For at least a month, CNN has been proudly touting its Planet in Peril documentary (a two-part series airing this Tuesday and Wednesday at 9:00 p.m. EDT), on both its news channel and website. I've been very much looking forward to it, since it seems to be shaping up as the first serious look at the climate change crisis by a traditional media outlet. Its hosts are journalist Anderson Cooper, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and wildlife biologist/conservationist Jeff Corwin, a group I consider to be able to present this information in a reasonably honest and objective manner (despite Gupta's misguided criticism of Michael Moore and SiCKO earlier this year).
So I admit to a fair amount of surprise and concern last night when I'd briefly tuned in to CNN and saw an ad for a related program, hosted by Miles O'Brien, called Keeping them Honest: the Truth About Global Warming, ostensibly intended to allow viewers to "get the facts and the questions behind Al Gore's global warming crusade...." While Keeping Them Honest is a regular part of Cooper's nightly news program, last night was the first I'd heard of this hour-long version, despite hearing about Planet in Peril for at least a month, if not longer. Now I don't watch CNN a lot, so it's entirely possible I simply missed the promos for Keeping Them Honest, but that seems unlikely considering that practically every time I flipped to CNN News or went to its website, I saw a promo for Planet in Peril but never its counterpart.
Call me paranoid, but I sadly suspect this Keeping Them Honest deal was cobbled together on short notice in a typically misguided attempt by a mainstream news source to give equal time to the "other side" of the climate change debate. Never mind that the "other side" is nothing but a bunch of cranks funded by Big Oil and neocon think tanks who use their power, money, and influence to buy the equal time they don't deserve and haven't earned. Because Keeping Them Honest segments are generated by viewer suggestions, I can visualize a roomful of frothing denialists pounding out email after email and desperately trying to give the impression that they're normal concerned viewers.
The signs are clear to me. Anyone who clicked on the above links found a well developed informational site for Planet in Peril; yet Keeping Them Honest: The Truth About Global Warming is listed only on CNN's Programs page, and clicking on the title link takes you nowhere. There's simply no more info available about this show beyond the vague blurb. Plus, it's airing three days prior to Planet in Peril; if this is really an attempt to provide viewers with "balance," why air the Honest program before Peril? Not to mention, CNN's choice of words to describe Honest is unfortunate at best: Al Gore's global warming crusade. If CNN was genuinely concerned about keeping the climate change debate honest, they shouldn't waste time on Gore and instead focus the microscope on Patrick Michaels, Tim Ball, or any of the other professional skeptics and organizations that can be found in DeSmogBlog's Denier Database or at ExxonSecrets.
I do hope I'm wrong and Honest will really be honest about the people determined to keep the climate change debate going. Here is CNN's chance to make an unequivocal statement about the reality of climate change, the potential dangers faced by humanity, and what we need to do about it. Yet, if this ends up being an attempt to present "both sides" of this ridiculous and unnecessary debate that should have been put out of its misery at least a decade ago, CNN is being anything but objective and honest. I sincerely hope CNN proves able to resist the temptation to be FAUX News Junior. After viewing Keeping Them Honest this evening, I don't want to have to ask in resignation: et tu, CNN?