Al Gore's New Book Examines 'The Assault on Reason'

Center for American Progress. Posted May 22, 2007.

This story was written by Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, and Matt Corley.

American public discourse is increasingly "vulnerable to the kind of rope-a-dope strategies that Exxon Mobil and their brethren have been employing for decades now," argues Al Gore. For example, a recent survey of 21 nations found that Americans are "among the least anxious" about global warming, "even though their nation is the top source of greenhouse gases."

In a ranking of 34 countries, the United States ranks near the bottom in the public acceptance of Charles Darwin's mainstream theory of evolution. Nearly half of the public still believes that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, despite unequivocal refutations of that claim. In his new book, The Assault on Reason, which will be released today, Gore explains "why logic and reason and the best evidence available and the scientific discoveries do not have more force in changing the way we all think about the reality we are now facing." He sharply criticizes the television media for covering trivial excess and politicians for alienating the public, many of whom believe "that no one in power listens to or cares what they think."

American democracy "is in danger of being hollowed out," writes Gore. "In order to reclaim our birthright, we Americans must resolve to repair the systemic decay of the public forum."

The 'Well-Amused Audience': Americans watch television for an average of four hours and 35 minutes each day, which is 90 minutes more than the average in the rest of the world. But much of this viewing time is devoted to coverage of "serial obsessions," such as the Michael Jackson trial and the Laci Peterson tragedy. Gore warns that the "well-informed citizenry" is in danger of becoming the "well-amused audience."

Only one in four Americans can name more than one of the First Amendment freedoms, but more than half can name at least two members of the Simpsons cartoon family. On Aug. 17, 2006, a federal judge in Michigan issued "a sweeping rebuke of the once-secret domestic-surveillance effort the White House authorized following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001." The ruling was "a significant blow to Mr. Bush's attempts to expand presidential powers." Yet on that day, the evening news programs on all three television networks devoted significantly more airtime to the JonBenet Ramsey case.

According to an analysis by The Progress Report, in the most egregious instance, NBC devoted 15 times more airtime to the JonBenet story. Similarly, on March 2, The Progress Report found that MSNBC and Fox News devoted more coverage to Anna Nicole Smith -- three weeks after her death on Feb. 8 -- than they did to the multiple developments involving the neglect and deplorable conditions at Walter Reed military hospital. Fox News's John Gibson, who offered continuous coverage of Smith's death, attacked reporters who were ignoring the story to focus on the Iraq war as "snobs."

Even bodies such as the U.S. Senate "don't feel that what they say on the floor of the Senate really matters that much...because the news media seldom report on Senate speeches anymore," notes Gore. Both ABC and CBS even ignored former deputy attorney general James B. Comeys recent Senate testimony of what NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams May 15 "called a rare glimpse of a high-level, late-night power struggle over the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic wiretapping program."

Barring Citizen Voices: "In the world of television, the massive flows of information are largely in only one direction, which makes it virtually impossible for individuals to take part in what passes for a national conversation," writes Gore in The Assault on Reason.

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