Media Cocoons: Selective Obfuscation of the Real World

Six out of seven episodes of the BBC's "Frozen Planet" are just fine for American consumption, so deems the Discovery Channel. The seventh, about climate change? Not so much.

Yesterday I discussed the soft censorship of the world as it is in the name of profit. The idea being that there is probably not a vast conspiracy to misinform or push the rest of the world to the back burner, but that instead more fluff-filled stories sell more magazines, and thus there is a positive feedback loop. This selective re-displaying of the world as it is extends beyond straight “news”, too. Frozen Planet, the latest excellent nature-in-HD production from the BBC, is a seven-episode documentary of life as it is at our polar regions – detailing the surprising diversity and amount of life that exists in climates that we would normally see as inhospitable and deadly. The same producers behind The Blue Planet and Planet Earth were also behind this series, which is currently airing on BBC One as a seven part series. The show is also being offered up for networks around the world to air. In the United States, the program will be aired by the Discovery Channel with one slight omission – about one-seventh of the series.

While the Discovery Channel found plenty of room to air the first six episodes in the series, the seventh – titled “On Thin Ice” and dealing with the subject matter of climate change and its effects on the poles – was just too much for the network to handle. For its part the Discovery Channel said that not airing the seventh episode wasn’t because of any attempt to not inform their viewers about the very real and happening-right-now effects of climate change, it was instead because of a “scheduling issue so only had slots for six episodes”.

What there is time for include shows about criminals that got caught, a show purporting to answer “the most fundamental questions facing the world today” but winds up with episodes like “Why is Sex Fun?”, a show about killing Osama Bin Laden, motorcycles, guns, and so on…

The BBC has taken some heat for allowing networks like Discovery to opt-out of the climate change episode, though the network has sat back and not admitted it is assisting in selective censorship of an important issue – it’s just giving other networks the “option” of not airing that episode, and only that episode, as a part of the series. None of the other six episodes are given similar treatment.

For the record of what is being missed:

Sir David Attenborough has warned that there will be “open water at the North Pole in summer within the next few decades” if the current rate of global warming is allowed to continue.

In his bleakest comments yet on the fate of our warming planet, the veteran naturalist, who visited the pole for the first time last year, said that the consequences of melting sea ice would be dire for wildlife and humanity alike.

Writing in the Radio Times on the eve of the United Nations Climate Conference in South Africa, Sir David said the implications of Arctic meltwater disrupting the flow of ocean currents which maintain global climate were “hard to overstate”.

“The meltwaters from Greenland’s glaciers alone could cause a rise in global sea levels of up to half a metre by the end of this century,” he said. The BBC’s Frozen Planet team, filming at both poles for the documentary series, witnessed the melting not just of sea ice but also of freshwater, glacial ice, Sir David added.

In the Antarctic, the Cook Glacier, where the 85-year-old naturalist first filmed in 1988, had retreated by 400m. “It is the change to the permanent ice that fringes the coasts of Antarctica that is likely to have the most dramatic effects of all,” Attenborough said.

Whether or not you choose to believe it's happening, climate change is real, observable, and needs wider attention.

Of course, the episode is not being completely censored from American view. It is not being banished and will not be made illegal to purchase. Anyone who purchases the set of episodes will be able to purchase all seven, plus additional commentary. Anyone who wants to be informed about that can offer up some cash and be informed. That’s kind of the point, though. Someone skeptical, on the fence, or indifferent, won’t put up the cash to buy the entire series just to see the “censored” climate change episode. Those likely to buy the series would probably be predisposed to already acknowledging the existence of climate change. It’s selective obfuscation of the real world, it does real harm, and it is easily passed off and approved as a “schedule conflict”, or sacrificed for the aims of profit.

Normally when discussion is brought up about manipulation of media in this country, it has to do with cable television talking heads. Much more rare is the discussion of media outside of what the lay person considers “news”. When the manipulation extends to television shows, magazines, and beyond, it’s harder to examine and harder to prove – especially with the excuses planned, written, and executed by the time the story hits. The ultimate burden is on the consumer of news, novice or professional, to go out and look past the filters to really know what is going on in the world. Sadly that type of person does not make up a majority, and potentially doesn’t even make up a plurality of the population. Left to their own devices, people don’t necessarily want to hear about the scary world that exists beyond their warm, safe cocoon – and media is more than thrilled to deliver upon that desire in the name of turning a profit.

With that excuse in place, deliberate hiding of real stories becomes much more easy, as evidenced here.