May 16, 2023 03:58 PM
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Inside Alec Baldwin's crusade to take down a Nobel Prize winning lab
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/insid...nning-lab/
EXCERPTS: (Robert P. Crease): Twenty-five years before our era of fake news and celebrity pseudoscience, the star actor teamed up with Montel Williams to promote an unfounded conspiracy.
In the summer of 1997, an environmental activist and sport fishing boat captain named Bill Smith called actor Alec Baldwin. He wanted to meet him at a diner in Amagansett, where Baldwin had a house, to talk about the nearby Brookhaven National Laboratory.
An intimidating presence [...] Smith was absolutely convinced that Brookhaven was not only contaminating the Peconic River but that “these bastards are killing people on Long Island and they’re getting away with it.”
After the meeting, Baldwin wrote a letter to the East Hampton Star, entitled “Environmental Suicide.” [...] That summer, Baldwin helped crystallize a powerful and well-funded anti-nuclear organization called Standing for Truth About Radiation, or STAR.
He quickly became the group’s most important asset. Celebrities are a boon to causes. They are charismatic, able to motivate and focus people, and know how to enthrall reporters and beckon cameras. Baldwin, in particular, knew how to get audiences to ignore personal warts and transform a bad boy reputation into an engaging, even cute persona with a social conscience. His crude and belligerent language and outrageous statements were charming; when challenged, he might walk back his remark, or say he was misquoted or joking. He rambled in public pronouncements, but his celebrity status and powerful media presence attracted new audiences.
At the time Baldwin was at something of a lull in his film career and was flirting with political ambitions. As he told a reporter at New York Magazine, “I want to be a ‘feral’ Democrat” and a “ferocious liberal.” He said he could “beat the crap” out of Michael Forbes, who represented a Long Island district, if he wanted to, though he had still higher ambitions.
So he was unhappy when a writer for New Republic followed him around for a day and wrote a less than fully flattering profile. [...] The reporter also discovered that Baldwin had declined invitations to visit Brookhaven and inspect the reactor himself. Baldwin soon changed his mind about running for office. “Well, it was a fun story while it lasted,” editorialized Newsday. Instead of becoming a feral Democrat, Baldwin became an anti-Brookhaven activist.
STAR continued its activities vigorously that year, capitalizing on all the resources Baldwin now provided them. Baldwin had even recruited several more Hamptons-based celebrities, including the actor Spalding Gray and rock promoter Ron Delsener; he also got Barbra Streisand to give a contribution. In January 1998, Baldwin and STAR made their most sensational and widely publicized performance piece yet on “The Montel Williams Show.”
[...] The show aired on January 9, 1998. On it, Baldwin falsely claimed that “the rates of cancer are 200 to 300 times the national average in this area on Long Island,” while more disinformation came from Williams, who said that “the incidence of breast cancer in Nassau and Suffolk is the highest in the U.S.” That wasn’t all. Helen Caldicott, a prominent and charismatic anti-nuclear activist, falsely accused BNL of designing nuclear weapons and declared that New York State was hiding the data that would prove increased cancer incidences near the lab.
[...] The show’s theatrical centerpiece was “Kenny,” an eight-year-old child with rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), a rare form of childhood cancer. Even if the disease had been linked to radiation — the American Cancer Society said it was not — it was physically impossible for plumes from the lab to have flowed to the South Shore where Kenny lived. Nevertheless, Baldwin and STAR members proclaimed that Kenny’s cancer, and those of others in Suffolk County mentioned on the show, were caused by Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Baldwin and Williams then used the sick child in a heart-wrenchingly manipulative way. [...] Baldwin suggested that the lab refused to let him enter, not mentioning the numerous invitations he had accepted and canceled...
“The Montel Williams Show” was terrific theater staged by veteran show-business personalities who knew how to use the media to deliver misinformation with an emotional punch to a national audience....
[...] The producers of the show did not include any of their interviews with lab women and chose to use only Gunther — and as a foil. After showing a brief clip of him talking about taking his children to the lab, Caldicott said, “They’re gonna die.” Gunther later had to explain this remark to his unnerved son.
