ABC’s 20/20 segment, which was supposed to make me change the way I use my cell phone, instead made me more suspicious about TV journalism. The only person in the 30-minute segment who actually was credible and who appeared credible was Dr. Ross Ady.
ABC’s “chief investigative correspondent” simply didn’t address some crucial facts and glossed over others.
RCR has been covering the possible link between cell-phone use and brain tumors since it first made headlines in 1993. RCR also has gone on the record in its editorials to question the lack of a firewall between CTIA and WTR. (In other words, we’ve taken grief from every possible side on this issue. That’s OK. We don’t mind.)
But 20/20 took an incredibly emotionally charged issue-a serious issue-and replayed all the emotion without much accompanying substance.
First of all, what was with the analog phone testing?
ABC spent all that money to fly to Dusseldorf, Germany, to perform tests on five handsets and couldn’t so much as squeeze in another set of tests on digital phones?
The program spent a half-hour calling attention to the safety of cellular phones and couldn’t find five seconds to say that digital phones, which emit less RF, are largely replacing analog handsets? Regarding emissions omissions, that one was huge.
Now let’s take a look at their sources:
1. Richard Branson, top dog at Virgin Records, is a credible source in the record industry, but not on cell phone-brain cancer research.
2. David Reynard, who sued Motorola because he believes his wife died from a brain tumor caused by a Motorola phone, uses a Motorola phone. I don’t understand how a man who thinks he lost his life partner because of a Motorola handset can A) use a cellular phone and B) buy one from the company that he believes killed her.
3. Dr. George Carlo, who “broke ranks with the industry,” never had his motives questioned, even though the segment briefly mentioned Carlo today sells information on how consumers can protect themselves from RF emissions. My question is and always has been this: How can you break ranks with the industry if you were supposed to be in an arms-length relationship in the first place?
4. CTIA’s usually-smooth Tom Wheeler looked a little off. His only consolation is rarely (never?) do industry spokespeople appear credible in these stories. Still, Wheeler should try to emulate Ady, who honestly admitted he doesn’t have all the answers.
5. FDA/FCC. Hey government, protector of the people, where were you?
