The media hold the powerful to account — except when we don’t

They say our news media, as it currently exists, is essential for holding the powerful to account. That would be true ideally, but it is not true of the news media we have. The media we have are much more interested in promoting a specific narrative and worldview, and it will treat very kindly anyone who helps in that project — no matter how much of a crank or liar they happen to be.

A good recent example of this was the New York Times’ eulogy for Paul R. Ehrlich, the man most famous for being wrong about everything. The Times described as merely “premature” his comically flawed and disastrously popular prediction that overpopulation would cause mass food shortages, depleted resources, riots, and ultimately global famine by the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1970 specifically, Ehrlich predicted four billion people would die over the next 20 years due to food and resource shortages.

The world’s population has grown by 134 percent since Ehrlich’s “Population Bomb” was published 58 years ago. And not only are we still waiting for those global food riots, but we live in unprecedented abundance. Global extreme poverty declined in all but six of the 70 years between 1950 and 2019, and it is now at its lowest level in history.

Although it’s funny that one person can be so wrong about so many things, it’s less amusing when you realize how much Ehrlich’s bogeyman routine influenced public policy. Some people even choose not to have children out of fear that they would contribute to an overpopulation disaster.

Ehrlich wasn’t just wrong but horribly wrong, and with disastrous consequences. He is one of history’s great villains. But to hear the Times describe him at his passing, you would........

© The Hill