[...] No one who has seen that show forgets “Kenny.” No one fails to be moved by a child with cancer. Baldwin and STAR had staged a riveting performance. As a lab employee wrote, “Who could not love a guy who seemingly rides to the defense of unfortunate children with horrendous diseases and does the White Knight routine?” He and other members of Friends of Brookhaven (FOB), an informal group of Brookhaven employees who ranged from senior scientists to managerial and clerical staff, commented that the STAR performers were manipulating rather than helping such children by assigning blame for their disease to preselected villains while ignoring the best existing knowledge about cancer incidences and cures.
“The Montel Williams Show” got wide attention, and was seen by an estimated nine million people across the nation; it provoked hundreds of calls to STAR. Liz Smith gave a “Bravo” to Alec Baldwin in her Newsday society column...
[...] Friends of Brookhaven members and other laboratory employees were appalled, some comparing it to the accusations at the Salem witch trials and to the rants of Senator Joseph McCarthy. ..
[...] Some Long Islanders detected in the event a downward and dangerous movement in the social standing of science. If influencers on popular media programs could publicly denounce reputable institutions like the EPA and ATSDR, they and their followers could doubt anything, believe anything, and threaten a democracy that depended on the guidance provided by facts and expert advice...
One of the country’s most distinguished health physicists wrote to the New York Times about the show. Otto Raabe, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis, was president of the Health Physics Society [...] For two decades his organization had been struggling to combat groundless fears about radiation. He was incensed not only that celebrities were venturing into his field but also because their statements were damaging as they prevented the public from having an accurate picture of public health threats.
[...] The New York Times did not publish Raabe’s letter.
STAR’s celebrities got on a nationally televised show and had standing in the media right down to society columns. [...] The day after the episode was broadcast, a public comment meeting was held at Longwood High School. John Axe, a scientist who worked at the HFBR, was heckled by a half-dozen or so activists sitting in the last row of seats against the auditorium’s wall... (MORE - missing details)
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/insid...nning-lab/
EXCERPTS: (Robert P. Crease): Twenty-five years before our era of fake news and celebrity pseudoscience, the star actor teamed up with Montel Williams to promote an unfounded conspiracy.
In the summer of 1997, an environmental activist and sport fishing boat captain named Bill Smith called actor Alec Baldwin. He wanted to meet him at a diner in Amagansett, where Baldwin had a house, to talk about the nearby Brookhaven National Laboratory.
An intimidating presence [...] Smith was absolutely convinced that Brookhaven was not only contaminating the Peconic River but that “these bastards are killing people on Long Island and they’re getting away with it.”
After the meeting, Baldwin wrote a letter to the East Hampton Star, entitled “Environmental Suicide.” [...] That summer, Baldwin helped crystallize a powerful and well-funded anti-nuclear organization called Standing for Truth About Radiation, or STAR.
He quickly became the group’s most important asset. Celebrities are a boon to causes. They are charismatic, able to motivate and focus people, and know how to enthrall reporters and beckon cameras. Baldwin, in particular, knew how to get audiences to ignore personal warts and transform a bad boy reputation into an engaging, even cute persona with a social conscience. His crude and belligerent language and outrageous statements were charming; when challenged, he might walk back his remark, or say he was misquoted or joking. He rambled in public pronouncements, but his celebrity status and powerful media presence attracted new audiences.
At the time Baldwin was at something of a lull in his film career and was flirting with political ambitions. As he told a reporter at New York Magazine, “I want to be a ‘feral’ Democrat” and a “ferocious liberal.” He said he could “beat the crap” out of Michael Forbes, who represented a Long Island district, if he wanted to, though he had still higher ambitions.
So he was unhappy when a writer for New Republic followed him around for a day and wrote a less than fully flattering profile. [...] The reporter also discovered that Baldwin had declined invitations to visit Brookhaven and inspect the reactor himself. Baldwin soon changed his mind about running for office. “Well, it was a fun story while it lasted,” editorialized Newsday. Instead of becoming a feral Democrat, Baldwin became an anti-Brookhaven activist.
