The emerging storyline after the Republican presidential debate this week was that far-right Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann is for real, mostly because she managed to sound, well, a little less crazy than she's sounded before. (No, they didn't quite put it like that.)

There are stories about Bachmann's new Bach-mentum in the New York Times (6/15/11), the Washington Post (6/14/11) and  USA Today (6/15/11).

Let's take the Times' lead:

The key question for Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota before the Republican debate on Monday night was whether she could appeal to voters beyond the Tea Party wing that she helped to create, while avoiding the gaffes that have sometimes emerged from her strident, passionate persona.

By most accounts, she did just that. Ms. Bachmann toned her rhetoric down a bit and offered herself as a competent, knowledgeable insider who would nonetheless carry on the fight against big government with the zeal of a Tea Party activist.

She's hired veteran GOP strategists, the Times' Michael Shear notes:

Those moves suggest that Ms. Bachmann, who is often mocked by late-night comedians and liberal cable hosts as a nutty right-winger, wants to dispel that caricature as she pursues the nomination.

Well OK. Then turn to the Times editorial about the debates, where you read this:

Michele Bachmann had the strangest, most simplistic economic solution of all: simply close down the Environmental Protection Agency, which she said "should really be renamed the Job-Killing Organization of America."

I guess if I was writing a piece about how Bachmann toned down the crazy in this debate, I'd leave out that quote too. It kind of makes it sound like she didn't.

The Washington Post had a piece yesterday (6/9/11) on Mitt Romney's views on global warming. It serves as a reminder that Republican political candidates are under enormous pressure from the right-wing base of the party on this issue--any politician who's ever suggested that climate change is a problem, or backed efforts to address it, is in trouble.

This is an important thing to point out.  But that doesn't mean the Post thinks climate change is important. See the article's lead sentence:

It seemed like a straightforward question on a second-tier issue: Would Mitt Romney disavow the science behind global warming?

Is the fate of the planet a "second-tier issue"?

Romney's views--"he believes the world is getting warmer and that humans are contributing to that pattern," explains the Post--aren't pleasing the far right,  whom the Post gives ample space to vent:

"Bye-bye, nomination," Rush Limbaugh said Tuesday on his radio talk show after playing a clip of Romney's climate remark. "Another one down. We're in the midst here of discovering that this is all a hoax. The last year has established that the whole premise of man-made global warming is a hoax, and we still have presidential candidates that want to buy into it."

Then came the Club for Growth, which issued a white paper criticizing Romney. "Governor Romney's regulatory record as governor contains some flaws," the report said, "including a significant one--his support of 'global warming' policies."

And Conservatives4Palin.com, a blog run by some of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s more active supporters, posted an item charging that Romney is "simpatico" with President Obama after he "totally bought into the man-made global warming hoax."

Prominent climate change "skeptic" Christopher Horner from the Competitive Enterprise Institute is also quoted. There's never any indication that what these people are saying is nonsense--perhaps because this is a story about politics, and facts shouldn't get in the way.

The closest thing to that kind of balancing perspective is when the Post pointed out that public opinion is divided:

Public opinion is politicized on the issue. A March Gallup poll found that 32 percent of Republicans think the effects of global warming are already being felt and 36 percent believe the rise in the Earth’s temperatures is caused by humans, while 67 percent say the seriousness of global warming is exaggerated in the news.

The same survey found the opposite trend on the other side of the political fence. Sixty-two percent of Democrats polled said the effects of global warming have begun, and 71 percent said humans are causing the rising temperatures, while 22 percent think the situation is exaggerated. Among independents, there was a fairly even split on those questions.

I'm not sure "politicized" is the most useful term to use here. If many more Republicans believe that Iraq had WMDs, or that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks, or that the Earth is flat, are such views "politicized"--or simply inaccurate?

The headline above this USA Today op-ed read like a slightly wordier version of a Sarah Palin bumper sticker slogan: "Cut the Red Tape: Free Up Oil Drilling in Alaska."

The author is former George H.W. Bush Secretary of State James Baker, and he writes:

Even more domestic offshore drilling will be required if our country is to increase its stable and secure energy. One reasonable place to accomplish that goal lies beneath the waters off of Alaska's northern shores.

