Open Letter to All Commercial Media

Open Letter to All Commercial Media 

            In 2014 I wrote a letter to Jen Russo, an editor at the weekly MauiTime. I objected to her earlier article that uncritically promoted a very questionable profession. It wasn’t personal; my beefs with her are my beefs with 90 percent of the commercial media. It all about their gross deception: they pretend to be professionals who do real journalism while they routinely and knowingly violate The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics and exploit their readers rather than inform them.

The points I make in the letter apply to all (pseudo) journalists, so here I’ve made it public as an open letter to all those working in media outlets that profiteer from health fraud.

Dear Jen Russo and Other Writers, Editors and Broadcasters:

Back in the 1980s when the HIV/AIDS epidemic was picking up steam and the media were doing lots of stories on it one of the major Honolulu dailies carried a full-page story about naturopathy in Hawaii. Top NDs were interviewed and they all said that AIDS could be cured with “natural” remedies: good diet, lots of garlic, various medicinal herbs, special baths, fasting, acupuncture, “de-tox” regimens, etc. To a man, they blasted the anti-retroviral meds being tried by MDs. They will kill the patients, they all said.

Unless you’ve been in a coma for 30 years you know how that turned out. Magic Johnson is alive and well, as are millions around the world, thanks to anti-retrovirals, which dramatically reduce viral load and prevent mother-fetus transmission. None of the so-called natural remedies does anything to fight the infection. NDs have contributed less than nothing to fighting HIV. They have obstructed progress and harmed patients with their ignorant, lying propaganda. This story has been repeated over and over with infectious diseases (they’re anti-vax nuts), cancers and other serious ailments.

 As the story of naturopathy and the law heats up, please remember that the SPJ Code of Ethics calls for honesty, fairness, and disclosure of economic interests. Your paper makes lots of money from NDs and other questionable practitioners, so you owe it to your readers to guard against a temptation to promote their causes by uncritically parroting their claims in your stories.

Some years ago I wrote a book titled Lying for Fun and Profit: the Truth about the Media. Part of my research was to survey media coverage of fringe medicine. I found that over the last 30 years or so the media (print and broadcast, not including internet then) coverage has been about 100 to 1 in favor of scores of modes of bogus medicine, from ridiculous cure-all fad diets to acupuncture and chiropractic for serious diseases to an endless flood of herbal drugs sold as “supplements” as if the body has some daily requirement for the drugs. They do this because the quackery peddlers buy ads and this influences editorial policy.

I assume you are a person of integrity, and you want to do real journalism and provide your readers with truth rather than dangerous fiction, so I have enclosed some material that may interest you. If you want, you can borrow the book from the Wailuku library or from me. And I would be happy to discuss these things with you – just call or email me to set up a meeting. (The book, which I wrote, is A Consumer’s Guide to ‘Alternative Medicine.

Now to a different but related subject, the other side of this same coin. Imagine the following hypothetical situation:

 A group of anti-vaccine protesters stand on the sidewalk near the Maui Medical Group in Wailuku. They carry signs denouncing vaccines as worthless and dangerous. They are peaceful and quiet, and they are all obeying the county laws regarding sign waving. They had done this several times months earlier. MMG had repeatedly gone to court for a restraining order to stop the demonstrations, but five judges on separate occasions had ruled for the demonstrators. Having exhausted its legal remedies, MMG simply ignores the rulings and resorts to force. It orders its security guards to bodily keep the sidewalks near the clinic free of demonstrators. In an ensuing scuffle a demonstrator is severely injured, resulting in years of pain and disability.

Police officers witnessed the assault, but do not arrest the known assailant. The Prosecutor refuses to prosecute the assailant or even investigate the role of MMG in the entire episode. Later when the victim sues MMG, the police witnesses refuse to testify and the victim loses the case.

Now, I think you would agree that all the media would jump on this story, and the attention would force hearings on the episode, lawyers would jump in on both sides and the issues would be fully aired for months, even years. Whose fault was this outrage to the Bill of Rights? And was it ignorance, corruption or both?

Contrast that scenario with what actually happened to me in the inverse situation. Maui Time is well aware of the case, so I won’t repeat it here, except to enclose the Pussy Riot flyer that sums it up. Fringe medicine, even when it clearly endangers people and blatantly violates state law, is a Sacred Cow, sacrosanct, above reproach, above criticism, above honest journalism, and above the law. This mania for anything that its purveyors label as natural, organic and alternative is a social psychosis reflected in my ten-year struggle for free speech. For, in contrast to how the media would certainly treat vaccine (or GMO) protesters whose rights are violated, not one publisher or broadcaster has made the slightest mention of the travesty in my case, though fully informed of it.              

See also, www.nogivetohawaiipublicradio.blogspot.com, which protests unethical promotion of naturopathy by public radio.

 Sincerely,

              Kurt Butler 

Links to all my blogs: www.KurtButlerBlogs.blogspot.com. 

For more detailed critiques of various forms of quackery, including naturopathy, see my book A Consumer’s Guide to “Alternative Medicine”. It was expertly edited by legendary quack buster Stephen Barrett, MD.  The critics say:

"Superb!" -- Dr. Victor Herbert in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Excellent" -- National Council Against Health Fraud.

