Climate-Controlled Media

The recent U.S. State Department-hosted "Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change" was "a triumph of US media management," writes BBC News environment analyst Roger Harrabin. "The opening public statements were made by President Bush, Dr Rice and Jim Connaughton, the head of White House climate strategy. The only foreigner to speak publicly was Yvo de Boer who, as a representative of the UN, remained neutrally uncritical of his hosts. The two-day meeting then went into closed session. Other delegates were furious at what they said were false leadership claims on climate by Mr Bush, but they were not given a platform to address the media. When they emerged at the end of the conference ... they found that the co-ordinator, Mr Connaughton, had slipped out to brief the media half-an-hour before the end of the meeting, and the US TV networks had gone home." One European delegate "in search of the vanished American TV crews" complained, "The White House slaughtered us."