He tells the tale of an underdog corporation fighting the good fight--only to be stymied by government bureaucrats:

An effort by Shell Oil Co. is a case in point. During the past five years, Shell has been acquiring 10-year federal leases in the Beaufort Sea to the northeast of Alaska and the Chukchi Sea to the northwest. The company has spent more than $2 billion on the leases and $1.5 billion preparing a drilling program with state-of-the-art mitigation and safety measures. These plans have been transparent to stakeholders, regulators and the courts. However, federal officials continue to balk at delivering the permits necessary to begin drilling, most recently questioning the effects on air quality in the region. As the bureaucratic delays continue, this has become a test case for other energy producers wanting to drill there.

Why talk about Shell's efforts? There are probably other energy companies doing the same. Why makes Shell so special?

That might have something to do with Baker's other gig--namely, the Baker Center at Rice University. Particularly the Energy Forum at the Baker Center, which is funded by a variety of energy companies, including Shell. In fact, the energy giant underwrites the Shell Distinguished Lecture Series, which is apparently "the Baker Institute's flagship speakers program."

It is customary for newspapers to alert readers to such conflicts--something USA Today failed to do.

The New York Times' Alan Cowell had a piece (6/2/11) about public opposition to nuclear power in Germany, and the fact that the country's political leadership has decided to establish policies that conform to that sentiment. It apparently left the Times a bit perplexed:

But the German move also raised a question whose answer seemed elusive: What is there in this land of 82 million people that has, over decades, bred an aversion to nuclear energy that seems unrivaled among its economic peers, defying its reputation for reasoned debate?

Cowell reveals that Germans overwhelmingly oppose nuclear power, especially after the disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima. Anti-nuclear feelings surfaced much earlier, though:

There is little doubt that Germany's modern history has combined to produce a deep strain of risk aversion, of caution, and a dislike for surprises, all of which magnify the potential hazards of nuclear energy, producing a perception that is different from that of other major European economies like France or Britain.

Risk aversion and caution produces a "perception" that is different than in other places. I am not even sure what that means, but it doesn't sound unreasonable.

The Times wasn't the only outlet slamming Germany's anti-nukes move. The Washington Post editorial page was unimpressed with Germany's turn toward renewables--a bad idea, "since sometimes the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine." Read Miranda Spencer's recent Extra! article for a good corrective on that.

The Post added:

Instead of providing a model for greening a post-industrial economy, Germany’s overreaching greens are showing the rest of the world just how difficult it is to contemplate big cuts in carbon emissions without keeping nuclear power on the table. Panicked overreaction isn't the right response to the partial meltdowns in Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex

The lesson of Fukushima, then, should be that the world really needs nuclear power. Apparently that kind of logic is what the Post means by a more "reasoned debate"?

The New York Times had a good editorial on May 20 headlined "Gas Prices and Political Pandering." The paper slammed Republican rhetoric about domestic production and gas prices:

[Sen. Mitch] McConnell said his bill would bring relief at the pump by raising domestic output. That is fiction. Production will take years to come online and even then would have a tiny impact on prices set on the world market.

And they also pointed out that Obama was making similar arguments:

Last weekend, he, too, was out there pitching domestic production.... None will quickly lead to new drilling or have any effect on gas prices. Yet because his remarks were framed as a response to gas prices, he helped feed the Republicans' bogus narrative.

So who the heck is doing this bogus framing? Oh yeah--the New York Times, in its news section.  John Broder wrote this lead on May 15:

President Obama, facing voter anger over high gasoline prices and complaints from Republicans and business leaders that his policies are restricting the development of domestic energy resources, announced Saturday that he was taking several steps to speed oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters.

So the editorial page is where bogus narratives are questioned, while the news section is where they're propagated.

I was intrigued to see this headline at the Guardian's website yesterday:

Today it's the New York Times (5/6/11) framing the story according to nonsensical GOP talking points:

House Passes a Bill to Expand Offshore Oil Drilling

JOHN M. BRODER

WASHINGTON -- With rising gasoline prices and skyrocketing oil company profits as a backdrop, the House approved a bill on Thursday to force the Obama administration to accelerate oil lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Virginia.

