethanol, we used some of the less hospitable grazing land to grow grasses that can be used for ethanol? What if, instead of feeding so much corm to cattle, we used it for ethanol? What if, instead of building a new transportation infrastructure for ethanol, we converted some of the existing petroleum infrastructure to ethanol?
Each of those scenarios has compelling logic behind them, but no newspaper would report any of them as anything other than radical left-wing opinion. But say “Those loony lefties with their radical alternative fuel green movement are responsible for high food and energy prices” and boom, it’s fact.
I’m not arguing for or against ethanol production or for any of the alternative scenarios I presented. I am suggesting that my proposals are just as fact-based as the anti-ethanol views. They just would never be presented as such in the mainstream media.
It’s a pattern with newspapers. In 2002, the conservative opinion that Saddam Hussein had WMD was reported as fact. The liberal opinion that maybe he didn’t was dismissed as naivete. Because so much of the “news” already carries a deeply conservative bias, it’s “balanced” on the right with radical neocon thought, and on the “left” with middle-off-the-road caution.
