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Chatter from the Blogshpere on NSTA/L aurie David case

 

(1)  HYPERLINK "http://www.wsst.org/labtable.asp?newsID=242" \o "Open URL: http://www.wsst.org/labtable.asp?newsID=242" \t "linkWin" http://www.wsst.org/labtable.asp?newsID=242
    50,000 Free DVDs: Gift Horse or Trojan Horse? 


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      Laurie David just looks worse and worse by the minute


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 HYPERLINK "http://www.wsst.org/labtable.asp?newsID=242" \o "Open URL: http://www.wsst.org/labtable.asp?newsID=242" \t "linkWin" http://www.wsst.org/labtable.asp?newsID=242
50,000 Free DVDs: Gift Horse or Trojan Horse? 

You may have heard that NSTA has turned down Laurie David’s offer of 50,000 free DVDs of the movie “An Inconvenient Truth.”  What we didn’t hear is what Laurie David left out of her editorial in the Washington Post.  In a recent press release Gerald Wheeler, Executive Director of the NSTA, explains that NSTA did not outright reject the opportunity.

During conversations with Ms. David's representative we suggested making the DVD available via alternative means of distribution (e.g. by providing a mailing list of our members to producers, announcing its availability in our publications, etc.). It appears that these alternative distribution mechanisms were unsatisfactory.

The problem with David’s offer is that it was a donation with strings attached. John Whitsett, WSST member and NSTA President elect, explained that NSTA didn’t reject the donation but did reject doing the distribution. (John Whitsett will be on WPR as Joy Cardin’s guest tomorrow at 6 a.m. to discuss NSTA’s decision for the hour.) On yesterday’s Wisconsin Public Radio broadcast, Whitsett called in and stated that distribution would be “approximately a quarter of a million dollar expense for NSTA.” This kind of offer would provide “little, if any, benefit to NSTA or its members” because of the extreme cost attached to the ‘donation.’

If Laurie David would have been up front with us in her editorial, NSTA would not have received so much bad press. (Some of it was beyond bad; some people were just cruel.) Perhaps demonizing NSTA was the intent of Ms. David’s editorial? This would explain why she chose to omit NSTA’s support of the film and instead quoted NSTA when they wrote “unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters."

However, I have to admit that the above quote did cast a bad light upon NSTA. In an email, John Whitsett explained that the quote came from “an internal e-mail that was an opinion offered by one of the NSTA staff members” and it was not the official response to Ms. David. NSTA has every right to kick around ideas before making a decision. They made the mistake of letting their internal discussion out in a forwarded email. 

Nevertheless, Ms. David cherry-picked her correspondence with NSTA to craft a message that would cast doubt on their integrity. I suspect that she takes issue with NSTA receiving money from companies like Exxon-Mobil, but creating distrust of NSTA’s ethics and motives is the wrong way to voice her concerns. In “An Inconvenient Truth” Al Gore explains how some industries propagate doubt to muddy the truth. He describes how the cigarette industry did this to weaken the link between lung cancer and smoking. Is this why Ms. David chose to title her editorial “Science a la Joe Camel?”

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Laurie David just looks worse and worse by the minute
Category: Journalism • Science education
Posted on: November 30, 2006 5:15 PM, by Kevin Vranes

My original post on Laurie David's WaPo op-ed is here. A reader just added a comment that links to the Wisconsin Society of Science Teachers' blog (not a daily read for me, but hey, I have to pick the 2 blogs I can read everyday very carefully....). A post up on the WSST blog is far nicer to David than she deserves, considering what they uncovered.

One key point is distribution (the item I hit on in yesterday's post):

The problem with David's offer is that it was a donation with strings attached. John Whitsett, WSST member and NSTA President elect, explained that NSTA didn't reject the donation but did reject doing the distribution. (John Whitsett will be on WPR as Joy Cardin's guest tomorrow at 6 a.m. to discuss NSTA's decision for the hour.) On yesterday's Wisconsin Public Radio broadcast, Whitsett called in and stated that distribution would be "approximately a quarter of a million dollar expense for NSTA." This kind of offer would provide "little, if any, benefit to NSTA or its members" because of the extreme cost attached to the 'donation.' 

Which, as I said in yesterday's post, is a fully reasonable position for NSTA to take. The other key point is the nature of NSTA's "unnecessary risk" lines that David highlighted in her op-ed. Turns out David didn't get that line directly written to her by somebody at NSTA, she got it out of an internal NSTA email thread that was accidentally forwarded to her. The line came from a NSTA staffer advising NSTA higher-ups:

In an email, John Whitsett explained that the quote came from "an internal e-mail that was an opinion offered by one of the NSTA staff members" and it was not the official response to Ms. David. NSTA has every right to kick around ideas before making a decision. They made the mistake of letting their internal discussion out in a forwarded email. 

Nice work, Laurie. But I guess you couldn't have made the WaPo op-ed page without some salacious slander, right?