RALPH HOAR
IN MEMORIAM

Raging Hoar Moans
Chemical Trade Secrets:
The Triumph and The Tragedy

Bill Moyers' "Trade Secrets", broadcast Monday night on PBS, returns the bar for broadcast journalism to the level achieved by Edward R. Murrow decades ago with "Harvest of Shame". If you missed it, find a copy and watch it.

Casting aside any pretense of balance, Moyers used documents obtained through law suits filed on behalf of chemical workers (or their estates), to pull away the shroud of secrecy in which the chemical industry had wrapped itself for almost half a century. Time and again, he used "confidential" documents to reveal how the world's "blue chip" chemical giants kept workers, the public and government regulators in the dark while filling our minds and bodies with an increasing number of toxins. How toxic? We don't know. And the chemical industry doesn't know, or isn't saying. We do know that our increased chemical exposure is accompanied by unexplained increases in childhood leukemia, testicular cancer in young men, breast cancer, attention deficit disorder and more.

Moyers did pull one significant punch: He failed to pursue individual or corporate accountability. At one point, the names on documents were obscured as though to skirt the ever-unpleasant task of pointing an accusing finger at specific people, in some cases, medical doctors, or companies. My friend, award winning broadcast journalist, Steve Wilson made that observation in an e-mail message to me immediately following the broadcast. Wilson knows a few things about refusing to pull punches. His entire career, primarily as a national broadcast journalist, has been committed to landing as many punches as he can muster. His pugnaciousness has a price.

Three years ago, Wilson and his wife, Jane Akre, were an aggressively promoted broadcast team. She was an anchor and he was an investigative reporter for the Fox Network station in Tampa, Florida. After discovering traces of Synthetic Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) in Florida's milk supply, they decided to take on Monsanto, maker of rBGH. In the face of substantial pressure from the chemical giant, they refused to placate Monsato by sugar-coating their report or by adding what they considered false information masquarading as a balancing point of view. It may have been the last punch either of them will refuse to pull in traditional broadcast journalism. After 83 re-writes that spanned a year, Fox fired both journalists. They've spent the last three years ensnared in litigation to regain their lives with no end in sight.

While we carry no brief for suicide journalism, Wilson and Akre showed rare courage and an even more rare quality among most professionals, not just journalists: a willingness to take a stand for what they believe is true. They are heroic. In my book, they are heroes. We can pray that others will follow where Murrow, Moyers, Wilson and Akre would lead. Unfortunately, there is more faith than evidence that their's will be the road more traveled.

OPTSF2003

3/27/01