People often ask why I have little or no respect for environmental groups and news media and the answer is relatively simple. Most environmental groups in B.C. are nothing more than eco-terrorists. They use simple techniques to instill fear in people who instead of hearing all the facts act like cattle and tend to believe not only what the environmental groups say, but media outlets thrive on this type of activity. Good news stories rarely make for good news making, however bad news sells and sells big.
Take the formaldehyde testing. It had been known within industry and government circles that the tests were flawed, but took their time to release the info which in the long run hurt them. When the news outlets and environmental groups got the news about the test results, instead of releasing all the information, they only took the results and ran with it. Both organizations ran with it and neither told the whole story. So they instilled fear and distrust in the general population who relied on both organizations to report the full truth of which neither did.
The Citizen ran a story about the faulty testing about three weeks after the fear mongering started, but put the article several pages in and only a few paragraphs long in essence they tried to hide the article in plain sight. The environmental groups outright denied the testing was faulty and that the tests were true and relied again on the general population to agree with them instead of looking for the full facts.
The citizen should shoulder a large part of this because they did not report the full truth until it was too late and instead help feed off the fears of the general population. The Environmental groups also need to man up so to speak because they withheld information and refused outright to acknowledge that the testing was faulty and instead played on the cattle mentality of people.
Dean Soiland
Prince George
