BMI’s Gainor: ‘Stewardship’ Doesn’t Mean ‘Lunacy’

March 6th, 2008 5:10 PM

Business & Media Institute Vice President Dan Gainor told viewers of the Fox Business Network that stewardship of the environment "doesn't mean you have to embrace every bit of global warming lunacy that comes down the pike."

In his March 6 appearance, Gainor discussed BMI's new report, "Global Warming Censored," showed that network news shows routinely shut out debate on climate issues, even from scientists' perspectives. In fact, in 80 percent of the stories studied an alternate viewpoint wasn't even mentioned.

And when network news shows did feature dissenting views, those people were often branded as "deniers" or "flat Earthers." Scott Pelley, a reporter for CBS, continued to report on climate change for that network despite his 2006 comparison of global warming skeptics to Holocaust deniers.

Fox Business Live co-host Liz Claman challenged Gainor, however, pointing out that several large companies have "green" initiatives aimed at limiting their "carbon footprint" and having a smaller impact on the environment.

 "All businesses have marketing departments. Their whole job is to make the business look good," replied Gainor. "If you do things that are going to make the business look bad, or you're going to get beaten up about it then you try to, then you try to adapt. And so I don't blame companies for trying to do that."

The problem, he said, is that the media refuse to acknowledge or give fair coverage to people who don't buy into the hype perpetuated by alarmists like former Vice President Al Gore. The media even failed to give fair coverage to the International Conference on Climate Change, a gathering of hundreds of skeptical scientists, economists and policy experts in New York City March 2-4.

 "The problem here is even within this conference, this conference was people who embraced debate. Not everybody agreed. We had two keynote speakers, two, some of the most well-known climatologists in the country, Pat Michaels and Bill Gray, who didn't agree. No one cared; they really wanted to hear what they had to say," Gainor said. But as far as the media are concerned, there is no debate remaining.