STAR continued its activities vigorously that year, capitalizing on all the resources Baldwin now provided them. Baldwin had even recruited several more Hamptons-based celebrities, including the actor Spalding Gray and rock promoter Ron Delsener; he also got Barbra Streisand to give a contribution. In January 1998, Baldwin and STAR made their most sensational and widely publicized performance piece yet on “The Montel Williams Show.”
[...] The show aired on January 9, 1998. On it, Baldwin falsely claimed that “the rates of cancer are 200 to 300 times the national average in this area on Long Island,” while more disinformation came from Williams, who said that “the incidence of breast cancer in Nassau and Suffolk is the highest in the U.S.” That wasn’t all. Helen Caldicott, a prominent and charismatic anti-nuclear activist, falsely accused BNL of designing nuclear weapons and declared that New York State was hiding the data that would prove increased cancer incidences near the lab.
[...] The show’s theatrical centerpiece was “Kenny,” an eight-year-old child with rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), a rare form of childhood cancer. Even if the disease had been linked to radiation — the American Cancer Society said it was not — it was physically impossible for plumes from the lab to have flowed to the South Shore where Kenny lived. Nevertheless, Baldwin and STAR members proclaimed that Kenny’s cancer, and those of others in Suffolk County mentioned on the show, were caused by Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Baldwin and Williams then used the sick child in a heart-wrenchingly manipulative way. [...] Baldwin suggested that the lab refused to let him enter, not mentioning the numerous invitations he had accepted and canceled...
“The Montel Williams Show” was terrific theater staged by veteran show-business personalities who knew how to use the media to deliver misinformation with an emotional punch to a national audience....
[...] The producers of the show did not include any of their interviews with lab women and chose to use only Gunther — and as a foil. After showing a brief clip of him talking about taking his children to the lab, Caldicott said, “They’re gonna die.” Gunther later had to explain this remark to his unnerved son.
[...] No one who has seen that show forgets “Kenny.” No one fails to be moved by a child with cancer. Baldwin and STAR had staged a riveting performance. As a lab employee wrote, “Who could not love a guy who seemingly rides to the defense of unfortunate children with horrendous diseases and does the White Knight routine?” He and other members of Friends of Brookhaven (FOB), an informal group of Brookhaven employees who ranged from senior scientists to managerial and clerical staff, commented that the STAR performers were manipulating rather than helping such children by assigning blame for their disease to preselected villains while ignoring the best existing knowledge about cancer incidences and cures.
“The Montel Williams Show” got wide attention, and was seen by an estimated nine million people across the nation; it provoked hundreds of calls to STAR. Liz Smith gave a “Bravo” to Alec Baldwin in her Newsday society column...
[...] Friends of Brookhaven members and other laboratory employees were appalled, some comparing it to the accusations at the Salem witch trials and to the rants of Senator Joseph McCarthy. ..
[...] Some Long Islanders detected in the event a downward and dangerous movement in the social standing of science. If influencers on popular media programs could publicly denounce reputable institutions like the EPA and ATSDR, they and their followers could doubt anything, believe anything, and threaten a democracy that depended on the guidance provided by facts and expert advice...
One of the country’s most distinguished health physicists wrote to the New York Times about the show. Otto Raabe, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis, was president of the Health Physics Society [...] For two decades his organization had been struggling to combat groundless fears about radiation. He was incensed not only that celebrities were venturing into his field but also because their statements were damaging as they prevented the public from having an accurate picture of public health threats.
[...] The New York Times did not publish Raabe’s letter.
STAR’s celebrities got on a nationally televised show and had standing in the media right down to society columns. [...] The day after the episode was broadcast, a public comment meeting was held at Longwood High School. John Axe, a scientist who worked at the HFBR, was heckled by a half-dozen or so activists sitting in the last row of seats against the auditorium’s wall... (MORE - missing details)