Media, Be Honest about ESC Research
The Petition
To the organizations and individual members of the mainstream media:
Most of you routinely omit the word "embryonic" when referring to the embryonic stem cell research controversy in your reporting, though it is absolutely obvious why it is inaccurate to do so, and the rest of you have apparently allowed this blatant, intentional misrepresentation to become the standard.
When the controversy is falsely described as being over "stem cell research," that creates the impression that some people support it and some oppose it. As you are all well aware, however, there is no largescale opposition to "stem cell research." It is only one particular type of stem cell research - again, as you all very well know - that a great many Americans find immoral and unethical.
Your collective and frequently individual misrepresentation of this has been a travesty, as well as your collective failure to stop this misrepresentation. Both failures betray an obvious intention to deceive the public.
People of liberal belief claim that Americans don't know as much as they should about science, and likewise claim to want to see them more educated in it.
The liberal media also claims to want to educate the public in science, and claims that it seeks to impartially, honestly and accurately present the relevant facts of all issues.
The shameless misrepresentation of embryonic stem cell research as "stem cell research" by the entire liberal media establishment violates all of those purported standards and values, and it is all to easy to see what benefit the liberal supporters of embryonic stem cell research get from promoting ignorance on the issue. Painting opposition to embryonic stem cell research as anti-stem cell research makes it seem that opponents would hinder an entire class of promising new therapies from all different types of “stem cells.” And it also allows the media to downplay and obscure as much as possible the uncomfortable fact that embryonic stem cells are from human embryos, which many more people would undoubtedly oppose if the media was straightforward in its reporting.
We, the under signers of this petition, therefore demand that you properly and accurately use the terms "embryonic stem cell(s)" and "embryonic stem cell research" whenever and wherever they are appropriate, so that no reader/viewer/listener is ever again left with the false and inaccurate impression that the controversy is over "stem cell research" per se. The terms "stem cell(s)" and "stem cell research" can and should similarly be used only in their proper contexts.
We, the under signers, also demand that every effort be made by you in the media to acknowledge that your industry has pushed and/or allowed to exist a blatant misrepresentation of the embryonic stem cell controversy, to the overall detriment of our society, and to do everything in your power to truly educate the public on the various types of stem cells and accurately represent the embryonic stem cell research controversy.
