• In ForFun and Prof it TheTruth about the Media Exposes the CorruptSymbiosis BetweenMedia Giants andthe Health FraudIndustries by KurtButler THEBOOK YOU CAN TALK BACK TO Visit our RationalRadio Web site and let us know what you think about the growing institutionalizationof "alternative ... medicine." Is it a newparadigm or a media-drivennational psychosis? ... Willit lead to a healthiernation or a nation of indoctrinated neurotics paying billions for pseudoscienceand airy-fairy...flimflam? Willour descendantssee this as watershed era that improved our lives or will they be dumbfoundedby our millennial... madness? Youcan parti.ci.pate by letter, e-mai.l, Jax or phone. Fordetails visit: www.rationalradio.com HEALTH WISE PRODUCTIONS 211 PUAKEA PLACE KULA, HAWAII 96790 Lying ForFun and Prof it TheTruth about the Media Exposesthe Corrupt Symhiosis BetweenMedia Gianh and the HealthFraud Industries ~w ~@W~~OO~~@W Publishedin 1999by Health Wise Productions. Lyingfor Funand Profit: The Truthabout the Media. Copyright© 1999 by Kurt Butler.All rightsreserved. No part of this publicationmay be reproduced, storedin a retrievalsystem, or transmittedin any form by any means, electronic,mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,without prior permissionof the publisher,except in the caseof briefquotations embodied in criticalarticles or reviews.Inquires should be addressedto HealthWise Productions,211 PuakeaPl., Kula, HI 96790(FAX: 808-876-0744). ISBN0-9673281-0-1 Copyright© 1999Kurt Butler Includesindex. Printedin the UnitedStates HEALTH WISE PRODUCTIONS 211 PUAKEA PLACE KULA, HAWAH 96790 About the Author Kurt Butler grew up in Hawaii and lives there now on the island of Maui. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in physiology from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Master of Science degree in nutrition from the University of Hawaii. He is the founder, producer and host of RationalRadio. His previous books include: The Best Medicine(Harper and Row) The New Handbookof Healthand PreventiveMedicine (Prometheus Books) A Consumer'sGuide to "AlternativeMedicine" (Prometheus Books) 111 CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter One: LETTHEM READ HOGWASH 7 Dinosaurs, Werewolves and UFOs 7 TheMaui News,A Prototypical Postmodern Paper 9 The Fountain of Youth in a Tea Cup 10 A Star-Trek Diagnostic Device 14 Promoting Fads and Frauds 18 The Journal for the Promotion of Chinese Quackery 20 Embracing the New Age Mafia 22 Embracing Deception and Death 24 Aiding, Abetting and Conspiring 25 The Triumph of the Swill 27 Astrobabble, the Post Modem Pabulum 39 A Corrupt Symbiosis 42 Life Goes New Age 44 Doing It Right 48 Chapter Two: THEHOAX BOOK HALL OF SHAME 51 Hall of Shame Authors 55 Hall of Shame Publishers 56 Rational Radio's Hoax Book Hall of Shame 56 Chapter Three: ROMANCINGTHE CHARLATANS ANDSHUNNING THE SCIENTISTS97 KGMB-9, The Charlatans' Best Friend 100 More Dishonest Broadcasters 108 CBS, The Eye That Refuses to See 113 NBC's Great Whoppers 123 Leeza's Lunacy 133 The ABCs of Mickey Mouse Journalism 140 CNN, Crazy Nonsense Network 150 Syndicated Cynicism 157 New Age Educational TV 160 IV The Psychic Mafia and The Pendragon Caper 169 Raving Radio 173 Chapter Four: EMBRACING THE BRAVE NEW DARK AGE 185 The Mass Psychology Of New Age Flower Fascism 187 Dear Ms. New Age 193 New-Age Pander Bears 198 States Encourage and Institutionalize Health Fraud 202 Senator Hatch Drugs America: A Quarter Billion Lab Rats 208 The Media Flunk the Cyanide Test 209 Mother Jones Caught in Bed with John Birch 214 New Age Embraces Killer Cult 216 From Laetrile to "Medical Freedom" 218 NAV-PositiveAcademia 222 Dr. Rosenfeld's Fallacies 233 Kowtow to Deepak and Other Sacred Cows 236 The Postmodern Journalists' Code Of Ethics 241 Naturopathy, Nazism, and Nicotine 243 Chapter Five: TOWARD THE POST-MILLENNIAL AGE OF REASON 247 Alternative Medicine: New Paradigm or Media-Induced National Psychosis? 248 Challenging The Foundations of Alternatoid Medicine 250 Pearls of Wisdom or Goat Droppings? 254 Reality Testing: Challenging and Rating the Alternative Medicines 256 Guide to the Ratings 258 The Score as We Go to Press 259 Rational Radio's Alternative Medicine Ratings 259 Epilogue 287 Appendix 289 Index 297 V Introduction Did you know that there is a journalism code of ethics? Most people don't know this, including, it seems, most journalists. Actually, there are three separate codes that say much the same things. The oldest is the official Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists, first adopted in 1926 and reaffirmed with revisions several times in the last twenty years. The Associated Press Managing Editors (APME) Statementof EthicalPrinciples is intended to guide newspaper editors. And The Association of Electronic Journalists, also known as the Radio-Television News Directors Association (Rl'NDA),has its own CodeofEthi.cs for radio and television news directors. These three codes are printed in their entirety in the Appendix. Here is a brief summary of the tenets they have in common that are most relevant to this book