Perspectives on the media from Hollywood and academia - includes related article on the Candle in the Dark Award

Council for Media Integrity conference in Los Angeles explores questions

In today's age of information, the media have emerged as perhaps the most powerful influence in society. Feeding what seems an insatiable public appetite for news and entertainment, television, film, radio, newspapers, magazines, and the World Wide Web reach billions worldwide. But in the media's fierce competition to win audiences, stories and reports are sometimes over-simplified, exaggerated, or slanted in ways that make it impossible to reliably sort fact from fiction.

For many scientists and skeptics, distortion of facts and information in media portrayals of the paranormal and pseudoscience has reached critical proportions. Too often in such portrayals mysterious forces eclipse rational explanations, if such explanations are even offered at all. But is there empirical evidence that portrayals of the paranormal really do have an influence on what people believe? Do the media have a responsibility to maintain balanced reporting? Why do the media hype the unexplained while casting science in a negative light? Is there any hope that the situation will change?

These are a few of the questions raised at the conference "That's Entertainment! Hollywood, the Media, and the Supernatural" hosted by CSICOP and the Council for Media Integrity on November 14, 1998, at the Renaissance Hotel in Los Angeles. The conference brought together academics and entertainment-industry insiders who in their own ways have sought to understand the driving forces behind the popularity of the paranormal.

Insiders Blame the Business Side of Hollywood for Sensationalism

Author/entertainer and CSICOP Fellow Steve Allen began the Saturday conference by speaking out against the loss of cultural standards in the media. The erudite creator of the Tonight Show charges television and radio with succumbing to vulgarity, a trend he termed the "Howard Stern-ization" of entertainment.

The loss of standards, Allen contends, encroaches on media treatment of science. "Why do so many bright people believe so many dumb things?" asked Allen. He stressed that part of the problem rests with Hollywood writers, who may want to produce intelligent stories using science but lack the basic knowledge to do so. An Allen commentary on the current state of the American entertainment media was published in the November 13, 1998, Wall Street Journal.

Providing the twenty-something Hollywood insider view was Justin Gunn, entertainment reporter and former host of the Sci-Fi Channel's The Web. Gunn described himself as one of the few members of his generation who thought it was "hip to be rational" and offered himself as an example that "not everyone in science is a geek."

Addressing Hollywood's need to sensationalize, Gunn said that television producers don't aim to give science short-shrift but are simply reacting to perceived viewer demand and response. In Gunn's view, the paranormal is treated uncritically because sensationalized presentations gain high ratings.

Drawing on his experience as a former producer with the syndicated tabloid television show Inside Edition, Gunn said the quest for ratings has blurred the line between hard news and entertainment. He traces the genre of tabloid journalism shows like Inside Edition and A Current Affair back to the 1988 Hollywood writer's strike, when producers fell in love with easily packaged storylines and programming that streamlined cost and reduced staff size.

With ratings controlling content and few qualified editors available to review reports, the need to generate controversy is paramount regardless of the actual events or facts of a story. Gunn told of one case where aggressive Inside Edition television promos touting new evidence of Bigfoot were aired before the story had even been written. The evidence never materialized but the sensational story ran anyway.

Inside Edition's Bigfoot story may never have gained much interest, but the stomp of sensationalism hit audiences heavily in 1995 when the Fox network aired "Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?" The highly rated special featured allegedly real autopsy footage of a space creature found near Roswell, New Mexico. Although many doubts were quickly raised about the film's authenticity, at least one well-respected Hollywood special effects artist gave the footage some credibility. Intrigued and moved to defend the reputation of his profession, Trey Stokes, another special effects artist and a skeptic with a comedic flair, described to conference attendees how he quickly set up a Web site to address the numerous flaws and inconsistencies in the footage. Stokes also polled the opinion of fellow effects artists on the authenticity of the footage, and has yet to find any who support the alien body as genuine.

Stokes reported that similar alien autopsy videos have since popped up in Canada, Europe, and Argentina, bringing the total of "alien autopsy" films to eight. (A few were produced specifically to demonstrate special effects techniques and one even featured an "alien" available in The Sharper Image catalog.) His article "How to Make An Alien for Autopsy" appeared in the January/February 1996 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER.