Popular Mechanics – objektivitet, sannhetsgehalt, ekspertise og sånn

Hearst-eide “Popular Mechanics” (PM) er et tidsskrift fra USA, som blant annet tar for seg tekniske dulpeditter, bilmekanikk, og saker og ting til hus og hage. I mars, 2005, publiserte PM en artikkel, hvis hensikt var å avsløre 9/11-mytene. Den het “Debunking The 9/11 Myths”, og tok for seg 16 påstander forfatterene hevdet var “… at the root of virtually every 9/11 alternative scenario“, og den falt godt innenfor Hearsts egen term “yellow journalism” (den gule presse). Senere har stykket blitt til en hel bok.

For å blende leserene startet artikkelen med standardfrasene: eksperter, profesjonelle, granskningsteam, så og så mange, etc, etc – men for alle som har evnen til å tenke kritisk og selvstendig fungerer ikke denne formen for banal retorikk, om ikke innholdet holder mål.

“PM examines the evidence and consults the experts to refute the most persistent conspiracy theories of September 11. (…) To investigate 16 of the most prevalent claims made by conspiracy theorists, POPULAR MECHANICS assembled a team of nine researchers and reporters who, together with PM editors, consulted more than 70 professionals in fields that form the core content of this magazine, including aviation, engineering and the military.” (Uthevelse tilføyet)

Stykket har blitt brukt av såkalte skeptikere, som bevis for at teoriene som florerer om angrepene er myter og oppspinn. Eller som PM selv uttrykte det; konspiratoriske eventyr oppdiktet av paranoide ekstremister(!). Selvfølgelig ble fokuset rettet mot åpenbare feil – spekulative fantasier og desinformasjon – og der de var tvunget til å ta for seg tungtveiende indisier og bevis, benyttet de seg av forvridninger, utelatelser og regelrette løgner. Til alt overmål ble det hevdet i artikkelen at disse 16 påstandene var representativt for det “Sannhetsbevegelsen” i all hovedsak sto for, et utsagn som er langt fra sannheten. Dette viser nok en gang hvor viktig det er å ikke la seg henfalle til spekulering (selv om det er fort gjort), og det gir en et bilde av hvordan media jobber og spinner sin propaganda; de gjør et stor nummer ut av soleklare feil, og ignorer eller forvrir resten.

“Healthy skepticism, it seems, has curdled into paranoia. Wild conspiracy tales are peddled daily on the Internet, talk radio and in other media. Blurry photos, quotes taken out of context and sketchy eyewitness accounts have inspired a slew of elaborate theories: The Pentagon was struck by a missile; the World Trade Center was razed by demolition-style bombs; Flight 93 was shot down by a mysterious white jet. As outlandish as these claims may sound, they are increasingly accepted abroad and among extremists here in the United States.” (Uthevelse tilføyet)

PM har i ettertid selv blitt “debunket” for sin flagrante svertekampanje gang på gang, og deres form for granskende journalistikk, synes å være alt annet enn seriøs, objektiv og sannferdig. Jeg vet objektiv journalistikk vanskelig lar seg gjennomføre, men det burde være enklere for et “teknisk” tidsskrift, som tilsynelatende ikke er styrt utfra en politisk agenda. Sannferdigheten er det som uansett skulle kunne ivaretas.

PM erklærte at de til syvende og sist klarte å knuse alle de 16 giftige påstandene fra de paranoide ekstremistene, med harde fakta og en god dose sunn fornuft. Vi kan prise oss lykkelige; endelig er de sinnsvake teoriene lagt døde, en gang for alle! Et av spørsmålene som dog presser seg på, er hvorfor PM ikke gransket noen av mytene som den offisielle konspirasjonsteorien (OKT) serverer oss, i lys av sin sannhetsøkende, objektive og gravende journalistikk. Mon det, mon det? Om deres virkelige intensjoner var å få slutt på alle de ville teoriene, hadde nok det å eksponere OKTs åpenbare feil og løgner vært en bedre bruk av tid og krefter.

“In the end, we were able to debunk each of these assertions with hard evidence and a healthy dose of common sense. We learned that a few theories are based on something as innocent as a reporting error on that chaotic day. Others are the byproducts of cynical imaginations that aim to inject suspicion and animosity into public debate. Only by confronting such poisonous claims with irrefutable facts can we understand what really happened on a day that is forever seared into world history.” (Uthevelse tilføyet)

Dette innlegget er ikke ment som en punkt-for-punkt-analyse av artikkelen, den oppgaven håndterer kritikkene jeg har lenket til. Men det skulle bare mangle om jeg ikke kunne by på en aldri så liten humoreske – en “intervjuhumoreske”!
Radiovert Charles Goyette tok en prat med Davin Coburn, en av PM’s redaktører, angående artikkelen, for å få svar på noen spørsmål om deres gransknings-metoder og journalistiske krumspring. Min personlige oppfatning er at det eneste Coburn oppnådde i dette intervjuet, var å “debunke” seg selv, og magasinet han representerer.

Avsluttningsvis kan det være greit å ta en nærmere titt på alle de uavhengige(?) ekspertene PM anvendte i sin granskning, både til bok og artikkel. Det som er interessant, er at ekspertisen i stor grad synes å være den samme som går igjen i alle terrorgranskninger i USA, og den består slettes ikke av så mange personer. Som Kevin Ryan uttrykker det i sin siste bloggpost: “It turns out that, when it comes to scientific explanations for terrorist acts, it’s a small world after all.“
Dette er et utdrag av Ryan’s innlegg “Looking for Truth in Credentials: The WTC “Experts””, som jeg forøvrig oppfordrer alle til å lese i sin helhet:

“The only supposedly independent corroboration that the Bush scientists at NIST could produce for their appalling pack of lies was from that old respected scientific institution, Popular Mechanics. This Hearst magazine is not, as most people know, a scientific publication in any way, shape or form. When they talk about Mechanics, they do not mean Quantum Mechanics or Statistical Mechanics, or even Classical Mechanics. Popular Mechanics (PM) is simply a gloss-covered advertisement for numerous consumer items ranging from ATVs to lawn mowers. You know – mechanics.

This hasn’t prevented many who cling to the official story from using PM as their scientific champion. For example, in his poorly researched hit piece against “conspiracy theorists”, British essayist George Monbiot foists Popular Mechanics upon us, saying they “polled 300 experts” to support their findings.[16] But science is not about popularity, and PM’s “poll” of “structural engineering/building collapse experts” actually consisted of only about 33 people, some of them listed as photographers, media-relations staff and spokespersons. Of those that were engineering-related, most were in some way related to OKC, FEMA, NIST or DOD, and many were responsible for the Weidlinger report, the Pancake Theory, or the NIST report.[17] It turns out that, when it comes to scientific explanations for terrorist acts, it’s a small world after all.

It’s in PM’s book, “Debunking 9/11 Myths”, that we find this survey. Here they include other figures like Forman Williams, although they fail to tell you that Dr. Williams was also a member of NIST’s top advisory committee, and therefore was defending his own work. Williams is presented by PM as a disinterested academic expert, but one must wonder how disinterested Williams was when the University of California San Diego received $393 million in federal grants in 2005, the same year the NIST WTC report came out, with his own Engineering department receiving $44 million of that sum.[18] Another of PM’s disinterested experts was Engineering professor Richard Fruehan of Carnegie Mellon University, an institute that received $100 million in federal grants that same year, with Engineering and research grants accounting for approximately half of the total.

In the case of Popular Mechanics, we see people being quite openly deceptive in their strong support of the Bush Administration’s terror story. In their book they promote false claims that the government no longer supports, including the Pancake Theory. They also promote other, more ridiculous ideas including the claim that massive damage was done to the basement levels of a WTC tower by a bolus of jet fuel that meandered its way through several elevator shafts in the jogged elevator system, moving carefully around the elevators themselves and waiting all the while to explode in the sub-basements over 90 stories below. Additionally, PM repeats the false and ludicrous claim that the buildings were designed for airliner impacts, but not for jet fuel fires. In fact, John Skilling, the actual chief engineer of the WTC, made it clear in 1993 that jet fuel fires were considered in the structural design.[19]

In the forward to PM’s book, Republican Senator John McCain describes how he feels the truth behind September 11th is more mundane than “conspiracy mongers” would have us believe. Strangely, he refers us to the “banality of Nazi evil” to show that 9/11 was probably not an elaborate conspiracy. That is, according to McCain, 9/11 was probably NOT part of a simple plan by corporate-funded politicians to maintain and expand their power, but was instead the work of a small group of powerless fanatics whose plans to bring about worldwide totalitarian rule were held back only by our own cherished freedoms. That’s a tough bit to swallow, to be sure, but the idea that a Hearst publication would resort to the “banality of Nazi evil” is absolutely astounding. That’s because in writing this forward, Senator McCain joined an infamous group of Hearst publication authors, including Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering, who wrote for Hearst, the latter until 1938.[20]“

Ryan’s fotnoter:

16. “A 9/11 Conspiracy Virus is Sweeping the World, But it Has No Basis in Fact”, George Monbiot, The Guardian, February 6, 2007.
17. Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can’t Stand up to the Facts, Dunbar & Reagan, Hearst Press, 2006. Note: See also Eduardo (melting steel) Kausel’s glowing review in the front cover.
18. See Fedspending.org, Grants.
19. City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center, James Glanz and Eric Lipton, (New York: Times Books, 2003), 138
20. Remembering “The Chief”, PBS’s Online NewsHour, 9/07/00.