Can the News Media Grasp a Green New Deal?

From the Arctic to the United States, sea ice is melting and the economy has been melting down.

The effects of global warming and the tragedies of homeowners losing their houses are huge media stories. The planet is in crisis. So is the economy.

Some very good reporting has been done on the drastic climate change that the Earth is now experiencing. Cable networks have been showing us polar bears with ice disappearing beneath their feet. We're learning that human activity has been heating the planet, and the consequences are increasingly grim.

But in the policy realm, the reporting has generally been rather out-of-focus. Behind the scenes, movers and shakers on Capitol Hill — particularly on the Senate side — have been moving rapidly to block progressive initiatives.

Proposals for major limits on carbon emissions aren't getting far in the Senate, where the corporate war on the environment has an abundance of powerful allies.

As for class war, it continues to rage from the top down. At the end of last month, a dozen Democratic senators teamed up with Republicans to defeat a bill that would have allowed judges to reduce mortgages in bankruptcy courts.

President Obama supported that bill. But as The Associated Press reported, he was "facing stiff opposition from banks" and "did little to pressure lawmakers" on behalf of the measure. The Senate "defeated a plan to spare hundreds of thousands of homeowners from foreclosure through bankruptcy."

Big-money vultures are circling the Capitol Dome to feast on the latest multibillion-dollar carrion, whether under the heading of "cap and trade" or "health care reform." And many billions in profits can be found inside yet another supplemental bill to fund war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, a familiar pattern is unfolding for the most important piece of labor legislation in decades — the Employee Free Choice Act — which would go a long way toward protecting the rights of workers to form unions.

Obama says he supports EFCA. But there are no signs that he'll go all-out for its passage.

It's not news when big money rules in Washington. You can almost see the yawn from top-drawer editors at national media outlets as they relegate such stories to, at best, merely fleeting prominence.

But — every day — journalism should be taking a fresh look at the routines of political power. Otherwise, the editors and reporters who have become jaded will pass along their numbed acquiescence to us.

Every time the power of big money blocks a bill to limit greenhouse gases or protect workers' rights, the news media should tell us how it happened and what it means — for the future of the planet and the workforce.

Seventy-five years after the start of the New Deal, and nearly 40 years after the first Earth Day, the need for basic change on behalf of social justice and ecology is clear.

So, as concerned activists (including yours truly) endeavor to bring about a "Green New Deal," it's unclear to what extent the mass media are willing or able to explore such questions as this one: "How can we create a sustainable green future that includes economic equity and social justice?"

It may not be the proper role of journalism to provide definitive answers. But journalists should be willing and able to formulate key questions — with the help of a wide variety of sources — and to explore answers without, as the saying goes, "fear or favor."

A net result of so much news coverage of "the environment" is that we tend to become numbed to the broad and profound implications of, for instance, an overheating planet. Or, with all the coverage of an economic meltdown, the structural imbalances of power in government may get largely lost — or at least obscured — in the media shuffle.

Hopefully, some day, we'll be hearing as much about a Green New Deal as we now hear about "American Idol."

Norman Solomon is the author of the book "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death," which has been made into a documentary film. For information, go to: www.normansolomon.com.

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