The 266-to-149 vote, largely along party lines, was a skirmish in the larger battle between Republicans and Democrats to capitalize on consumer anger over the price of gasoline, which has now passed $4 a gallon in most parts of the country.

Once again: Domestic drilling will do next to nothing to affect gas prices. (Mostly) Republican politicians want people to believe the opposite, and push policies to that end. But journalists should question the premise of these political maneuvers, not merely reinforce them.

Calling for more drilling for domestic oil to do something about rising gas prices makes little sense. This should be a simple matter of economics or math--there's not enough oil to recover from U.S. territory to affect global supply, and since oil is a commodity traded on a global market, only an increase in the global supply can affect the price.

Nonetheless, one major political party in this country holds out more drilling as the solution to high prices, and thus that point of view is treated with respect. Take the Washington Post piece today (5/4/11) by Juliet Eilperin, headlined "Soaring Prices Alter Energy Debate a Year After Gulf Spill: A Drive for More Drilling."

The article manages to convey--in passing--that this policy solution wouldn't really work, but nonetheless treats it as if it were a respectable policy option:

Just one year after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon killed 11 and triggered a massive oil spill, there's little appetite among legislators for new safety regulations. Instead, a single concern is prompting a drive for more drilling: $4-a-gallon gas.

Increased drilling won’t bring down the immediate cost U.S. consumers pay at the pump, but soaring fuel prices have transformed the U.S. energy debate, motivating the House this week to take up at least one of three bills that would ease the way for more energy exploration off both coasts and in the Gulf of Mexico.

So more drilling won't help in an "immediate" way, but as a response to high prices Congress is considering bills to encourage more drilling. The piece does quote critics who point out that increased drilling isn't going to matter, immediately or otherwise--the Post attributes this analysis to "Democrats and environmentalists." As Dean Baker put it, "Tell the Washington Post that All Non-Flat Earthers Believe that Oil Prices Are Determined in a Global Market."

While the Fukushima nuclear disaster has gotten plenty of attention on network programming, the debate has consistently overlooked the most fundamental question of whether nuclear power can be harnessed safely (FAIR Blog, 3/14/11). In asking why this question remains muted, a look at their boards of directors reveals that all three major broadcast networks share at least two members with companies that produce or transmit nuclear energy.

With nuclear powerhouse General Electric as co-owner of NBC, it's not surprising that GE's CEO Jeffery Immelt and CFO Keith Sherin both sit as directors on the network's board. But it's not the only network whose board has nuclear energy connections: ABC's directors include a representative from Halliburton as well as from Edison Mission Energy. Not to be outdone, CBS, a former subsidiary of the energy giant Westinghouse, seats three board members from the nuclear energy industry's Southern Company, NSTAR and Consolidated Edison.

Can nuclear power be harnessed safely? The livelihood of these network board members depends on answering the question in the affirmative.

USA Today has a regular left-right feature between hard-right pundit Cal Thomas and TV "liberal" Bob Beckel. Today's topic? Nuclear power. And the verdict? Well, the headline tells you all you need to know.

Knee-Jerks and Nukes

Cal and Bob agree that despite the chorus of hand-wringers, it would be foolish to give up on nuclear power plants in the wake of Japan's tragedy

To give you a sense of the seriousness of the discussion, here's Beckel criticizing Joe Lieberman:

Bob: I grew up in his home state near one of the country's oldest nuclear power plants (the Connecticut Yankee plant), and in all its years of operation--like virtually every other nuclear plant in the world--not a single life-threatening event has occurred.

Cal: And you told me you used to swim in the warm water generated by that plant. No wonder you became a liberal!

I had heard Cal Thomas was funny, but not that funny.

The New York Times' reassuring reporting on the radioactive plume drifting across the U.S. continues the paper's troubling tradition of parroting comforting words from officials in the midst of modern-day environmental crises--like the environmental fallout post-9/11. Let's compare headlines:

"Radiation Over U.S. Is Harmless, Officials Say" (3/22/11)

"Workers and Residents Are Safe, Officials Say" (11/2/01)

As I have documented (Extra!, 11-12/06), in the months and years following the September 11 attacks, the Times ignored studies and voices that cast strong doubt on official proclamations that the air and dust near Ground Zero were not a serious hazard. Andrew Revkin, the Times' environmental reporter at the time who was responsible for much of the reassuring coverage, explained the stance taken by the paper:

The Times' Revkin told American Journalism Review (1–2/03), "We were, I think, bending over backwards to be sure we were reporting a risk only if we knew it, whereas others, I feel rather strongly, were flipping it the other way." Revkin cited the Daily News as an example. When asked how he thought the 9/11 health story would end, Revkin told AJR, "I think it's going to fade away." Unfortunately, the chronic health problems already measured among those exposed to Ground Zero pollution ensure that this story is going to be with us for years to come.

News outlets certainly shouldn't be spreading unnecessary panic in the aftermath of disasters. And no doubt there are many differences between the radioactive plume and Ground Zero dust and air. But the Times' failure and culpability on 9/11 reporting should have taught it something about official reassurances and role of journalists in questioning them.

The radioactive plume from Japan wafting from west to east across the U.S. is absolutely nothing to worry about, writes William J. Broad in a New York Times report today ("Radiation Over U.S. Is Harmless, Officials Say," 3/22/11) about the radiation threats posed by the Japanese nuclear plant disaster. Broad writes:

Health experts said that the plume's radiation had been diluted enormously in its journey of thousands of miles and that--at least for now, with concentrations so low--its presence will have no health consequences in the United States. In a similar way, faint radiation from the Chernobyl disaster spread around the globe and reached the West Coast in 10 days, its levels detectable but minuscule.

There are two things wrong with Broad's report:

One, he doesn't quote or even name any health experts in the piece. When he later elaborates on the claim that radiation from Fukushima will have no health consequences in the United States, he cites the Department of Energy--better known for its promotion of nuclear power than for its health expertise.

Two, in saying that small amounts of radiation are safe, Broad seems to be embracing the industry-favored threshold model of radiation risks. That view holds that below a certain level of radiation exposure, no health danger is posed.

But this is at odds with the National Academy of Sciences and several other science associations that hold there is no such threshold, and that any exposure poses some additional risk of cancer: the greater the exposure, the greater the risk. The linear, no threshold model isn't universally embraced, but is the prevailing view in scientific circles.

At the very least, if Broad is going to cite an industry-favored way of viewing radiation dangers, one that downplays the threat, isn't he obliged to explain that that is what it is, and that it is contradicted by much of the scientific establishment?

At a time when the Japanese prime minister is describing his country's nuclear crisis and the growing threat of radiation exposure as "very grave," it must have been comforting for Fox News watchers to turn on the O'Reilly Factor last night (3/17/11) to see Ann Coulter telling them that radiation is actually good for you.

Yes, Coulter told O'Reilly viewers, the evidence was right there in the media, including in the newspaper she'd once hoped would be targeted with a terror attack:

I'm citing a stunning number of physicists and from the New York Times and the Times of London, there is a growing body of evidence that radiation in excess of what the government says are the minimum amounts we should be exposed to are actually good for you and reduce cases of cancer.

The New York Times science section, for example, a few years ago reported on a study from Canada where all these women who had had tuberculosis got an inordinate number of chest X-rays. Their breast cancer rate was lower than the general population.

There were apartments put up in Taiwan in 1993 that accidentally contained an inordinate amount of cobalt-60, a radioactive substance. After 16 years 10,000 occupants of these buildings, being hit with five times what the government says is the minimum amount you should be hit with, the number of cancer cases they had about 10,000 occupants was only five cases.

Now, for the general population in that same age group, a group of 10,000 Taiwanese should have gotten about 170 cases of cancer.