and to RationalRadio. The responsibilitiesof the journalists that come with their First Amendment rights and their access to mass media include the following: to seek the truth and seroethe public'sright to know the truth; to performwith intelligence,objectivity, accuracy and fairness; to avoidintegrity-compromising secondary employment and even the appearanceof conflictof interest; to avoidpublicizing commercial claims without verification; to clearlydistinguish news from commentary; to acknowledgeand correctmistakes promptly; to encourageethical behavior by alljournalists; to be accountableto the publi.cand foster open dialogwith the public. (This point is not included in the code for electronic journalists.) This sounds wonderful but, unfortunately, the organizations have failed completely in their stated goals. Every one of the tenets listed above is routinely violated by almost all the mass media, including those with journalistic pretensions. Misinforming the public has become a way of life for thousands of communications professionals, most of whom learned their trade in tax-supported colleges and universities that are infected with the pernicious 2 Introduction cultural virus Imown as postmodernism, also Imown as New Ageism. They have accepted the concept of journalistic lying as a legitimate form of entertainment, which is a dangerous corollary of the NewAge concept that truth is whatever is pleasing to believe. In 1997 at the Maui Writers Conference Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Bernstein said that today's journalism is in unusual trouble because it is losing sight of the objective of telling the truth. The picture of reality presented by the press, he said, is "illusionary and delusionary .... Reporters are unwilling to do the hard work of reporting, and the media are turning social discourse into a sewer." Instead of telling the truth, they sensationalize and pander. 'We have earned much of the contempt we're held in," because ''we're arrogant and no more honest than the miscreants we cover." He blasted the "triumph of idiot culture and sleaze" in the media "For the first time in our history," he said, "the weird, stupid and course have become the cultural ideal in the media." A great many of the writers, editors, publishers, producers, talkers, and broadcasters of America seem to have no understanding of, and certainly no commitment to, principles of honesty and ethics. This is obviously dangerous in a democratic society that depends on the free flow of accurate and truthful information. Even the most intelligent citizens, though they may be free to make choices in the market place and at the ballot box, cannot make rational decisions on critical issues if they are fed nothing but lies. This book and RationalRadio are products of twenty years of frustration with the mass media. I recently realized that since I first started tilting at this Godzilla windmill, a whole new generation of postmodern pseudojournalists has been trained and unleashed on the public. The situation is certain to get worse before it gets better, so rational people must dig in for a long struggle against the demon-haunted Brave New Dark Age. Most important, we must have a permanent national forum so we can finally be heard after being silenced by the antiscience and antidemocratic mainstream media for so long. In this book and on RationalRadio we expose the cynical lying that most of the media habitually indulge in. We document their Introduction 3 profiteering from degrading our culture and saturating it with paranoid delusions, medieval superstitions, suspicion of science, and health quackery of all kinds. We invite readers and listeners to contact RationalRadio with examples of their own, not only of delusions and swindles masquerading as paranormal phenomena, alternative medicines, and miscellaneous New Age mumbo jumbo, but also of media promotions of the nonsense. We also invite true believers and those whose work we criticize to contact the show and defend their claims. Visit our Web site for the program schedule and information on contributing and participating. A Note on WordUsage Mass media misuse of language, especially the use of loaded words and phrases, is a powerful tool for deceiving and indoctrinating the public. If a political party, industry, or other interest group can get the media to use its loaded words the balance can is tipped in its favor. Examples include "Peoples' Democratic Republic" for "totalitarian Communist dictatorship"; "pro-life"for "anti-abortion"; "anti-Vietnam" for "anti-Vietnam War"; "school prayer" for "state-imposed and teacher-led group prayer"; and "creation science" for "Genesis mythology and dogma." The New Age movement has used its own set of loaded words and phrases to great effect. Sometimes it is so successful that even those who see through the deceptions have little choice but to use the words and thereby help perpetuate their lies. To minimize this effect, and to protest the misleading words, in this book and on the RationalRadio Web site, I frequently substitute more accurate words.