"Five Stars" -- Cooking Light.

"Thought provoking; a great book" -- American Journal of Health Promotion.  

When the book was published almost 30 years ago it was strongly praised by responsible health experts and the rare responsible media, but trashed by new-age critics and even vandalized in bookstores by new-age fanatics. It is as true and relevant as ever, and has been mostly vindicated by time. Yet my courageous and far-sighted publisher, the venerable Prometheus Books, is still sitting on lots of copies. Please help validate their integrity by buying a copy. Or two or more as gifts. Perhaps 10 for your local school library and health classes. See their website for assorted discounts. Make them an offer. (My royalties are insignificant; this little promo is for the benefit of one of the world's great publishers, Prometheus Books.) 

Maui's future foretold: Barbarians In Paradise -- Terror Comes to Maui. This is a prophetic flash novel about a future police state and those who rebel against it. Available in paperback and ebook at Amazon.com. 

Why I Do This and Why He Can't Stop Me

For about ten years before the year 2,000 and ten years after, The Maui News, the only daily paper on the island, frequently engaged in sensationalist, dishonest promotion of postmodern healing miracles and other “new age” fads and frauds. Disease diagnosis by aura photography, the wonders of astrology, miracles of ancient herbs, and feng shui “science” to make you rich – such BS was standard fare in the paper, as it was in hundreds of dailies in those days. This type of quackery is not as fashionable now, so the papers run fewer ads and puff pieces (ads disguised as articles) promoting the frauds.

Over almost a quarter century I have clashed repeatedly with The Maui News about its corruption and dishonesty. It claims to abide by The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, but this is patently untrue, a most brazen lie. Though it violates the code by promoting health quackery and anti-science less often than it once did, it violates the code in other ways more stubbornly than ever.

The sins of the paper are now more of deliberate omission than of commission. As is true of most dailies, the loyalty of The Maui News belongs to its advertisers, not its readers. The island’s economy is almost entirely tourism dependent, so the paper plays cheerleader and propagandist, always projecting an image of paradise. Show the beauty and hide the ugliness.

However, the SPJ code stipulates that ethical journalists investigate and report on issues of importance to the community and do not collude with government officials or industries to ignore, bury or cover up the issues. This is Maui, not Putin’s Moscow where Pravda does the will of the Boss. Yet The Maui News rarely deviates from the county government’s line or reports anything likely to embarrass Mayor-Forever Alan Arakawa or put Maui in a bad light. This means total silence on our most important issues – the rule of law and the protection of constitutional rights of common people and poor people.

For years the editors of The Maui News have refused to publish my letters and commentaries exposing the county’s crimes or to investigate for itself. The facts are not in dispute and are mostly matters of public record, but they are taboo to the paper. Meanwhile it devotes acres of print to trivia (a big front-page story this morning is a slight change in the shape of Oreo cookies)  and puff pieces, including articles about awards and promotions for local cops, some well-known bullies and criminals. This kind of self-censorship and propagandizing is unethical and should be exposed. Thus my demonstrations.

No doubt Mr. Bradley hates my little protests, but there is nothing that he can do to stop them. Any legal action would give me an opportunity to show, in a court of law, that the paper routinely violates the SPJ ethics code. Its pretense of journalistic competence, honesty, integrity and fairness would be blown away. Bradley can’t allow that, so he tries to ignore me. But his inaction might lead some to think the accusation on my sign is true. And so he is trapped.

Similar reasoning holds regarding my signs accusing, “under penalty of perjury,” the mayor, the chief of police, the prosecutor and other county officials of various heinous crimes.

This is another example of a tactic I call “dirty tricks for clean government.” It’s too early to say whether it will prove effective in this case, but it is fun to get big shots into a kind of checkmate where, because of their own stupidity, dishonesty, corruption and arrogance, you get to defame them to the world in the nastiest possible ways with total impunity. That way, if you never get justice at least you get a little revenge. 

Links to all my blogs: www.KurtButlerBlogs.blogspot.com. 

For more detailed critiques of various forms of quackery, including naturopathy, see my book A Consumer’s Guide to “Alternative Medicine”. It was expertly edited by legendary quack buster Stephen Barrett, MD.  The critics say:

"Superb!" -- Dr. Victor Herbert in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Excellent" -- National Council Against Health Fraud.

"Five Stars" -- Cooking Light.

"Thought provoking; a great book" -- American Journal of Health Promotion.  

When the book was published almost 30 years ago it was strongly praised by responsible health experts and the rare responsible media, but trashed by new-age critics and even vandalized in bookstores by new-age fanatics. It is as true and relevant as ever, and has been mostly vindicated by time. Yet my courageous and far-sighted publisher, the venerable Prometheus Books, is still sitting on lots of copies. Please help validate their integrity by buying a copy. Or two or more as gifts. Perhaps 10 for your local school library and health classes. See their website for assorted discounts. Make them an offer. (My royalties are insignificant; this little promo is for the benefit of one of the world's great publishers, Prometheus Books.) 

Maui's future foretold: Barbarians In Paradise -- Terror Comes to Maui. This is a prophetic flash novel about a future police state and those who rebel against it. Available in paperback and ebook at Amazon.com.