Mary wrote:
>
> Why do they (newspapers) make anti paleo messages?
>
>  Is it to please the advertisers like Kellogg? . . .
>
> Or is to make people sick and get ad money from pharmaceutical companies?
>
> There is absolutely no attempt to provide balance . . .

Mary,

        As a former newspaper reporter, I can tell you that the anti-health bias of
the media is neither a conspiracy nor a concerted bid for more ad revenues.
It's not that the media conglomerates wouldn't stoop to promoting more
illness as a way to generate more pharmaceutical dollars; it's just that
they are not that well organized.

        Nutrition news is biased in the same way almost all other news is biased:
by (1) the systemic pressure to fill the news hole as cheaply as possible
(as a reporter, I thought of this as "filling the space they don't sell ads
for"; (2) the symbiotic (parasitic?) relationship between reporters and the
people on whom they report; and (3) the "herd mentality" that influences
journalists in the same way it influences the rest of the herd (us).

        Look at it this way:  A reporter gets an assignment to do something on
nutrition.  First, she can't spend a week researching fine points like the
importance of "linolenic acid," whether it can also be called
"alpha-linoleic acid," and the subtle differences between EPA and DHA (Todd
and Ilya make my head hurt :-)).  So where does the reporter go?  To the
local "experts" -- the same people who have been pushing SAD for two
decades -- for a quick quote and some conventional "wisdom."  And pity the
poor reporter who tries to do differently.  While it's true that most
editors couldn't recognize a good story if slapped with it, most of them
function well enough to see that "This isn't the way The Times or The Post
does this."

        This a broad generalization, of course, but I'd be willing to bet that it
covers most of what's wrong with the news media.  More interesting to me is
the "direct" influence of advertising dollars.  I signed up for television
cable recently and have been watching tv for the first time since Mr.
Audette raised by nutritional consciousness.  I am amazed -- AMAZED -- at
the dollars spent promoting poison.  How much tv would there be if it
weren't for beer ads, cereal ads, soft drink ads?  Throw in ads for
expensive new cars that no one really needs.  Think I'll write a book:
"Live Healthy and Happy by Refusing to Buy Anything Advertised on TV."

        Sorry for the lengthy post.  You pushed one of my buttons :)

        Got milk?

Robert