I'm sure you'll be surprised to find that it takes minutes to debunk Coulter's scientific declarations on radiation. That "pro-radiation" Times science piece (11/27/01), for instance, does cite research finding that low-dose radiation can have beneficial effects-- only to note that it has been generally dismissed by scientists as flawed:

Now, some scientists even say low radiation doses may be beneficial. They theorize that these doses protect against cancer by activating cells' natural defense mechanisms. As evidence, they cite studies, like one in Canada of tuberculosis patients who had multiple chest X-rays and one of nuclear workers in the United States. The tuberculosis patients, some analyses said, had fewer cases of breast cancer than would be expected and the nuclear workers had a lower mortality rate than would be expected.

Dr. Boice said these studies were flawed by statistical pitfalls, and when a committee of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement evaluated this and other studies on beneficial effects, it was not convinced. The group, headed by Dr. Upton of New Jersey, wrote that the data ''do not exclude'' the hypothesis. But, it added, ''the prevailing evidence has generally been interpreted as insufficient to support this view.''

And that Taiwan study demonstrating that radioactive cobalt-60 built into an Taiwan apartment building protected the inhabitants from cancer? It contained a "major flaw" in that it failed to control for age--where a subsequent study that did control for age found an  increased incidence of cancer associated to the apartment building. As a summary of the literature on Wikipedia puts it:

In popular treatments of radiation hormesis, a study of the inhabitants of apartment buildings in Taiwan has received prominent attention. The building materials had been accidentally contaminated with cobalt-60 but the study found cancer mortality rates 96.4 percent lower than in the population as a whole. However, this study compared the relatively young irradiated population with the much older general population of Taiwan, which is a major flaw. A subsequent study by Hwang et al. (2006) found a significant exposure-dependent increase in cancer in the irradiated population, particularly leukemia in men and thyroid cancer in women, though this trend is only detected amongst those who were first exposed before the age of 30.

So as an increasingly critical situation in Japan demands more accurate and useful information about radiation, the Fox News Channel's biggest show featured the ignorance of Ann Coulter. Just another reason why studies have found Fox News watchers more misinformed on the issues of the day than consumers of other corporate media outlets.

The New York Times (3/17/11) presents a look at the Japanese government's lack of candor about the Fukushima nuclear disaster. At first we're given the impression that this is something cultural: "The less-than-straight talk is rooted in a conflict-averse culture that avoids direct references to unpleasantness." We don't have that problem, I guess.

Then, we're told, Japanese media are to blame: 

Left-leaning news outlets have long been skeptical of nuclear power and of its backers, and the mutual mistrust led power companies and their regulators to tightly control the flow of information about nuclear operations so as not to inflame a spectrum of opponents that includes pacifists and environmentalists.

So the too-critical media helped create this crisis of  "mutual mistrust"? The Times had previously led me to believe that the problem with Japanese media was that it was too cozy with powerful institutions.  Now I'm being told they're too critical, which makes them part of the problem.

Finally we come to this:

The close links between politicians and business executives have further complicated the management of the nuclear crisis.

Powerful bureaucrats retire to better-paid jobs in the very industries they once oversaw, in a practice known as "amakudari." Perhaps no sector had closer relations with regulators than the country’s utilities; regulators and the regulated worked hand in hand to promote nuclear energy, since both were keen to reduce Japan’s heavy reliance on fossil fuels.

Now hold on a second. They live in a country where there is a revolving door between corporations and the regulators who oversee their industries?

I'm glad the Times gives us the  Japanese word for this, since most U.S. readers have no frame of reference with which to comprehend such a bizarre practice.

If you've tracked media coverage of nuclear power, you know that every few months or so nuclear power is about to enjoy a comeback. The "nuclear renaissance" has always been right around the corner, we've often been told.

Take the New York Times, for example:

-Few industries have enjoyed the kind of renaissance that nuclear power may be poised to undergo.
(5/23/01)

-After decades in the doghouse because of environmental, safety and cost concerns, nuclear power is enjoying a renaissance of expectations.
(editorial, 5/29/01)

-Energy shortages may be creating talk of a nuclear power renaissance.
(6/28/01)

-"Much Talk of a Nuclear Renaissance, but So Far Little Action"
(headline, 3/3/06)

-The continuing fight over Indian Point comes as nuclear power is anticipating a renaissance, mainly because of the high price of natural gas.
(6/7/06)

-One day this May, on a brisk morning so clear that I could see its cooling towers from 20 miles away, I visited Vogtle on one leg of a tour to assess what many in the energy industry are calling a nuclear renaissance.
(7/16/06-- a piece with the subhead "A Nuclear Renaissance?")

-major step toward actual construction after several years of speculation about a nuclear renaissance.
(8/14/06)

-As the chief executive of Constellation Energy, a utility holding company in Baltimore that already operates five nuclear reactors, Mr. Shattuck is convinced that nuclear power is on the verge of a renaissance, ready to provide reliable electricity at a competitive price.
(8/22/06)

-NEW REACTORS ACROSS THE GLOBE: A Nuclear Power Renaissance
(headline, 1/16/07)

-The senior member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned on Monday that the failure of Congress to pass a detailed budget for the current fiscal year could damage the nuclear renaissance that the government tried so hard to encourage with the energy bill of 2005.
(1/23/07)

-''To bring about the nuclear renaissance in the United States, it really is going to take the global nuclear industry,'' said Michael J. Wallace, a Constellation executive who will be chairman of the new entity. ''Vendors, suppliers, operators and investors like E.D.F. who understand and are comfortable with the technology -- we need them all.''
(7/21/07)

-''A nuclear renaissance is now gearing up everywhere in the world,'' said John B. Ritch III , a former American diplomat and director general of the World Nuclear Association, an industry group. ''It is occurring parallel to an enormous expansion in energy consumption.''
(11/27/07)

-Gregory B. Jaczko, one of the federal agency's three commissioners, said it might not have enough staff members to do now what it did in the 1970s and '80s -- supervise the construction of a couple of dozen types of reactors. The commission has been hiring rapidly to prepare for a nuclear renaissance, but officials there were counting on standardization, if not quite mass production, as a way to manage the workload.
(12/5/07)

-the so-called nuclear renaissance is moving slowly.
(8/6/08)

-Worries about carbon dioxide and galloping demand for electricity might seem to be setting the stage for a renaissance of nuclear power.
(9/24/08)

-More than 90 percent of Areva is held by the French government, which also could inject more money into the company at a time when nuclear power could be on the verge of a renaissance.
(1/27/09)

-Today, concern about climate change and desire for ''energy independence'' have driven former skeptics to take another look at nuclear power. Some even talk of a ''nuclear renaissance.''
(book review, 3/8/09)

-The massive power plant under construction on muddy terrain on this Finnish island was supposed to be the showpiece of a nuclear renaissance.
(5/29/09)

-But the companies are concerned that the credit crisis has dealt a critical blow to nuclear power in the United States, which had been perceived as undergoing a renaissance starting in 2004.
(11/1/09)

-David M. Ratcliffe, the chairman and chief executive of the Southern Company, said that a nuclear renaissance was in the wings and that ''we will get on with that at a more rapid pace now that we've made this first step.''
(2/17/10)

-Clarence Fenner, the work force development coordinator for the South Texas Project, a Bay City councilman and a former first sergeant in the Army. ''This nuclear renaissance is important for our community, our state and our country. It's not just a job.''
(4/22/10)

-Is this the long-awaited renaissance of the nuclear construction business, after years of being moribund?
(4/22/10)

-Tomas Kaberger, director general of the Swedish Energy Agency, said there was no certainty that any of the plants would be built, despite talk of a nuclear renaissance.
(7/2/10)

-The project had once been hailed as a cornerstone of a nuclear power renaissance.
(10/10/10)

-Over the last decade, Kazakhstan rapidly became the world's largest uranium producer, overtaking Canada with vast increases in production. According to World Nuclear Association figures, Kazakh production jumped 62 percent from 2008 to 2009. Overall global demand remained steady, however, because the long-promised nuclear renaissance was always just over the horizon.
(11/17/10)

-In his State of the Union address, President Obama proposed giving the nuclear construction business a type of help it has never had, a role in a quota for clean energy. But recent setbacks in a hoped-for ''nuclear renaissance'' raise questions about how much of a role nuclear power can play.
(2/11/11)